Embroidery sewing machines have been around for several years. However, all of the machine embroidery was originally done by very big expensive machines reserved for specialty businesses. Time was if you wanted your own logos sewn onto promotional items, then you went to a specialist embroidery business to get it done.

Thanks to the decreasing costs of computers and advances in technology, home sewers now have the capability of achieving very good results with their home sewing machines. Creating custom machine embroidery is often referred to as embroidery digitizing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this involves a personal computer, an embroidery sewing machine and special machine embroidery digitizing software.

Using embroidery digitizing software from your PC can enable you to transfer a design into one which can then be embroidered. However, this is not that simple and does require a certain amount of skill. You will need to dissect the design into layers and plan how each area will look together with another. Once the basic design has been digitized, you then need to use the special software tools to fine-tune the design so that it will look good once your embroidery sewing machine has worked its magic.

Because thread embroidery designs are in 3-D, not all designs will look decent once digitized. Thankfully, the software does show you which areas you should reconsider.

To be successful with machine embroidery digitizing software you must be an experienced seamstress and know about how different fabrics move and work as this will impact on your designs. Machine embroidery digitizing software does use up a lot of memory and resources on your computer so make sure yours has sufficient memory to run it or you could be still waiting next year! Thankfully, most personal computers today are up to the job, but the more memory and more efficient processor the better.

So what should you look for when buying machine embroidery digitizing software? Make sure your computer is compatible and has a specification at or over the requirements suggested by the software manufacturer. You need to be able to control the scaling, match components to the grids on the screen, have zoom in and out facilities and to be able to pan from one area of a design to another. One thing that will save time is if the software will allow you to expand or shrink the designs and automatically adjust your stitch count and density to meet the new size. This can save you an awful lot of time. Ensure also that your machine embroidery digitizing software includes the ability to see the true thread colors on your computer screen and on your printer. This will make sure you use the correct colors in your designs.

You may have noticed that machine embroidery digitizing software is not a simple process and is therefore unsuitable for the inexperienced seamstress or computer user. However, once you learn the basics, you can put your embroidery sewing machine to very good use either as a hobby or for business use.

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