There is no fabric to support free standing lace embroidery designs, only the stabilizer that will get dissolved after embroidering. So it is important to first digitize a base, that will hold the design together and will also create a lace like effect. The frame and decorative elements get digitized over this base.
Digitizing the Base
For my design I digitized two identical heart shapes as the base with Hatch Embroidery Digitizer. I used Tatami fill stitch and adjusted the stitch angle, so the stitches run diagonally. I changed the stitch angle for the second heart by 90 degrees, so they run across the stitches of the first object, creating a grid.