5 Comments

1. lulu says:

   March 1, 2010 at 10:37 am

   There may not be free software to download to create your own designs. Vista is ok to have when purchasing your digitizing software. Brother have some easy to use programs, such as PED Lite and PE Design. But you dont have to buy ‘Brother’ software.
   .art designs are Bernina files, and unfortunately, you cannot use them unless you have bernina branded software. Stick to downloading designs in .pes format. Embroidery is so much fun, and there is always something to do!!! I use husqvarna viking software and i find this really easy, and it does a lot! and i use this with my brother embroidery machine.
   Digitizing is the process in which you get your image into ‘stitch points’, basically telling the needle where to go, and what direction and form the stitch needs to be. Its not easy, but if you love art, and love the computer- you’ll love this!
   Ask your husband if the shop/place he bought it from offers lessons, or classes on the software and machine. i’m sure they can give you tons of advice! Happy Sewing!!!!!!!
   References :
2. Jill M says:

   March 1, 2010 at 10:59 am

   First recommendation is to join a couple of machine embroidery Yahoo groups.. just go to yahoo.com and search for machine embroidery and you should come up with tons of groups. They are terrific – I belong to many lol. but Hooked on Embroidery is a good one. Best place to get answers to all your newbie questions!! They also have tons of free designs on there!!

   Now on digitizing your own designs and being able to convert designs . . Since you have a Brother you would be using .pes files but maybe you use .art files?

   If you use pes that will be simple pie if you use art files go to the hooked on embroidery group and ask there but Embird does make .shv files which I think equals .art files, but I’m not sure..

   I use Embird and have for 5 yrs. I did have commercial software and 2 different home machine digitizing softwares that cost a mint. Embird will run a few hundred instead of a few thousand. Great buy. I put my website and ebay store address below so you can see what I digitize. There are many many yahoo groups that specialize in Embird so there is tons of help there, too.

   With Embird you can convert files, make jpgs out of sewing files, adjust designs in Editor, digitize new designs in Studio, make lettering that is vry nice from any true type font in Font Engine and Iconizer makes all the sewing files appear as images in my documents on your computer which is very nice to be able to ‘see’ the file instead of just a ‘name and suffix’. It also does tons more and I know they have a cross stitch program, too, but I don’t have that. I just have Embird Basic, Studio, Font Engine, Sfuomoto Stitch (photo stitch), Iconizer.. I spent 3,000 on software for digitizing for my Viking D-1 and it was hard to do, hard to learn and not much support (just my opinion) and Embird cost me a few hundred (and you can buy it in increments – buy basic and then add studio, then add font engine etc)

   You will find too that hooping tightly, the correct backing and a design that is well-digitized all contribute to the success of the finished product. Just will take you some time and practice! Good luck!
   Jill

   Hope this helps you!!
   References :
   http://www.adoremy.com
   http://www.embird.com
   http://stores.ebay.com/adoremy-embroidery
3. Tausha G says:

   March 1, 2010 at 11:14 am

   I have a brother embroidery machine. If you go to Embird.com you can download a trial version of their program, it’s good for 30 days. You can convert any format such as .art to .pes. You need .pes for brother. I use the vikant ultimate box for transfering designs from my computer to my machine. That was about 100 dollars it might be less now. I purchased Embird editor for around 150 and the digitizing studio which you need seperate to create your own designs for around 150. Compared to any other software out their it is the best bang for the buck. I have 7 years of commerical embroidery experience and I like Embird for it’s ease of use compared to any other home program available. Hope this helps.
   References :
4. Connie P says:

   March 1, 2010 at 11:22 am

   Dutchess,

   first off, congratulation on your husbands choice of machines. You did not state what model he purchased you, however Brothers’ are excellant machines.

   The format you will use is .Pes in your Brother machine. Now, you did not state if your machine took a Brother floppy disk, or if it came with the ability to read via usb cable. If your machine comes with a floppy (small card) you will need a converter box to get all the free designs onto your card. PEDesign makes an excellant box, and is very easy to work with if you are going to need one.

   Also, the internet is a varied hodgepodge for embroidery designs, ranging from free to $1.00 (or less) apiece. (Dollarstitch.com for example) and the yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Embroidery_Dollarstitch/ where free designs and projects are posted all the time. This is a .PES format site, and yahoo group only.

   On creating your own designs- I do not know of ANY "free" digitizing softwares on the internet, and have never heard of any in the groups.
   Digitizing is FUN, however it is very time consuming as well. A normal sized clipart can take anywhere from 60 minutes to 5-7 hours (and longer) and the price of digitizing software does not make up for the price of getting free designs, and/or lower priced cd’s from Embroidery sites.

   My advice on this is enjoy your machine, and purchase/download designs. MANY digitizers will do designs from your artwork as well

   God Bless.
   Bart Perry
   References :
   http://www.dollarstitch.com
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Embroidery_Dollarstitch/
5. sms says:

   March 1, 2010 at 11:40 am

   Go here: http://www.cmemag.com/pdf/CME_software_chart_update.pdf

   This is a software list provided by Creative Machine Embroidery magazine. It looks a bit overwhelming, but there’s a much more attractive pull-out version in the current magazine issue that you would purchase at the newsstand. There are several more magazines on machine embroidery, I would hunt down a few issues of those also (B&N is a good source).

   Check out the list of categories across the top of the pdf list, and decide what is most important to you. In general, I found that if you just want to buy designs to embroider, and all you might want to do is re-size them or change their placement in the hoop, you should be able to find some software for less that $200 that will work fine.

   If this is the case, you would look for software that does "design resizing", "design cataloging", "monogram", possibly "lettering".

   As you advance in skills, you might look for software that does things like "design customizing" (you can change stitch density & things like that) or "automatic digitizing" (you pull in clip art or a scanned line drawing and the program automatically converts it for you) or "stitch editing" (you can do things with individual design stitches).

   The $$ kicks in when you get into the "digitizing" category (means drawing your own designs from scratch), basically because you’re getting deeper into vector graphics (like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc.), which is a completely different animal.

   I’m also looking for software and hoped for something "free", but with one exception the best I’ve found so far is the Embird 30 day free and the BuzzTools 30 day free. So far, I like the Embird interface better than BuzzTools, but I haven’t taken a tutorial for either yet.

   Oddly enough, just this morning I found WinDaisy (http://www.windaisy.com ), which is shareware unless you want the professional version (haven’t quite figured out yet what the difference is, perhaps the pro version can handle larger designs?). And just a moment ago I discovered that it somehow interfaces with Embird for the file conversion utility. Many embroidery software roads seem to lead back to Embird,this isn’t the first one I’ve found. There is also an Embird embroidery group on yahoo groups.

   However, back to WinDaisy: the interface is ugly ugly ugly, but they have the best tutorials so far, which so far seem to apply to most digitizing software (they all seem to work about the same), and make everything seem so easy. I’m going to use this program to explore the digitization end of things before plonking down my dollars on something else (allowing for the fact that I may become completely comfortable with the program and never purchase anything else).

   With a Brother, I believe your preferred choice of design format will be .pes, they’re easy to find. Google on "pes embroidery design" & see what you get. You will most likely need a card of some sort to transfer designs from your computer to your machine, can’t tell if you’ve gotten that far, but you should have gotten one with your machine (unless you have the Brother 700II, which uses usb to transfer, yummy!)

   So to wrap up, I’d recommend you start with the Embird Basic free demo (http://www.embird.com/sw/embird/features.htm ), see how that goes. Try WinDaisy if you actually want to do some digitizing, then go from there.
   References :
   lifelong sewer; 10+ years minor graphic design; quilt pattern designer; software nut; researching embroidery software & machines for 2 weeks now.