Can anyone recommend a good reasonably priced place to have a design digitized? I know I've seen several places mentioned in various posts but I can't find them. The designs I've found online aren't really what I need in this case and there aren't too many designs to choose from. Thanks for your help.

What kind of design are you looking for?

A few more things I have been working on lately. After my machine was being repaired (235 days), I have a lot of catching up to do. All patterns are from Embroidery Library. The round ones are lace coasters.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]580278[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]580279[/ATTACH]

I'm looking for a Coptic Cross. It's for an employee of my daughter's. I downloaded one but the stitchout was awful. I just need the cross not the background color. I need to make a wallhanging approx. 5x7 or a little bigger.

Are you saying that you want just the outline to stitch on some plain fabric or possibly to make into an applique?If you take out the background, it will not be free standing lace. Or were you thinking that you want the outline and center designs to sew onto some plain fabric? If not any of these, please try to explain exactly what you are thinking of.I'm in FL so if I don't answer, it will be due to a power loss. We are on the east coast so maybe we will be lucky and just have some lighter winds but we have candles at the ready and windows shuttered.

I want to stitch just the cross on to a lighter background, possibly a white or light cream. I don't want an applique. The picture showed a blue background when I copied it. There is no background color on the original. I hope I'm making sense. I just need the design of the cross itself.

I lived in the Orlando area for years. My daughter and all the grandkids and great-grands are in the Leesburg area. It looks like Irma is going further west so you may not get much of anything. Stay safe and good luck.

I'm not making myself clear; let's try again. You want the outline of the cross but do you want the design inside the cross? If you want a design inside the cross, do you want the exact one in the picture or any that I can do. I'm rather new to digitizing. Contact me off the Q B at my email address [email protected] What format do you use on your emb. machine? You said you want about 5 x 7 but the cross is very nearly the same in vertical and horizontal directions. Do you want it 5" or 7" or some other size?
[QUOTE=MaggieLou;7903403]I want to stitch just the cross on to a lighter background, possibly a white or light cream. I don't want an applique. The picture showed a blue background when I copied it. There is no background color on the original. I hope I'm making sense. I just need the design of the cross itself.

As I understand her, she wants the cross to fit within a 5x7 hoop, which means a design of about 4.95 x 4.95 inches, just the design as it is pictured--without the light blue background. That just happens to be the background the cross was embroidered on. She will put it on white fabric. It is not FSL--just an embroidery design. I see 5 colors--yellow, gold, white, dark orange and dark blue. Beautiful cross--I am not familiar with the "coptic".

I'm not sure what machine I have but you can do just the background color, or you can chose monochrome on your machine and it won't prompt you to change thread colors and you get the design but it all prints out in the same color. Check your editing features on your machine to see how dense it is done or maybe you just need to double the stabilizer and slow down the stitches to make it better, it is pretty

Sophie2, great projects--really love the round coaster.

blueheavenfla, sent you a PM. Mermaid described exactly what I need.

Christmas wall hanging
 

Christmas wall hangings I made for each of our 3 kids. The machine embroidery pattern is OeSD "A Brighter Place" by Laurel Burch. Not sure how they got turned sideways but can't seem to correct it.

I am making some Christmas fsl ornament covers (see picture), and I want to hang little pearl drops from the bottom holes. Since I have never made jewelry, I don't know where to get little pearl drops that have hooks on them to use for this. I went to JoAnns thinking they would, but they did not. Have any of you done this? If so, where did you get the pearl drops with hanging hooks on them. TIA Rennie[ATTACH=CONFIG]581037[/ATTACH]

I love your christmas ornament cover. For the pearl hangings you'll need to buy online or at hobby lobby or michaels glass pearls. You might be able to get the glass pears at walmart too. Then you'll also need some jump rings. You'll attach the pearl to a straight pin where you'll have to use nose pillars to make a curved loop. Then attach to the jump ring and attach to your hole in the ornament. You can buy the supplies of jump rings & straight pins at walmart here:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jewelry-Basics-Metal-Findings-134pk-Silver-Starter-Pack/35670618?action=product_interest&action_type=title &beacon_version=1.0.2&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&c lient_guid=44786a1d-ac73-414d-88b0-dc331f92d241&config_id=2&customer_id_enc&findingMe thod=p13n&guid=44786a1d-ac73-414d-88b0-dc331f92d241&item_id=35670618&parent_anchor_item_i d=35670478&parent_item_id=35670478&placement_id=ir s-2-m2&reporter=recommendations&source=new_site&strate gy=PWVAV&visitor_id=MhFbjuZ-QXAQXs1eVXoQZA&u1=j7xmex47r700a0to0009i&oid=490493 .1&wmlspartner=je6NUbpObpQ&sourceid=31574772082941 850931&affillinktype=10&veh=aff

Good luck!

Thanks Muse & Sew!

I put these together when our power was out from Irma. I figured we would loose power, so did the stitching before the storm hit. [ATTACH=CONFIG]581062[/ATTACH]

Has anyone tried the new Brother software to make applique???
 

I'd love some feedback!! You can see the specs and video at the Brother site..warning..video is very, very fast! They certainly didn't make it for old people to follow along! I had to keep pausing and rewinding.
http://www.brother-usa.com/homesewin...yApplique.aspx

Does anyone know how much this costs? From what I see you can only purchase this from a dealer, and my closest dealer is 4 hours from here.

It has a whole slew of machines it will work with, and it will work with the scan n cut, built in designs, or you can import your own. This just sounds like I'd have a blast with this thing.

My search for the perfect applique scissor...
 

I posted a while ago, asking for suggestions. Thanks for the help!
I've spent a small fortune buying and trying. I tried all of the major brands, and a few cheapos...I've narrowed it down to 2..the Kai 4 1/2" curved tip, or the Havel's 5 1/2" ...the Kai are the sharpest with the tiniest points that can cut right into tiny spaces, love that. The handles are very uncomfortable after a few minutes...
The Havel's have excellent handles..they cut almost as well as the Kai, but are a bit larger, so don't cut into the tiniest spaces.
If you're listening Kai people...put bigger handles on them and they'd be perfect!!!!!!!!!!

Rennie, you could sew your pearl drops on with beading thread--may need a small pearl to use on the bottom of the pearl drop to catch the thread but I have done this and it does work quite well.

Great idea! I should have that of that. You'll need a beading needle.

Thanks, everyone. I will have to check out these beading suggestions.

I've asked to an embroidery machine for Christmas. Although I"m not sure where I'll put it in my crowded sewing room. My husband told me to go look at them so that's on the to-do list. I can hardly wait to scope out what is available.

Patrice, so exciting.... half of the fun is shopping for one and see all that is out there. But the best half is having one !

Patrice best of luck on your journey!!! Sew fun!!!

A cautionary tale
 

Long story short, I got my first embroidery machine over 20 years ago, and have hundreds, if not thousands of designs. I went to look on one of my USB flash drives for an old design, and it wouldn't open. Found out that the average lifespan of a USB flashdrive is 10 years!! Less if you write over them several times...The lifespan of a CD is 100 years +++.....so...been transferring everything to cd's over the last few days. What a pain. This way, I'll have them, and if I need them I can put them on a flash drive in a matter of seconds..but I'll always have a backup. I found a free program that pulled data off of corrupted cd's and flash drives...it worked on most of my bad flash drives, but I did lose a bunch of designs.
Moral of the story..don't trust your flashdrives!!!!!!!!!!

Most dealers will tell you not to store your designs on flash drives as they can(and will) fail, just like hard drives do. A flash drive is only meant to be a temporary bridge between your computer and your machine. I copy a design from the computer to the flash drive, I never move the original designs to the flash drive. I keep my designs in files on my computer but also have back ups just in case. I also keep the emails from when I buy designs that have the zip files in them. That way if I lose something I can go back and open the original from the email if I have to.

Cari

I do the same thing. I didn't know flash drives had a life span but I guess it's like everything else - built in obsolesence (sp?). I think I will also save them to CDs though. I have a bunch of new ones I need to use.

Thanks for the information on flash drives--I need to get some CDs and start putting designs over to them. One problem I do see is newer computers do not have CD drives so you would need an attachment.

I've not seen this. The newer all in one computers don't have a separate CPU so the dvd/cd drive is in the side of the monitor. I bought one of these computers for my GD a few months ago. I did have a computer years ago that had a small CPU and didn't have the cd/dvd drive so I bought a small outside reader/writer that plugged into the computer. It was only about $30.

Cari

Ah, only about $30? Cool!

good to know. I have had severalflashdrivesgobadnot long after I got them. luckily I didn't have anything important on them.

I had this same problem once, I bought 5 flash drives and when I went to use them 3 of them were corrupted. After getting over a conniption fit I realized it was my own fault. I had thrown them in a drawer that had the magnetic clips for one of my embroidery hoops in there also.

Cari

sometimes it don't take much to make those drives go wonky. best to have your designs in several places. I shutter when I think of how much I have spent on these designs
So fun and addicting.

I'm wondering what backing you put on an embroidery design when you want it to be a patch? Like the embroidery designs you can buy in the store that have the backing on them to iron onto anything? Hope this makes sense?

All my designs are stored on external drive (passport). These are available at the office supply stores less than $100.00.

There are 1,000's of designs on mine and the storage capacity is still generous. You also want to have an extra back-up every 6 months or so depending on how often you add more designs.

Then I just move the individual stitch designs onto the USB for your machine. New technology in EMB machines allows wireless downloads from the computer. No USB needed. Fun stuff!

Muse&Sew here you go - https://allstitch.net/department/bla....cfm?killnav=1

Rhonda I hope you meant that you copy the design to your USB, not move it.

Cari

I have a Babylock Elegante II, which I have used to make lots of zippered bags and other ith projects. I love this for an embroidery machine! I recently bought a Simply Sixteen long arm machine (haven't quilted a quilt yet, only practice pieces). I was using the Elegante II for quilting- I think it did a good job, but I wanted a bigger toy :-) For embroidery I have made lots of gifts- embroidered towels, pieces for framing, etc. An embroidery group would be great!

Carly,

Yes, that should say "copy" onto the USB.

OOPS!

Cari this is great! Thanks so much for your help.

Oh, these are wonderful! I am hoping to get an embroidery machine for Christmas, and your quilts have inspired me to not lose sight of my objective. I want to use embroidery to enhance my quilts, and I am thankful there are affordable machines that do the work. I learned to embroidery, and quite well, when I was a girl; now, at age 72, my arthritic hands prohibit hand-embroidery. Thanks for the inspiration!