This is a great place to read about others adventures in embroidery. I have learned so much and enjoyed learning as well. Thank you for sharing your experiences and information.

I really like the Anita Goodesigns and have heard about their clubs. They are a bit pricey for me but wondering what others think about them and the designs they receive monthly.

NOT TRUE any longer.........Viking and Pfaff have come out with a new software - comparable to the 5D Professional Software, that is specifically designed for MAC computers......It just was rolled out this summer.........

Oh wow! That is gorgeous! I looked at the whole design pac which is beautiful. I am in the middle of trying to figure out what to charge for something as well. At this point, I have decided I will never be able to make a living doing embroidery on a single needle machine, so it's a good thing that is not my goal. I just do it basically to make enough to offset my other purchases. I just enjoyed enough profit from a couple jobs to buy a new serger. Met my goal! With that, I did find this article that was very enlightening for me in figuring cost. Hope it helps. Jane http://www.kbbonline.com/impressions...the-1031.shtml

Great link, JR. Thank you.
Louise I love those designs. Sad to say I just blew my self-imposed design budget today at www.embroiderylibrary.com. They're having a sale through Sunday. Use code Party9 and you can get 9 designs for $1.11 and you can use the code three times. Got some great bargains this morning!

Thanks a LOT K (laughing sarcasm here) I already blew my budget for the
week (and month) at Emb. Lib. now you have pulled me into more buying.

Ok no problem I will join you :p

Thank you so much for the info about MAC software. It makes everything much more simple to know what products to look for. As always everyone on the board is so helpful and willing to share their knowledge

Stabilizer not to use...lesson learned
 

As a newbie, trying out different stabilizers with dense embroidery. Used a heavy duty iron on stabilizer for a piece of satin type fabric with glitter. No puckering but did have a gummy needle from the adhesive backing! What should have been a 2 hour project ended up being 4 hours with multiple thread breaks and finally a needle break.
This morning tried a non hooping method using heavy cut away stabilizer in the hoop, then tacky sprayed the fabric onto the stabilizer on top of the hoop and basted the fabric onto the hoop. Worked great! Lesson learned.

I had posted in an earlier post (or two) about designs I had stitched out
one being a feather.

Well here are the designs I did, since the feather was only a "practice"
I am not to worried about my color choices (I tried to follow the colors
of design), but I know with this stitch out which colors I wish to make
changes with.

I just finished the peacock feather.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]428083[/ATTACH]

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This is the fabric I used for the peacock feather. The picture isn't showing the
tonal fabric for some reason. But it is a tonal black with peacock feathers, I
thought this fabric was perfect for just peacock designs.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]428087[/ATTACH]

Krystyna and Louise I'll join you also in that sale. Couldn't pass it up! Louise beautiful work!

I had a project I wanted to do on my new embroidery machine. Took the machine to the dealer and spent 3 days this past week, working on this project. Learned a lot about the options and helps on the machine. They were so kind and encouraging. They said they'd encourage others to do the same so they can learn their machine. Big Thank you to Sandy and Chyrl in Fresno.

This is very true plus if you take your Mac into the Apple store they'll format it so that you can use windows as well. I love 5D Professional Plus and waiting to see what new things were added to the 6D when it comes out this yr. Check out Vikings website under software to see the Mac version.

There is also a heat soluable stabilizer that goes away with heat. I use quilt basting spray alot, and have no problem. I try to give it a minute or two to dry before emb on it. Alot of machines have a machine basting stitch that if you push the button it will automatically stitch the perimeter of the hoop, you can also use straight pins to hold things in place just make sure they aren't in the sewing area. Blue painters tape is also a good tool to have around when emb. Sometimes I have stabilizer that barely fits in the hoop so I help secure it tighter by putting down some painters tape and then use the metal clips that came with my machine. The basting spray is also great when you are emb and get a tear in the stabilizer, just spray the area and attach a scrap piece of stablizier and you are good to go. If I need multiple layers of stablizier but the designs are taking up the whole area of the hoop I put one layer in the hoop and then use my scraps of WSS and spray attach them to where needed. I use a lot less stabilizier this way and it works great. Also save you scraps of WSS not only for patching but the small pieces can be soak in water and create a "starch" like substance for your fabric which is great for FSL items.

I have so many scraps of WSS that I had to start a second container to hold them
all.

Another thing I do is save ALL scraps of tear away & cut away stabilizers that are
at least 2"x???. I use these scraps are "floating" pieces under the hoop for smaller
but dense designs.

Personally I have a MAC so I don't have to have anything Windows on it. For me that would be defeating the purpose of getting rid of all the junk (robots and such) that tend to find its way using MS products and or visiting MS friendly only websites.

I did not realize until I did buy a MAC a few months ago how awful anything MS is awful and certainly being online using it. So I use a PC with MS on it only because I have no other choice to run my sewing/embroidery/serger type machines.

That was one of the first things I learned regarding stabilizers and such regarding the water soluable ones. I keep a jar with water next to my desk and put it in and there you go one has a liquid starch for when I do FSL projects.

I was only trying to let those who need the option know about it. They don't format all of your Mac, its just a space to run Window based programs. We each have our own likes and dislikes which is why this world is so great. It would be boring if we were all the same and liked all of the same things. I personally don't go with Apple or Sony because I don't like companies who almost demand you only use thier products. Windows also now makes an Office suite for mac users. I think its great for companies to expand so that others can use what they like and not what they are forced into using. I don't have alot of junk on my pc from anything because there are ways of keeping it clean. I have a degree in computers and also work in the IT field so I try to keep up with all of the new stuff; which isn't easy since it changes so fast. I think there are lots of reasons for the Mac to be a good investment; just like my LQS just switched to MAC since Viking came up with the Mac Pro because from a security stand point its easier to maintain than the Windows based environment. We have mostly all Windows at work but we also have a very large IT department to maintain it. On the other hand; the doctors, nurses and most managers carry around the iPad. Its great to have choices and the right to chose. I just know that after being on this site for several yrs that not all users know the options and I was trying to let them know. Nothing against Mac or Windows was intended.

Groovy Piecese love your avatar being the Snoopy fan that I am! I have two flash drives that I store my designs on and name them accordingly to the design. Some of the designs I also keep in a folder labeled such as "quilting motifs" and so forth. There are many here that can give you great advice. Good luck!

I use water soluable thread to piece my WSS together so I can reuse it. I also sew my others together too.

OESD - Oklahoma Embroidery Supplies Designs (I believe that is correct.) They have some very good design collections.
Anita Goodesign is another of the quality companies offering embroidery designs. I usually buy them on a cd at one of the local sewing machine stores.
Now the organization thing is up in the air. I have software that is supposed to be wonderful for that purpose but then you have to learn to use it properly and I have not acquired the knowledge or skill to begin to utilize it to its full potential. Not the fault of the software but that of the user. I store my designs on two external drives - one is for backup. I use the travel drive to transfer them to my machine. I use the small 1 to 2 gb drives for this function. I sort my designs by designer. I have a folder for each brand i.e. OESD, Amazing Designs, Anita Goodesign, etc.

I recently bought a Husqvarna Topaz 20 and took a couple lessons to learn how it thinks. My advice is to contact the dealer, make an appointment for a whole afternoon, and take your book and write notes. I would have never figure this machine out on my own. It's so different from the Janome Memory Craft 8000 I used for years and years. ( Well actually, I burned thru 2 Janomes!) But the good thing about this Husky is that my Janome designs were re-programmed from design cards into the language for the Husky and now I have them downloaded to my flash drive straight to the new machine. I had spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the Janome designs and just throwing that out was not an option for me. So now I not only have all of them, but I can buy great designs for very cheap on embroiderylibrary.com also.

I would use the clear water soluble plastic stabilizer on both sides, maybe even double on both sides since the fabric is so slippery. You can get it in big rolls now and if you watch the sale coupons for Joann's and Hancock's, you can get it for good prices.

I have been playing with my Brother PE-770 since I got it for my birthday in March. I have been using a borrowed software and now I want to find one that is made for Brother. We don't have a dealer here so I talked to one while I was visiting my daughter and all she wanted to sell me was a $1400 Brother software. I went to a Bernina dealer that told me to check out Embird and BuzzTools. Any thoughts out there ?

There are several free ones if you do a google search; one is I think called ERA, it is a full program. You can get it for free but if you want the cd then its like 15. The good thing from what I've heard about the cd is that it comes with a lot of installation, etc info that helps alot. rnkdistributing.com (floriani) has software that is compatible with Brother. I have the 5D Professional Plus and it really helps me do more. My machine came with an organizer that did alot but the full program is great because I like to modify and change things to suit me.

What kind of stabilizer should I use for items like burp cloths, kitchen towels? I was using a tear away but then I read where it doesn't hold up after washes. I am so excited, I got my janome 9500 to read designs from transfers now. I have only had this machine how many years, and just getting into this embroidery. I really need to slow down and read about all this. Up to now, I just been playing around with it.

When you are doing the towels, tshirts, etc the emb has a tendancy to sink into the fabric after washing. To prevent this you use a topping or wss on top as well as the tear away on the bottom. rnkdistributing.com has a great workbook for stabilizer, emblibrary.com also has great tutorials on working on these items and will tell you when they've tested different products and how it works. For tshirts I use a mesh tear away on the back because it stays really soft against the skin. I don't think I'll ever learn enough and just when I think I know what I'm doing I learn a different way to try it. I take classes at my LQS when they are something that I haven't done before and will learn something new. My LQS, also my machine dealer started this yr offering classes on our machines and the software. The machine classes are broken down to the features of our sewing part of the machine and then there will be a couple of classes on the embroidery part. I always learn something new. Then once or twice a yr Viking will have educators go to different stores and offer classes and show us stuff that we probably haven't saw before. I take lots of pictures. I'm also starting getting into the digitizing part of it all. Right now I'm taking a design that I bought and modifying it to make it have a zipper part for money, c cards, etc, plus it can be put on a belt or use a wrist strap and I may add a thin long strap that can be tucked into the bag and only be taken out as needed. This is very easy to do if you are just sewing it but I want to do it all on the emb to make my life easier in the long run. Most of this is because my daughter likes to go out at night but not worry about a purse so this is being geared to what she needs but I like having it too. Every time I go to a website I check out their tutorials and projects. Most all of them have them and I always learn something new or get ideas of new things to make.

Reply to SingerSewer; Anita Goodesign has great designs and if you can find her classes as they go to different areas then that's also great. Also check to see when John Deere and Floriani offer classes in your area. Not only are their classes affordable, you'll learn a lot and get lots of free things and have the opportunity to buy things at great prices.

For organization I use my software that came with my machine. I had gotten one from Floriani last yr that was to just view your designs in one large folder. You save them in the folder with the orignal name and then they show up as icons and you don't have to remember what the name was because you can see all of your designs. The nice thing about this software besides seeing all of your designs as pics so you don't have to recall a name to pull it up because when you click on it, it will pull up the design but it also doesn't matter if you've gotten designs with the same name, it will still store them. This happens alot especially when you buy from different companies. I'm not currently using it and have decided to sell it because I found out my machines software will do the same thing so it's not needed. but it is an easy program to use and it's around a 100 new so really affordable.

When I download designs I first save them into an orders folder with the companies name. This is because if you ever want to reorder a design, it gets corrupt or whatever, you need to have the co name plus the original name of design. I don't rename them until I save them into another folder by catagory. Now I just don't rename them at all, I put them into folders by catagory as to what they are and then have subfolders with companies name so I know where I got them. This is also good if you need to redownload a thread chart or instructions from a site, you need the name. Some companies archive the designs after a while so if you don't have the design name you can't get it again. I save them all to my pc and then do a backup to 2 Cd's. In the future I'll get a portable hard drive and then I'll back them up to it and do a cd and with a copy on my laptop I should be covered. You'll be amazed at how fast the designs accumulate with all the free ones you can get, the ones on sale or just the ones you can resist. I also have a folder called Cd and that's where I save the orginal for CD's that I have purchased so that I'm sure of where Ineed to go to find them. Organizing them from the beginning is so much easier than trying to do it later and then keeping it updated is also a chore but worth it when you need to find something.

I have been making burp cloths out of flannel - double sided so the back of the embroidery is not seen. I wanted them to stay soft so I use iron on very light weight knit interfacing (half price coupon at JoAnn's) and iron on to the entire one side of the flannel. It is enclosed in the seams so I am not worried about it loosening up with washing. Doing the embroidery I do float a piece of WSS on the top. The flannel is washed prior to cutting/stitching, and then again after and there has been no puckering or shrinkage of the stitched area. If I were doing a single layer I think I would use a WSS stabilizer in the hoop and float another piece on the top. I have been doing very simple redwork type line designs and not a heavier applique type design. Jane

You can expect to pay several hundred dollars to as much as over a thousand for a good embroidery software, however, what you spend depends on what you want the software to do.

What features are you looking for in an embroidery software.

Buying this is very much like buying a car, or a new computer, or a sewing machine for that matter. All depends on what you want it to do (what features you want on it).

Hi, I have a Brother SE 350 and haven't had a lot of time to play with it. I replied last post I saw and then lost you while I was away on vacation. Let me know where to look for this conversation I would love to join you and learn and share. Sue

The Era is no longer available for free. I have it and it will expire the end of the year. If my computer crashes though, I won't be able to get it again. I think they are going to offer it for appr. $8-12 per month for usage. Buying the program cost around $1000.00, so that is too steep for me. I am thinking of "using" it though. I am looking into other ones. I have the PE770 too.

"Ok, I have a question for all you embroidery experts out there. What kind of stabilizer would I use with this? It's 100% rayon, texture and drape mimics pashima silk. If possible, I'd like to have a double sided design on the ends. Theorys, suggestions??" I just got a book by Deborah Jones on working with difficult fabrics. For silk she recommends light to midweight crisp tear away, single or multiple layers hooped with the fabric. She also says wrapping the hoop may eliminate slippage. Use a sharp needle size 10 or 11. For working with a polyester or acetate satin, use the same stabilizer, when hooping place a piece of tissue paper over the fabric and then the top hoop and tear a window in the paper. That way the fabric won't be marred. Needle - size 10 universal or light ball point embroidery needle. Change the needle frequently to avoid runs in the fabric. She doesn't mention specifically rayon, but I hope this helps. Jane

My turn to ask a question that so far I have not been able to find
out the answer.

Yesterday I decided to actually download and plan to try one of the
Floriani Free Monthly Designs they offer (I think it might only be for
those who have registered software), but I discovered that I have
to actually convert the designs into the format(s) I want.

In doing this converting there are MANY versions of PES formats to
save the design with .pes v1, .pes v2, etc... up to version 9.
Does anyone know what the difference in the versions are?

[QUOTE=Quilty-Louise;6224187]My turn to ask a question that so far I have not been able to find
out the answer.

Yesterday I decided to actually download and plan to try one of the
Floriani Free Monthly Designs they offer (I think it might only be for
those who have registered software), but I discovered that I have
to actually convert the designs into the format(s) I want.

In doing this converting there are MANY versions of PES formats to
save the design with .pes v1, .pes v2, etc... up to version 9.
Does anyone know what the difference in the versions are?[/QUQUO
I had the same question, which I posed to Floriani. The tech department suggested I convert it to the largest (9) so the machine can read it. But he said to make sure I input the correct size hoop. I have a Quattro and use Floriani software. LOVE them both. I had trouble sending a design to my machine, it was saying the design was too large for the hoop. It was a 4x5 design and I was using a 5x7 hoop. For some reason, either my machine or the software was reading it wrong. After tech suggested changing my settings, it worked. He did say that there were small issues reading certain PES designs and suggested that I bring them into the Floriani software as DST (commercial format) if I ran into the problem again, but take note of the original color sequence since DST will not have the correct colors. No problems since I changed the setting to 9.
I very much enjoy using Floriani, very easy to use and updates are always FREE!

I had a Brother SE-400 with a 4x4 hoop. Loved the machine, but was limited to small projects. I have embroidered baby bibs, towels and quilts. Three weeks ago, I invested in a Babylock Esante.....LOVE it! It's a sewing/embroidery combo and its awesome.

I had a brother embroidery machine that crapped out a couple of years ago. I was very disappointed. I just ordered a Janome 200E (didn't want to put a ton of money in it because of my bad experience) with a maintenance agreement. I can't wait to get it and get starting making beautiful designs like you all are showing here. I hope it isn't too complicated. I recall a learning curve on the former one.

Has anyone done the Baltimore Album quilt using their embroidery machine? I bought the collection and want to get started but would appreciate all input. I am going to use Kona or Moda white solid for the blocks.

Well, i am happy the site is available yet, some help given when I got my Bernette Deco 340 and was looking for a guitar outline. The shop owner finally made one design for me, but it will not load into the machine, so will journey back with machine to talk to her. I did turn the machine on today for the first time and made a butterfly. It came out Ok.

You might look at www.embroiderydesigns.com and search for guitar. There are quite a few guitar outlines and may be one to suit you. Some can be small so be sure to check out the size and stitch details. I have used paypal for purchases that are available for immediate download - may be better than a trip back to the shop.

I have not done the Baltimore...yet, but I have started another one of the collection. Very nice designs and very easy to follow direction. So far the design I am using has 30 separate pieces that are then combined (just as the Baltimre is). I have used 2 different Brother machines (high end Quattro and mid range 1250d) and works well on each.