What could be more dearer to an embroiderer than his embroidery machine!   In the erstwhile days, an embroidery machine meant one which was driven by hand and stitches sewn together using pencil drawn lines.  Today with the advent of technology and the mergence of the computer into our everyday lives, the modern computerized embroidery machine is completely automatic and requires minimum human intervention!   Brother is a leading brand and this particular product is a win-win amongst most embroidery enthusiasts. Here is a review of Brother SE350 Computerized Embroidery and Sewing Machine.  Have a peek at some of its features and you will know why -
a) Sewing-and-embroidery machine with LCD touch screen for easy stitch selection and editing
b) 67 built-in stitches, 98 stitch functions, and 10 styles of 1-step automatic buttonholes
c) 70 built-in embroidery designs, 5 monogramming fonts, and 120 frame pattern combinations
d) Automatic needle threader; 15 needle positions; maximum embroidery field of 4 by 4 inches
e) Comes with a whopping 25-year limited warranty.

The SE350 computerized sewing and embroidery machine offers easy embellishment and sewing.  This is an easy to use machine with some amazingly simple convenient features.  There are a wide array of built-in stitches, as well as a large, backlit, LCD touch screen for easy stitch selection and editing, making it possible for both amateur embroiderers and professional designers to create fashionable projects tailored toward their unique preferences.  One can choose from 67 built-in stitches, 98 stitch functions, and 10 styles of one-step automatic buttonholes.  As an embroidery machine, the unit offers 70 built-in embroidery designs, five monogramming fonts, and 120 frame pattern combinations.  The SE350 has 5 bult in alphabet fonts as well. You can save up to 12 embroidery designs in the built in memory.  Other highlights include an automatic needle threader, an automatic push-button thread cutter, 15 needle positions, a maximum sewing speed of 710 stitches per minute, and a free arm, as well as a snap-on presser-foot attachment, a drop-feed function, auto presser-foot pressure, and a maximum embroidery field of 4 by 4 inches. The product also comes with a huge array of useful accessories like the seven feet (buttonhole, overcastting, monogramming, zipper, zigzag, blind hem, and button fitting), a seam ripper, four bobbins including clips, a needle set, a twin needle, a cleaning brush, an eyelet punch, a screwdriver, a touch pen, three spool caps, a spool pin, a spool net, and a foot controller, as well as scissors, a disc-shaped screwdriver, an embroidery hoop, an accessory case, a hard cover, and a user manual. The computerized sewing-and-embroidery machine measures approximately 18 by 8 by 12 inches and carries a 25-year limited warranty.  

The built in automatic push-button thread cutter makes garment sewing and embroidery fun and effortless. Brother’s Quick-Set bobbin makes changing bobbins easy as you simply drop-in a full bobbin, pull the thread through the slot and begin. The included instructional CD gives easy to follow instructions on the features of the SE350. The written instruction manual is bilingual in English and Spanish.

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You are welcome to visit the Embroidery Forum.   This has recently been launched…  Feel free to post in your articles in relevant categories and use it as your area to unwind.

There are various broad areas of interest like embroidery digitizing, business, technical  which are further subdivided into more specific topics.

Join the embroidery community and stay linked in.

Warm Regards

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The first of its kind in the world of embroidery on such a large scale… an online exhibition for embroidery machines – Sewing and Machine Embroidery Online Exp 2008! The grand launch is on 1st July 2008 and is being organised by fibre2fashion. This 45 day show is a cost effective way for various manufacturers across the globe to display their exhibits and new technology to the emerging markets of India, China and South East Asia. It does away with large transport costs, custom clearances for their exhibit materials and at the same time provides an effective booth visitation by a specified target audience. If proved successful, I am quite sure that this would be replicated by other forums on all product lines.

This has actually been triggered with new markets opening up in the Eastern hemisphere of the world and few products with little knowledge available on the latest technology and trends in embroidery. In my view the 2 unique features of this online exhibition are – The first is an online chat facility between the visitor and the manufacturer. Chatting is necessary in order to resolve queries, concerns and most importantly the visitor gets a comfort feel with the manufacturer whom he would ideally like to see and deal face to face. The second feature – a 360 degree view of all products is almost like seeing the product in reality. This is critical because when a visitor decides to make a purchase worth a few hundred dollars one would want to feel, touch and study the whole product inside out. The 360 degree view meets this criteria quite well except the ‘feel’ part. With virtual reality coming of age, the ‘feel’ part would soon be taken care of.

From the manufacturers point of view an additional advantage is that this exhibition is open 24 * 7 for 45 days continuously. Visitors across the globe in different time zones would be able to access this at their convenient times. The manufacturer also gets tracking information and contact details of all the potential buyers who visited his online booth so that they can follow up later with them.

In short, this exhibition promises to be a great destination for sellers and buyers of embroidery machines.

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I just came across a good resource for shopping of some essential embroidery supplies. If you want to buy good quality hoops, stabilizers, thread or scissors visit Mr. Vac Mrs. Sew. The cat/hoop package includes prewound bobbins, scissors, thread for the Brother SE-270D, HE-120 and Innovis 500D. The Hat Hoop allows you the unique ability to embroider on the uncommon medium of a typical baseball style cap. The embroidery stork scissors looks really charming quite alike to the natural bird. This comes in handy for that fine detail work where the needle sharp point can reach where others can’t. This proves ideal for monogram work, applique, embroidery, ripping seams and trimming loose threads. This scissor is not only versatile but beautiful with it’s gorgeous engraved gold-plated stork design. The stabilizer comes under the brand name ‘Sulky’. We have various versions of the stabilizer which includes the Sticky Self-Adhesive 8.25 by 6 yards, Solvy water soluble stabilizer 8 by 9.5 yards, Soft n Sheer Cut Away 8 by 11 yards, Wash Away Tear Away stabilizer 15 by 25 yards. Depending on the particular embroidery, the necessary stabilizer can be taken up.

The Polystar threads with all 61 Brother colors especially produced for Brother Innovis embroidery machines are a specialty at the thread section. Apart from this, the Maderia embroidery thread package is a treat for the viewers!

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Some of the key highlights of the Innov-is 900D and SE350 include a backlit LCD Touch Screen, one-touch access to built-in designs including embroidery editing capabilities,  automatic Push-Button Thread Cutter, ease in cutting thread,  sixteen Built-in Languages,  precise translation of step-by-step instructions on the LCD panel,  memory Functions, embroidery Editing,  seventy Built-in Embroidery Designs and sixty-seven Built-in Stitch Functions including 10 styles of one-step, automatic buttonholes, built-in Card Slot,  popular 4″ x 4″ embroidery field and a quick-Set(TM) bobbin and Advanced Needle Threader.

The higher-featured Innov-is 900D includes the above features plus thirty-five built-in embroidery Designs based on Disney/Pixar characters,  computer connectivity for transfer of .pes files from a computer to the machine, my Custom Stitch(TM) feature, 3 sewing fonts,  62 additional decorative stitches, embroidery menu access for accessing the embroidery menu while in sewing mode to save time and plan future designs, the ability to read all embroidery cards featuring Disney/Pixar characters, protective Hard Cover and Accessory Box that fits under the free arm and a Sew Nice Pic(TM) frame.

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Husqvarna or Huskvarna was the name of a location in Sweden. It constituted the eastern part of Jönköping, the municipal seat of Jönköping Municipality, Sweden and had a population of about 21,500. Between 1911 and 1970 it used to be a city municipality of its own. There was a royal rifle manufacturer named after the city founded in Husqvarna in 1680 and lasted until 1757, when it was sold to private owners. It supplied the Swedish and Norwegian armies with rifles (for example, in 1870 some 10,000 rifles were finished). War time through, the same company later switched over in 1872 from crafting firearms to the production of sewing machines and bicycles.

Today, it is known as Husqvarna (it never changed the old spelling), an internationally known company with a variety of products. The machine embroidery formats that came through these sewing machines became known as the ‘HUS’ formats and is widely in use today.Secrets of Embroidery has some beautiful tutorials on Husqvarna/Viking by Carolyn Duncan. You could navigate through Tutorials on the home page and click on Husqvarna/Viking. These easy-to-understand guides prove beneficial since they enable you to harness the potential of your Designer sewing embroidery machine and gives you insights into 3D digitizing and sketch designs that form a hallmark of Huskvarna.

HUS is famous for its realistic embroidery designs and all patterns are accentuated and clear. The pussy cat portraits by Diana Kaufholz in Secrets of Embroidery display this feature (Navigate to ‘Designs by Category’ and click on Dianas Dezigns). Notice how the emotions/feelings of the cats are captured in these machine embroideries.

So, where are the freebies! You could go to Sewterific to download some cute free hus embroidery designs! The Mad flower next to this post is part of this collection.

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What is so amazing about the Amazing Box used for embroidery designing? – The Amazing Box allows you to read ANY format memory card, floppy drive, CD or designs from the computer and write them to the specially made flash card for your particular embroidery machine. All Amazing Designs software will work with the Amazing Box. This includes Smart Sizer Gold and Lettering Pro. Truly amazing isn’t it? This came as a breath of fresh air for all embroidery enthusiasts and hence this nickname was coined. The information on machine embroidery techniques would come in handy here.

Hope this helps you in enhancing your embroidery design work! It has indeed helped many an enthusiast in developing various amazing unique embroideries. This has also been instrumental in creating home based businesses by aspiring entrepreneurs.

If you are interested in learning about Babylock and how it could be used to get the most out of your amazing box, you could try the tutorials at Secrets Of.    Navigate to Tutorials – Brother/Bablock.   All the Best!

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After doing some research, we found one software that is easy to install, easy to use and most important – easy to understand. Just THREE steps required! Design Authority is a home machine embroidery software, which needs Windows 98, Pentium III computer to work with. The final output can be exported to Brother(.pes), Elna(.sew), Janome(.sew), Melco(.exp), Tajima(.dst), Toyota(.10O), Barudan(.hduxx), Happy(.tap), Sunstar(.sst), Pfaff(.ksm), Juki(amsm3), Mitsubishi(,1xx), Komtekct(.cem) There is a section on free downloadable embroidery designs, where you can download samples of standard fill, advanced fill and photostitch embroideries! (You could also go to Diana portrait to see the art of photostitch hand embroidering.) The ship you see next to this post is a free standard fill embroidery design converted from a picture and is available in all machine formats.

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On the canvases, the best ones I liked apart from the three horses displayed here are “African Wildlife” and “Nefertiti”. The “Three Champions” (horses) are 47 cm by 27 cm meant to be hand embroidered on cotton. The embroidery accessories are comprehensive containing unique information on embroidery scissors (gold plated), handeze gloves, embroidery hoop stand, beadings (glass pebbles, petite, antique), needle case, minder and threader, thread organiser with bobbins to name a few. The other resources at our links page should be of help.

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Check it out here: Knitting Tips and let me know what you think!

I did go through the 5 day mini course and it was really interesting! It starts right from the basics like casting, the slip knot, casting on single, casting on cable, knitting and goes on details like turning Your work, purling, stockinette, garter, binding off and figuring out gauge – Quite comprehensive, isn’t it?

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