Choosing a Sewing Machine

Type - If you're a beginner, stick to a regular sewing machine, but be careful what you buy. I'm not promoting any particular brands here, but of the available machines out there, I would say a baseline price range for a good beginner machine is in the $300.00 range. I know that sounds like a lot of money, but trust me, you will save money in the long run. If you have the means to buy one of the more expensive, computerized machines, by all means, keep it in consideration. One piece of advice before you run out and buy a $3000 programmable machine: invest some time in researching the different brands and models that are out there. You might actually save yourself some money and you also might discover that although the computerized machines are convenient, they can be troublesome to program if you're not computer-literate.

When to buy - make sure you call ahead to find out the name of a sales rep and determine when he/she will not be busy so you can have their full attention without worrying about taking up your and their time. When making a buying decision that envolves this much money, it's always a good idea to take your time and make sure you're getting what you want and need.

Testing a machine - sit down with the models you are interested in and put them through their paces. After all, when you get the machine home, you're the one that has to thread it, fill bobbins, and use to for making button holes, double stitches, etc. You want to make sure you not only feel comfortable completing those type of tasks with a machine, but you want to also make sure the machine works as advertised.

Bring your own fabric and thread - when test driving a machine that you're interested in, bring your own fabric and threads. Typically, you will want to bring fabric that you intend to use in your sewing projects. Bring a variety as well. Denim, cotton, etc. Don't worry about that either, the salesperson will be happy to accommodate you because they want to show you how superior their machine is.

Take control of the situation - Don't allow the salesperson to pressure and take you over to the most expensive machine they have on the floor first. If they try to, insist that you be shown some mid-range to lower end machines first and explain that you're a beginner and are not ready to make that kind of investment.

I hope you find these tips useful. For more sewing help, visit my website at threebsinsanity.com to learn more.

Stay at home mother of 3 that loves to sew and create children's items and children's item patterns.

Embroidery Digitizing

Embroidery Digitizing, Embroidery digitising, custom digitizing, $3.95 per 1000 stitches

Any Digitizing is one of company for digitizing service in the worldwide. Our team of professional digitizers with more than 15 years experiences would like to offer you the best digitizing services with a very reasonable price.

Any Digitizing is one of company for digitizing service in the worldwide. Our team of professional digitizers with more than 15 years experiences would like to offer you the best digitizing services with a very reasonable price.

http://www.anydigitizing.com/

Embroidery Digitizing, Embroidery digitising, custom digitizing, $3.95 per 1000 stitches

Any Digitizing is one of company for digitizing service in the worldwide. Our team of professional digitizers with more than 15 years experiences would like to offer you the best digitizing services with a very reasonable price.

Any Digitizing is one of company for digitizing service in the worldwide. Our team of professional digitizers with more than 15 ye

Machine Embroidery Digitizing - What You'll Need Besides the Software

You've purchased an embroidery machine, practiced the designs that were included in the package, maybe even bought a disc of designs or downloaded a few designs off the Internet to stitch out. Now you're thinking about investing in digitizing software and taking your embroidery to the next level. But the digitizing program is just a part of what you'll need before entering the creative world of embroidery digitizing.

Choosing the Hardware

An embroidery digitizing program is image editing software capable of converting a digital picture to stitches and saving it in a format that can be read by your embroidery machine. And, like any robust image editor, a digitizing program is resource intensive. The program's packaging will state the manufacturer's recommended minimum computer system specifications to operate the software. Let's take a look at just such a recommendation and see how the 'minimums' stack up. (I won't mention the program or the manufacturer but these are actual recommendations from a popular digitizing software. Yours may vary but probably not by much.)

The Computer

Manufacturer recommends: IBM-PC or compatible computer originally equipped with a USB port.

I recommend: The same.

Operating System

Manufacturer recommends: Windows(R) 98, ME, XP or 2000.
I recommend: Windows(R) XP Pro with the latest Service Pack and updates. You might be able to get by with an antiquated operating system but not for long.

Mouse

Manufacturer recommends: N/A

I recommend: Any comfortable, optical, non-rollerball mouse. When doing imaging you cannot attain the precision you need with a rollerball. And an optical mouse means there is no ball on the bottom to catch or jerk at a critical time.

Processor

Manufacturer recommends: Pentium 500 MHz or higher.

I recommend: Pentium class 1 GB or higher. The faster the processor the better. We're imaging, not typing a letter.

Memory

Manufacturer recommends: Minimum 64 MB (256 MB or higher is recommended.)

I recommend: Minimum 512 MB. Memory is cheap and more is always better. You can never have too much.

Hard Disk Free Space

Manufacturer recommends: Minimum 100 MB

I recommend: You'll need 100 MB free to install the software but you're going to need a lot more than that to store your creations. Purchase a hard drive with a minimum of 40 GB, 80 GB or higher is better. A hard disk is like a garage: It collects junk and you rarely clean it out. Give yourself plenty of room for storage.

Monitor

Manufacturer recommends: SVGA (800x600), 16-bit color or higher.

I recommend: 17" SVGA (1024x768), 32-bit color. You're going to appreciate the extra screen real estate from a large monitor, and you'll need to be able to easily differentiate your thread color choices.

USB Port

Manufacturer recommends: USB Ver. 1.1 or higher.

I recommend: USB Ver. 1.1 or higher, 2 or more. Some programs will run only if a card reader/writer is installed. That's one port taken. If your machine accepts input directly from your computer you'll need another port available to send your finished file to your machine.

Printer

Manufacturer recommends: A graphic printer that is supported by your system (only if you want to print your images).

I recommend: A graphic printer. You will want to print your images and the associated thread color data. As a side note: I'm not sure why anyone would have a printer that was not supported by their system.

CD-ROM Drive

Manufacturer recommends: Required for installation

I recommend: The same, but with a minimum twenty-four-speed (24x) drive speed. A higher speed drive is fine, it transfers data faster but it's also a little noisier.

CD-ROM Recorder Drive (RW)

Manufacturer recommends: N/A

I recommend: Once a year or so when you're in the cleaning mood, you'll want to burn your images to CD to reduce clutter on your hard drive and reorganize.

Deb Schneider is a machine embroidery design digitizer and digitizing instructor offering her machine embroidery designs, Redwork designs and appliques and machine embroidery information on her website: WindstarEmbroidery.com.