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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What is an avatar?
1.     Hindu Mythology. the descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god.
2.     An embodiment or personification, as of a principle, attitude, or view of life.
3.     Computers. a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet.

But in the 21st century, this common term “avatar” is normally referred to describe an icon or virtual representation of a person within cyberspace.  Avatars crop up in forums, blogs, and other shared communities (e.g. MySpace) on the internet.

So an avatar is a small 64 by 64 pixel image you choose to represent yourself in online environments; this helps to define your identity inside an online community. The most common use is on forums.  This distinguishes members from one and other, creates an identity and in some way stimulates the creative senses to be what he or she visualises an alternative self.

Your avatar will appear next to your message in forums.  Avatars are also used for other things (e.g. During a chat over AOL Instant Messenger, in some chat rooms, or even on a web site updates page.)

The popular resources to create your own avatar are  DoppleMe,  Your Own Avatar.    Once you have created one, you could get it embroidered for free at Pixel Hobby.    This is a free embroidery software where you could upload the image and almost immediately the software develops the embroidery design along with the colour details. You could then click on the print option which gives the details of the color codes, base plates and pixels. Finally you have an option for ordering the necessary base plates and threads required for stitching the particular design.

Check out Avatar 1 boy embroidered using Pixel hobby with 37 colors and 2000 pixels sized at 4 by 5 inches.   The second one below is the avatar girl with 41 colors sized at 4 by 5 inches.

All the best creating your own avatar embroidered pattern!

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Dear All,

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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This embroidery design software borders on the line dividing home embroidery and industrial embroidery. Corel Draw functionalities have been used completely here. High resolution machine embroidery from graphic images using Corel Draw are created using high end digital imaging software. The name of the software is Smart Draw. This uses Corel Draw Add on software for embroidery and also could be used for production ready digital art on CDROM. I will focus solely on the first category which I hope would prove useful to our readers. Smart Designer X3 adds 110 new menus on the Corel Draw (version > 11) and transforms this software from a general graphics program into an industry specifics program which can be used for garment printing, embroidery and other products.

The Drawings X3 Standard Edition is used by home embroiderers. This uses Draw Stitch technology and converts vector images in Corel Draw into premium quality machine embroidery designs. The advantage is that the density, underlay and composition of each design can be preset and adjusted using this technology.

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Check out this collection of applique and puff embroidery at Mushroom Monday Screen Printing & Embroidery. This is done using digitized embroidery done specific to your custom requirements which specifically caters to groups of people or staff with a common logo or symbol. Made to order – this is ideal for a complete set of jacket or headgear for your employees or particular group of friends who identify with a common cause. Mushroom Monday have 22 years experience with an impressive clientele. Their mission statement reads : “To provide quality products to our customers with unsurpassed customer service.”

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Embroidery softwares form a powerful tool in effective designing and an embroiderer often uses these tools for monograms, digitizing, sizing, fonts to name a few. Digitizing is the art of porting simple embroidery designs, photos, logos or clipart into a computer readable format which makes it a standard and universal method of replicating these designs to the same specifications in the shortest possible time.

Check out this collection of softwares at Sewing Machine Outlet. Apart from the digitizing softwares available, they have unique sizing and monogram software. The Melco sizing software has features like full scaling of designs with automatic stitch adjustment, it can rotate and transform designs, can adjust stitch counts by adding or removing stitches to retain design quality and has the ability to read or write major commercial and home formats. The embroidery card convertor boxes has the ability to read and write most embroidery formats to blank card and can download pre-digitized designs from internet, PC, hard drive. A blank card can hold up to 6 designs at a time and can work with almost all embroidery machines and existing embroidery software.

The click ‘n stitch ‘xtra with applique software (you can see the front cover above this post) can quickly create embroidery, cross-stitch and applique designs from clip art or scanned images.

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Here is a great resource on some pretty embroidery fonts – The Embroidery Font Shop. All of them would make great appliques. Each font category has unique characteristics and should be used appropriately for the right person and dress. For example, the Aristocrat font denotes classiness while the Funky font is more casual. The Flirty font is best for teens, whilst the Monster font is the kids favourite. There are some good wedding fonts like Silverbell, Charming or Edwardian which you could use for special invites.
All fonts come in small, medium and large sizes with 26 letters. If the font style is such that the size varies depending on whether it is at the center or right/left position, then you would have both the size options. The embroidery fonts come in Jef, art, pcs, pcd, xxx, exp, csd, pec, pes, sew, hus, dst, vip formats (the information on machine embroidery would come in handy here).

Some of them are quite unique like Tinkertoy, Antique, Skittles. A good auto digitizing software for embroidery fonts is Singer Hyper Font – Font Auto Digitizing Software. The hyper font software easily converts any Windows True Type (R) font into embroidery embellishments.

Happy Embroidery Fonting!

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Where does the Amazing Box find its place in the world of embroidery designs? – The Embroidery Reader/Writer box also known as Amazing Box sits between the computer/memory card and the embroidery machine and works as a communication link between them.

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.

We introduce you here to a resource of Embroidery Reader/Writer boxes – popularly called Amazing Boxes – AllBrands.com – Type “Amazing Box” in the search box and you would find a range of products to choose from depending on your requirement.

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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Another great resource for you on free machine embroidery designs – ABC Embroidery. A repository of good embroideries indeed! Almost all the free patterns are perfectly suitable for 4×4 embroidery hoops. The information and tutorial on endless hoop embroidery designs would be helpful here.

The butterfly next to this post is a cutwork special – 2.91″ x 2.84″, contains 7246 stitches and is made of one single color. You can download this in all embroidery formats – ART, PES, HUS, JEF, XXX, DST, EXP, SHV, VIP or PCS. Special cutwork embroidery instructions have been included along with this download.

The information on digitizing embroidery software would come in useful if you are interested in knowing more about how one interfaces the PC with the embroidery machine.

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For all lovers of machine embroidery patterns, this is a great resource of free downloadable embroidery designs, (all in NGS format) – Stitch.com. If you want to convert the format from NGS to something compatible with your embroidery machine, pls go to Coats EDV – You can register yourself OR use this login – “shikhadeepak@gmail.com” and password -”welcome” – all small case letters – and download the free software – Coats EDV16. Armed with this software, you can see the digitized embroidery designs used to programme major makes of embroidery machines.

You can also use it for tracking your designs and exchanging information with key friends and customers without worrying about the machine format. As for the free embroidery patterns, the best I liked was the rooster beside the post. Very colourful and complete in all respects. The shaded effect and the feathers are done exceptionally well.

Thanks to one and all for the overwhelming comments on my various posts. Keep writing back to me on your expectations OR on any topic that you found interesting! You can use the “Contact Us” button right at the bottom of any Embroidery Designs Guide page.

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