Machine Embroidery Designs
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Note: If you have a machine that only uses preloaded embroidery design cards, your design choices may be limited, but the thoughts below still apply.
Before you buy a machine embroidery design, take into account the size of the design, the number of stitches, and the number of colors.
Here's why.
If you are a home embroiderer, you most likely have a single needle machine and this is going to have a huge effect on the amount of time it takes to stitch out designs. Commercial multiple needle machines automatically switch the colors as the design sews out. A single needle machine requires that YOU switch the thread color at the appropriate time. If the design you choose is large and has numerous colors, it may take you an hour or more to stitch it completely.
Some of the newer home embroidery machines now give you the option to "group" your colors and stitch the same colors at one time. This speeds things up, however, it also can affect the finished design. (Professional embroidery digitizers plan their designs to stitch in a particular order to prevent pulling and distortion to the fabric and threads. When machines group colors together to stitch them out, this careful planning by the digitizer is lost.)
I've personally heard people say that some designs took them eight hours to stitch out due to the size and the number of color changes! Ok, sometimes, the finished project is "totally" worth it!
Designs with fills take much longer to stitch out than designs that are mostly outlines.
Be Careful Where Your Designs Come From
With the advances in home embroidery digitizing software, it's become rather easy to let the software automatically produce embroidery designs for you. Quite often, these designs do not sew out without some distortion unless... you have taken some classes and understand how to manually do the digitizing.
Some of the machine embroidery designs people sell on the web, especially on E-Bay and other such sites, are often illegal. Though the chances of a company suing for copyright infringement are small, people who copy designs from coloring books and other sources... which they then sell... is a crime.
If a design came from a friend or you copied and digitized the design yourself and you aren't selling it... have a great time! If you come up with your own original digitized designs... KUDOS to you! You may have discovered a new source of income.
There are many, many wonderful machine embroidery design sites on the web that sell quality designs at reasonable prices. Go check them out! One of my favorites is Bunnycup Embroidery.
Look for "Freebies"!
If you don't want to spend a lot of money on designs, many sites offer free designs for downloading (if you have the appropriate software on your computer). You might have to spend a few hours looking for all the freebies available, but I can personally affirm they are out there! I have dozens that I did not pay a penny for because they were freebies (often samples fom a collection) that were offered on various sites.
Machine embroidery magazines sometimes offer free designs that go along with that month's featured project. If you don't want to purchase the magazine, check out the magazine's website to see what, if any, free designs are offered there.
Make Sure the Design Language is Right for Your Machine
Different manufacturers use their own special computer lanquage for their machines and machine embroidery designs. Make sure the designs you buy fit your specific machine. For example: Brother and Babylock use designs ending in .PES which is the software they use. If you aren't sure which software language your embroidery machine requires, check your machine's manual.
