Embroidery Designs Guide

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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..!

True to its name, here is some seemingly simple but dazzling Unique Embroidery. This website has a selection of close to 180 free embroidery designs and it is growing by the day. Check the leafy petalled flower, elegantly embroidered using 7438 stitches. This is sized at 5.09 by 5.09 inches and is available for free download in ART, DST, EXP, HUS, JEF, PES, VIP, XXX machine embroidery formats. The information on how to convert the files from PC compatible software to your embroidery machine would come in handy and you could read it at PC-Machine formats embroidery.

The second embroidery design that caught my attention is the unique necklace. Using a combination of 2 vibrant colours, the pattern is beautiful. This has 8744 stitches and is sized at 9.36 by 14.41 inches. Both the outer and inner stitches combine to form this unique pattern.

Have you come across any such unique collections in your world of embroidery. You could showcase your designs at All Free Embroidery Designs. Feel free to share!

I thought of treating all of you to some of the best free embroidery design resources available on the web. Check out the first resource at ABC. This contains good quality free machine embroidery designs. Once you register and log in to the website, you can avail of the design formats available in art, pes, hus, pcs, jef, xxx, dst, exp, shv, vip and sew formats. For more information on these formats, reach out at PC Machine embroidery formats. Most of the embroidery patterns are less than 5 inches in width and height with not more than 15 color threads which makes it quite easy to replicate. Debsews has a small but cute collection of free applique embroidery designs. The free standing lace coaster is done quite symmetrically well. FreeTommy displays one new free embroidery design every hour. Most of these designs are cross stitch and done quite beautifully. All Free Embroidery Designs displays a free design every day and has a collection of free embroideries. You could log into this resource. You could also submit your free embroidery design at All-Free for display.

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.

Elk, moose and deer have one common feature which is accentuated in any painting or embroidery and this feature are the horns. These horns or antlers form a woven pattern in itself and various creative mazes can come into view over the animal’s head. This common feature differentiated these designs from ordinary animal embroidery designs and they formed a subtype called elk embroidery designs.

Check out this collection at Joann Designs. This is a vast resource of various types of moose, deer and elk. What is unique is that outlines and silhouttes of deer are also covered in this resource. The mix of designs is good which gives it a wholistic view.

The deer you see to your left is one of the examples. This is 4.44 inches width by 6.03 inches height with a stitch count of 19178. This is available in most machine embroidery formats like CND, CSD, DST, EXP, HUS, JEF, PES, SEW, XXX, PCS. The information on machine embroidery would come in handy here.

Some of the other ones which you should not miss are the charging deer, oval fawn scene and moose outline. The moose in circle you see adjacent here is another example of a good patch-in which can find uses in various home embroidery items. This is a 3.69 inches width by 3.69 inches height with a stitch count of 13919. The number of colors used here are 6.