I do hope I am not offending by asking this question on what is primarily a quilting site, but I am having trouble finding an answer.
I recently brought a Brother 750e embroidery machine and although I am happy using a computer, I don't fully understand how to download patterns from the various embroidery sites. I understand that I need a memory stick, but am not sure if I actually have to purchase a software package to use the memory stick or if I can download directly onto the stick. I have been stitching the designs that come already loaded on the machine and they are coming out ok. If anyone has this machine or can offer advice I would really appreciate it. Maybe I am trying to run before I can walk LOL.
Many thanks
Sue

I am not sure about that machine..but I down load designs to a memory stick. One of my machines sews from the stick, another machine I have I have to convert from the stick to the machine memory card. I use the amazing box for that one. Does this help or make any sense?

If you are simply just using a memory stick then no you don't need any special program...the only advice I have for you, is keep all you designs in a file on your computer, and when you want to use a a certain design, load it onto your memory stick and put into your machine that way your machine doesn't have to load alot of designs....Just make sure that the designs you are downloaded from the internet are the right ones for your machine...Like my machine uses .jeff, not sure what yours uses....does this make sense to you?

Thank you so much for your answers. I did download a design onto my computer but could not open it. Not sure if it is a zip file or something. I hope to get a memory stick USB stick I think they are and will try again. My machine uses PES format. I downloaded from Embroidery library. I am finding the terminology understandable, but the actual application flummoxing!
Sue

With my Brother machine I download purchased/free designs (PES format) onto a floppy disk, then just place that floppy in my Brother and stitch away.

Does your machine use a disk also? Those are the 3X3 re writeable ones. My Brother uses both the memory card (stick as you named it) and the 3X3 disk...I can no longer use the amazing box to transfer the designs because my new computer has SP3 and it refuses to down load the program to use the memory card.
With the 3X3 disk you can down load right from the computer. Be sure to up load only designs that are PES and they are usually in zip form that you can unzip.

I don't have that machine but in looking at the brochure on the Brother website if appears you can use a memory stick. Download your designs to your computer first, and make sure they're in the right format for your machine which I'm guessing is PES. I keep mine in various folders according to category, flowers, animals, Christmas, etc.

When you want to use a design, find it in your folder and download it from your computer onto your memory stick. Then put the stick into your embroidery machine.

Hi, Ive got a janome memorycraft so different machine but ive had a quick swizz on the net and it appears that you just need a USB key, http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-8675.aspx
or http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-4202.aspx will be fine, depending on how many designs you want on it at any one time.
If you download from embroidery library you can choose a zipped or unzipped version, until you get used to things, choose the unzipped version, save it somewhere on a pc (I make a folder saying embroidery designs and then make another one with a sub folder, i.e flowers) then you *should* be able to drag and drop it onto the memory stick when its in your computer and then plug it directly into the embroidery machine and it'll pick up a memory stick...
hope this helps and makes sense a bit

If the file is zipped you will need a program to unzip it. I use WinZip. If purchasing at Emb Library you can have them email the design to you unzipped then all you have to do is put it on the stick and you are ready to go. If you need more help, I would be happy to try and help you.

Looks like a memory stick is my next purchase. Sorry to be dense, but could you explain exactly what to expect when downloading onto your computer. I downloaded a couple of designs from the Embroidery Library, and checked that they were PES format. When I pressed for download I got a quick "flash" and that was it. It did show on my computer, but I was not able to open the file at all. Maybe I'll have better luck with a memory stick and just dowloading it straight to that. Will let you know how I get on. Sorry to bombard you with all these questions, but I don't appear to have grasped the intracacies (sp) of modern computing - never mind, as someone, not sure who, said, " we should learn something new everyday".
Sue

Sorry, missed a couple of your replies while typing my last one. Thank you all SO much. Your answers have cleared up a lot of my muddled thinking and make much more sense than anything else I have been able to find. Did not realise that I could ask for unzipped files, so will do that while getting used to everything.
Sue

To open the file on your computer you would need a program installed that would open that format - like you need a word program to open documents , excel for spread sheets . Does that make sense ? So without a program to open PES files I don't think you can open them - doesn't mean its not there just that you can't open it to see them :wink:

also your pc wont be able to do anything with the PES file as it doesnt know what it is so it wont open it. But your embroidery machine will once its on a usb key.
the quick flash is the downloading of the files which are so tiny, shouldve gone into your download directory. Go grab a cheap key in Aldi's, tesco, asda, any of the supermarkets will have them, i'd probably go with a cheap 2 or 4gb one, that'd give you hundreds and hundreds of designs on it at one time...

Thanks Sharonb, that makes perfect sense.
Sue

Great information being shared on this thread!!

There are quite a few freebies to see your downloads. Wilcom is one of them. I have the Brother PE770 and that uses a USB stick also. Just make sure that you don't have too many downloads on the same stick. My machine can handle no more than 200 at a time on one stick. However, I save the PES downloads on one and than only transfer the ones I want to be working with on another stick. This way you don't have to search through all of them to find the correct one. The embroidery machine pictures are too small, not clear and only black and white , so I use the Wilcom (free) or ERA Universal to show my pictures in color on the computer, while I am embroidering.

Pulse Ambassador is another free program you can use to view your embroidery files:

http://www.pulsemicro.com/index.htm

go to the right side of the screen and look for the "Ambassador" section. Click on the "free sizing and conversion embroidery software"

Wilcom truesizer will allow you to view any embroidery file you get and you can convert it to whatever file extension your brother machine takes. Best of all it's free

Again, as always!!!! you guys are amazing!!! It's so funny when one of us asks a question, it helps so many more of us at the same time. Thanks everybody and thanks for the question I did not realize that you could just d/l to a stick....I will have to check this out tonite after work (work is so over-rated and really interfering with my quilting life!!

When I bought my Janome 110000 the sales lady told me about a web site (Wilcom.com) and said that I could download the software for free that would recognize the special machine formatting of embroidery files (mine is JEF). I've never been able to get it to work for me, but perhaps someone who is more technically savvy than I could make it work.

I have a Janome 11K and can use up to a 2gb USB stick in the machine. I can save patterns on any size stick but in the nachine it can use only up to the 2 so be sure how large a memory your machine can handle.

While I have a Janome MB-4 embroidery machine, I imagine that downloading to the computer would be the same process no matter what machine you have. I have a folder set up on my PC strictly for downloading all my embroidery files. When purchasing from an online site, you'll have to specify which embroidery format you want the design in (mine is a jef format, but your's will be whatever is compatible with your embroidery machine). I then download them in a zip file directly to my embroidery download file that I set up on my computer. You can then unzip them and save to whatever place you have on your computer for your usable embroidery designs or to a USB stick (or whatever device you need to transfer it to your machine). I am able to send mine directly from my computer to my embroidery machine, which is really nice. Hope this helps you out.

Question?

Is there an embroidery board comparable to this quilting board?

My favorite was the Martha Pullen Machine Embroidery forum. It's still very good, but when they switched servers they lost over 100,000 posts. ;-(
These two also have specific areas for ME:
free embroidery stuff
Sewing Forum

They are usually "zipped files" when downloaded. Now that I have said that I order most of my embroidery from Embroidery Library and you have a choice of downloading "unzipped" OR "zipped", they also offer one or two free sew outs every month, would be a good place to try downloading.I put mine to a file, unzipped, then as needed go to my files and put it to my USB

I don't think you can open the files on your computer unless you have a digitizer program, or a program that lets you make changes before you move it to your machine. Transfer to the memory stick and put it in your machine and try to open it there.

Ahh ... that's the machine I WANTED, my husband surprised me by buying the 950.

Your machine takes either a memory card OR a USB.

When you download the files to your PC, make a new folder on your desktop called "Embroidery Designs" and save all of your downloaded files there. Most of the sites I use give you a choice of what file type you want to download as - you want PES.

Unless you have some kind of embroidery software loaded on your PC, you will not be able to open or view the PES files. But when you look at the folder you will see the name of the file listed to know that it is indeed there.

When your ready, copy (don't cut & paste!) your file to either the memory stick or the USB. I can't walk you through opening it on your sewing machine cause I don't have that model.

As far as software on your PC to view and/or modify embroidery designs, and make your own - there are plenty out there. Some are quite pricey, but thanks to a board member I found one that is free. If interested ... ask and I'll drop a few notes about that. Or you can do a search here on the board on Sierra Design Era (that's what it's called). I have it and have had *some* success with it, have also had some cussing sessions :)

Have fun!!

I have a Brother innovis 1250D, so a lot of what I say here may have already been said, but most of the Brothers have the same basics. First when downloading, make yourself a folder to send the design to on your computer so that you can find it later. When downloading the format will be PES and a lot of time the files will be zipped, so you may need a program to unzip them. I use Winzip which can be downloaded for a free trial and then later paid for as a one time pyt. As someone said, put your downloads on the computer, and you may want to put them in a backup disc like cd in case later your computer crashes or you get a new one. (Ihave been there and done THAT!) Download only those designs you will be using at the moment onto the stick, so for that reason just a 1 or 2 gig stick is more than enough. The reason for this is that the stick will hold too much for the machines computer to read and you will just have to move or delete the designs to get to where it will. Also the screens on a lot of the Brothers have small black and white only screens, and the designs are hard to read on screen. With downloaded embroidery, sometimes the formats will cause Brother to specify the color wrong and Brother will tell you some weird color. There is another free program out there that will allow you to resize your designs and see the colors in them, it is called my editor(wilcom trusizer), and it is a very powerful program. If you are paying for a design make sure that it will fit on your hoop sizes availabale becuase some sites offer designs in numerous sizes that you cannot use. Brother machines (at least mine will only allow you to up or down size the loaded design about 10 percent) so keep this in mind. There are numerous sites that offer free designs, just google free embroidery. Two of the best I have found are embroidery library (emlibrary.com), and embroiderydesigns.com. there is also a magazine designs in machine embroidery that caters to emrboidery that offers some free designs each month and of course sells a lot of stuff. Hope this helps and please feel free to pm me if you have a specific question I can help with. When I started, I had a lot of hair tearing days till I got it right but I do love it and often combine embroidery designs in my quilts.:)

I don't know if I can help or not. I have the brother 750, I have the PE DESIGN software and a reader box. I download to the computer and than write the designs to a card that is inserted in the computer. You will probably write to your flash that came with the machine.
Mary in TX

I download to a floppy disk also. It has to be unzipped for me. I have a Melco machine.

Thank-you, I think-lol I just spent over a hour looking through that site, never knew it existed and I used to love watching the Martha Pullen sewing show.

I purchased a software package because to obtain embroidery file to use with your particular embroidery machine the extension must be what your machine uses. I obtain free embroidery design, download to my software, and change to .hus (extension my embroidery machine uses). Hope all this makes sense to you.

You can't see the designs on your computer because you don't have the software to open it. Brother has it's software called PEDesign and uses pes format. There is a generic software called Embird that I would highly recommend. You can even get a trial period with it. It allows you to edit designs, adding & taking away portions. It will open up your designs on your computer. You can also use it to transfer designs to your stick, from the computer.
Lots of info to take in.
Judi

Sue, when you are downloading from EmbLIb., they will
give you a choice of zipped or unzipped. If you choose zipped you will have to unzip it. I always choose unzipped. Then you don't to bother with it. You can just DL to your files.
Hope this is helpful.
Elaine

I have this machine and lisa told you right. Keep working at it you can do allmost everything on this machine

You don't need software to USE the design you downloaded, but if you actually want to SEE it on your computer you will need software such as Embird or Palette or a number of others. To use the design just copy it from your computer onto the memory stick and take the stick to your machine.

I have a Brother PE770. When I open the design on my sewing machine I get a black silhouette of the design but can't see detail. I am researching software to be able to see the design on my computer, and I'm finding a wide range from $150 (basic upgradable Embird) to $4000. Happy sewing.

I'm sorry I can't help you but I know you came to the right place QB.
I bought my first embroidery machine over a yr ago. A Janome 9700, I found out after the fact that I needed a software pkg. to download off the enternet. After almost going nuts I found a store in Richmond In. that sells Brother & Janome. www.nancysfancyssewingcorner.com I didn't even buy my machine from them but they were most helpful. Lov my machine now but would have saved myself alot of stress if I did my homework first before buying. Thanks to Nancy & her staff.

I have a Janome Memorycraft embroidery machine and I learned that the machine doesn't read files if they are in a zip file. I have to "unzip" on the computer and load individual design files onto my memory stick. Then I load the memory stick into my machine. Since I figured that out I've had a blast with the embroidery designs.

My brother came with a program for purchased patterns. Brother usually uses the pes embroidery. The program I got was "Baby Lock". You can also get online a free program called "Wilcom TrueSizer" which allows you to pull a design into the program and enlarge it. I find that really helpful sometimes.

The files you download are almost always zipped files. You probably need to unzip the file you downloaded and extract the embroidery pattern.

For unzipping designs (or anything), besides Winzip - there is also a J-Zip program for unzipping that is and remains totally free. I like it because it is so much faster and I think easier to work with, and when you download the zip files, chose the "save and open" option, that way you can be sure to tell the download where on your computer you want it downloaded to, and even rename it to something logical.

Another thing I find is a great space saver with the "save and open" option, is you can just pick out the file for PES and not have to save all of the rest of the files like VIP, etc. that are sometimes bundled all together.

I also save my designs on a CD in categories like you have described. There is also a thumbnail program out ($39) that allows you to see a thumbnail of the design in the Icon on your computer - a real help. I am still just learning about the USB stick, so am interested in this thread. :-)

Marysewfun