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[piebaldbully]

I have seen by others as well as Cutiepie that Embrid is the best user friendly program to use to digitize. I would like to know how others have learned to digitize????? Trial and Error or friends or classes ? I would love to learn to do this just for my hobby and for resale however, I am a perfectionist. I make alot of things and give them away and yes all at my expense. I can afford several hundred dollars to get a program to understand or classes someone where to being the process.. I am in the twin cities , Minnesota area ( I have looked up on the web and can't seem to find anything) I could however be looking in the wrong places.
I have access to unlimited clip art from my 11 yr that rivals the clip art sites I have seen. I currently own a Singer CE200 and my future machine is a babylock. I am totally addicted... Thanks Wendi

[Cutiepie]

Well, Wendi, to tell the truth, I have never used Embird. I have just heard that it is very user-friendly. The digitizing software I started out with is called Embroidery Magic 2. It is very inexpensive (less than $100) since it comes with practically no instruction. For that, I turned to a neat lady called Aunty M, who sells a VERY GOOD tutorial for EM2 (you can Google her). She is wonderful because she invites those who buy her tutorial to join a special Yahoo Group where she will give personal assistance on just about any problem you may have.

Of course, if you have a bit more money to spare, you could go with Fancyworks Studio, which is made by the same company (Pantograms) that makes EM2. Fancyworks is newer and has more bells and whistles. The same tutorial will work however, since there are very few basic differences between the two.

[piebaldbully]

Thanks for the info again. I did want to correct that this is only for a hobby and NOT I repeat not for resale.

[Silver]

I have rarely met anyone who 'casually' (doing the odd job for family friends and groups they are associated with) earned back their investment in buying digitizing software. Considering the fact that the programs easily run in the hundreds or thousands of dollars and how relatively little most digitizers earn using a 'hobby' approach my advise is don't buy more software than you really need. Buying software that will do basic designs and the oh-so-important ability to do lettering is usually a good place to start. You will probably not be able to do 'professional' looking designs for months... sometimes even years! If you need a top notch design buying one will be the smartest choice for most embroiderers.

I learned all of my software the hard way... by trial and error and error and error lol.

The dealer who sold you the software might be able to give you lessons, in a group or individually... IMO they owe their customers that. I know when I was looking at software I met a several dealers who would sell it to me but had no idea as to how it worked... I asked myself what am I gonna do when I can't get the darn program to cooperate for me?? Calling a manufacturer can be a hit-or-miss proposition. They are often hard to get hold of and usually rushed for time (they will often only have one or two people to service a whole nation of consumers!).
You can buy a professional tutorial as CutiePie mentioned, that's great for late evening when you need to get something done and just can't get the darn thing to work for you. This will help reinforce what you learned in one-on-one lessons too.
Or consider joining a Yahoo group for that specific software... If you join one group and they are less than friendly don't give up... there are many nice groups out there too.

Digitizing is a LOT of fun, and I love it but I no longer have any notion of making back what I have invested in it. I think I could have made some smarter choices early on... but hey, we all make mistakes. I see people scrimp on the machine they buy only to invest loads of money on digitizing software that is either too complicated or just over steps their needs... That always makes me feel sad. I changed my way of thinking last year and decided that investing in a really fast, durable (not that expensive!) multi-thread machine and buying great looking designs was the best way to earn back some of my thread money and in my case this has been a good decision. I have wasted a whole lot of money over the years on digitizing software... Buying programs dealers said fit my needs when in fact it fit their needs(for quick profit) to sell it to me have taken their toll on my wallet...(and then there are the endless expensive upgrades... but that is another boring story!)
Please don't make the mistake(s) I have!

Silver