Sort by colour
NextStitch sews each colour in one go wherever shapes don't overlap. When you set the order yourself, one command sorts it by colour.
Updated October 19, 2026
Every change of colour means stopping the machine and rethreading it. So NextStitch sews the shapes of one colour one after another by itself, the nearest first, wherever that leaves the picture as it is: six dots in two alternating colours take one change, not five.
When you want to decide the order yourself, turn on Sew in this order — then the machine sews exactly the order the list shows, and sorting by colour puts each colour together in the list:
- 1
Open Sewing order. The panel in the right rail's Stitch group — at the top in the Stitch view — lists the elements in their order. Turn on Sew in this order there (or Sew in layer order in File ▸ Properties — the same setting).
- 2
Choose Object ▸ Sort by colour. Elements of one colour move together, and a message says how many changes are left.
- 3
Check it in Simulation. The coloured band above the stitch bar shows one stripe per colour run — the fewer stripes, the fewer changes.
Sorting never changes what the design looks like, and neither does NextStitch's own order: where shapes overlap, their order stays, because the one on top has to be sewn last — a satin or a line drawn over a fill of its own colour too; only two plain fills of the same colour may swap. That is what the list decides when Sew in this order is off. You can still move any element yourself with Earlier and Later in the panel.