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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I came across this lovely cute resource on machine embroidery designs and thought of sharing with you!

The kids alpha machine embroidery is useful for all kidswear.   I did a small test on my website initials and it looked perfect.  Splendid combination of colours and designs.   The “What a Hoot” is another unique collection of lovely owl applique designs in all forms, shapes and expressions.  Check out the sleepy variety along with this post.  You can notice the particulars of the patterns inside the eye.  The efforts and detailing gone into each design is worth a mention.   The pink and blue color combination are a treat for every kid who would love to wear any dress with such a pattern!

All the designs are machine embroidery and are available in PES, ART, DST, JEF, VIP, EXP, SEW, PCS, SHV, HUS, XXX digitized embroidery formats.  You could buy them in bulk or individual.  Monkeying Around is also worth a peek.  Lots of Dots is so simple yet catches the eye.

All the best for all your embroidery projects!

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I just came across some cute machine embroidery designs – free downloads!   Check out Embroidery Designs Shop.

The sports racing car and the jumping bear are really cute and unique.   These design patterns are readily available for download for the following embroidery machines – tajima, brother, babylock, viking,  janome, kenmore, poem, singer, husqvarna, huskygram, bernina and toyota.   These designs are also compatible with any machine that uses exp, dst, pes, pcs, hus, sew, csd, jef and xxx formats.   Quite an open source!

Check out some important information on machine embroidery formats to get you on your way.

These designs would find useful applications in kidswear, tablecloths and any other party wear items for boys and girls.

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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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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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The HUS machine embroidery format is well known to the modern embroiderer. What exactly is the history behind this relatively mysterious pattern.. Read on!

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 exactly is the meaning of smocking? Smocking denotes an embroidery technique which gathers fabric together at regular intervals so that it shows a stretched fabric. In yester years, this technique was used in cuffs, bodices and necklines of garments. Today, this is used in various end products which would include bedsheets, kids clothes, napkins, curtains, table covers to name a few. We have 3 main types of smocking – Latin American, English and Lattice. Latin American smocking is a technique in which the pleats are gathered and formed in the fabric by the smocking stitchwork itself. English smocking is an historic technique of sewing the embroidery over pleats already sewn into the fabric. Lattice smocking involves stitching from the back side of the fabric, creating unique effects in the pleats and appearance, and is particularly good for heavier fabrics like velvet.

Check out a cute collection of firetruck smocking embroidery designs at Sew Many Designs. Aren’t they a beauty? These form part of a smocking collection by Carol Howard. A lot of detail has gone into the machine embroidery which includes a hose pipe, ladder, wheel bumpers, simple dotted patterns on the wheel and body which makes the whole design look really beautiful.

You also have the option of designing for the 5 by 7 hoops using applique machine embroidery techniques!

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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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What is Feng Shui?

Feng Shui is an ancient concept, pronounced in English as “fung shway”. This was known earlier as “Kan-Yu” which means ‘The Law of Heaven and Earth.’ Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment. Feng shui literally translates as “wind-water.”

Feng shui is a discipline with guidelines that are compatible with many techniques of agricultural planning as well as internal furniture arrangements. Weather, Space, astronomy, and geomagnetism are basic components of feng shui. Proponents claim that feng shui has an effect on health, wealth, and personal relationships; critics consider it a pseudoscience.

Check out some of the symbols of Feng Shui at 4-Hobby. One of them is the Chinese gold fish which you see next to this post. Traditionally the Chinese place eight orange or yellow gold fish and one black goldfish in an aquarium to attract money. The number 8 represents prosperity in Feng Shui. The idea too is that if misfortune hits your family, then the ninth black goldfish will die and receive the misfortune instead of you. This cute embroidery can be downloaded in a pes machine embroidery format.

Yin Yang is a fundamental concept which expresses a duality which cannot exist without both parts. The flowers within the Yin-Yang is added as an embroidery effect.

The resource also contains the famous dragons and the chrysanthemum. The Chinese Peony flowers set is well done in the right pinkish red colours. Apart from the flowers, this set also contains the peony basket, peony square and peony circle.

Wish you a great time with Feng Shui embroideries..!

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