I'm one of those that say do it using the tools that come in the program and not relay on the fancy high abstraction ones. Bezier Pen tool, shape primitives and the welding tools can be used. Think of all the time spent trying to research instead of actually doing, even if one's skills with the more "manual" way aren't up to snuff compared to others?
OP, if I recall, you also have Wilcom. If you have the vector tools, they are actually better compared to what Ai/Draw have with the above mentioned ones (not the auto conversion however). I know that will sound like heresy, but embroidery digitizers spend their time tracing designs (be it their own or others, it's still tracing if they are doing it from reference, rather it's their own or not is irrelevant). This is also why a lot of digitizers also offer vector services as well. The tools are there. And Wilcom does export to various vector formats (if you have Corel Draw linked to it that is).
While it may take longer if not used to doing it this way (certainly if using Ai/Draw, Wilcom's vector tools are much, much easier to use compared to Ai/Draw, again, just because tracing is a fundamental application for that software), it's certainly better not having to worry about what tools one is using, if if they are using this or that auto conversion or this or that "AI" (not really "AI" as it is now, but I digress).