Yes, but if you are reading this on our website, you probably already have one.

1. An embroidery machine.

2. The software to transfer designs to the embroidery machine. Many home embroiderers have machines that require that a small memory card be inserted in the machine, and they buy pre-programmed design cards from the machine manufacturer.

Each embroidery machine manufacturer uses a slightly different system, but all have software packages that use your computer to transfer designs from the computer to the embroidery machine. You need to have this software to use our designs. We can provide custom digitized designs on memory cards in .pes and .hus format, but we do not sell Monogram Sets, Background sets, or Decorative Border Sets on Memory Cards.

Memory cards are expensive for us to purchase, and therefore expensive for the end user. Aside from this limitation, the cards don't hold enough stitches to accommodate many of our Monogram Sets.

Absolutely not. Home machine manufacturers typically say that they will not honor warranties for machine failures caused by third-party memory cards. This is one way for them to guide you toward purchasing designs only from them.

Since we do not provide our sets on memory cards, this is not an issue.

For custom digitized designs on memory cards, we use the manufacturer's system to transfer the design to the memory card, which is no different than you would do if you digitized your own designs.

In computer circles, font or typeface implies that by typing out a word or name on a computer keyboard, an automatic result follows. Our Monogram Sets are individual embroidery designs that happen to be letters. In order to create words or names, individual designs are either merged, or embroidered side-by-side.

We use a Gemini 3000 Artist system, a full-featured commercial digitizing system. After digitizing, the designs are converted to embroidery machine formats.

Commercial embroiders are often suspicious of our designs, because they are used to paying $ 25.00 for an individual design, $ 150.00 for a set.

Because our prices are so reasonable, they assume that the designs must be inferior in some way.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We are an award-winning digitizing company, and began in the commercial embroidery marketplace in 1993. We still do a considerable amount of custom digitizing for commercial embroiderers.

Each letter, background, or border is individually sewn out and edited before it is offered for sale.

If you are still skeptical, we have a free download "Letter of the Month". Each month we offer a different letter from a different monogram set as a free sample, in a self-extracting zip file containing 7 different machine formats.

All of the larger, open fill designs are programmed for applique, so that you can put a different color fabric behind the letter, to isolate it from the fabric you are sewing on (plaid, for instance). The applique programming consists of three parts:

1. A running stitch, which establishes the basic letter outline.

2. A machine stop, so that the applique fabric can be attached.

3. A light density column, or zigzag stitch, to help stabilize the edge of the cut-out fabric.

All of this is eventually covered by the decorative border, which is sewn last.

Each of our larger letters is programmed with an applique, which allows the design to be sewn with a background color different than the garment. If this is not an issue, then the applique need not be used.

Although there is some personal preference in how to execute an applique, we prefer the following procedure:

1. Hoop a manila file folder, or a heavy paper sheet in the hoop that you will be using for these designs, and run the beginning of the design (running stitch). Remove this perforated pattern from the hoop, and carefully cut out the shape of the letter along the needle penetrations. Mark the front of the design. (If you plan to run large quantities of each letter, it might be worth considering having the appliquee blanks die cut).

2. Apply a heat-fusible backing to the reverse side of the applique fabric. Although some embroiderers use spray adhesive for this procedure, we prefer this approach, using "Wonder-Under" Pellon transfer web, or something similar (available at sewing centers) because it does not gum up the embroidery needles and is not as messy to use as spray adhesive.

3. Turn over the pattern, and trace around it onto the paper surface of the Pellon backing.

4. Carefully cut out the applique.

5. Hoop the garment, and run the design from the beginning to the end of the running stitch outline. (There is a machine stop inserted in the design, which is the same type of machine code as a color change. Depending on your embroidery machine, you may have to manually stop the machine at the conclusion of the outline. If you do not want to use a different thread color for the tack-down stitching on the outline, the same needle should be entered twice in the initial sewing sequence.)

6. Remove the Pellon paper backing. Using an applique iron, or a conventional iron, depending on the hoop size, heat-seal the applique fabric to the garment utilizing the outline previously sewn. You may find it easier to do this if you remove the hoop, with garment, from the machine and place it on a flat surface.

7. Restart the design. The low-density column stitch will secure the edges of the applique, and the design will continue to sew. The border of the design will cover the column stitch on the edges so that it is not visible once the design has sewn completely.

 

Nothing. Just sew past the first three steps, or skip them.

Yes. Our larger Monogram Set borders are quite interesting alone. Just skip the part of the design that sews the bluebirds, teddy bears, etc.

Using this method, you can also use the applique and only the border.

These are our basic seven formats: Singer, P.O.E.M (.csd), Tajima (.dst), Melco expanded (.exp), Husqvarna/Viking (.hus), Pfaff (.pcs), Babylock, Brother, Bernina (.pes), Janome/New Home, Elna (.sew).

Pfaff for Mac (.pcm) is available as a special order.

Barudan FDR III, Barudan FMC,Marco, and ZSK are available as a special order. Please specify whether you need high-density or double-density diskettes for these formats.

Yes. Making copies of our designs to give to others is a violation of our copyright.

Beyond the legal issues, copying and distributing designs has an adverse effect on design production in general. In order to be able to afford the development costs, companies that produce designs need to make a reasonable return on the time invested to create and digitize the designs. Without this, new and exciting designs will not be created.

Yes. Commercial use of these designs is unrestricted.

Assuming that you have the software capacity to change design size, either through machine manufacturers software, or third-party software, you can change the size of the designs.

Although they sometimes go by different names, there are basically two kinds of embroidery design files: Condensed and Expanded.

Condensed designs consist of source points that describe the outline of shapes, the curve of satin column stitches, etc. When a software program changes the size of a condensed design, the source points are moved, and the computer then recalculates the stitch density, length, etc. based on predetermined settings, some of which you can control or customize.

Expanded designs consist of stitch information that tells the hoop where to be for each stitch. When an expanded design is resized, the stitch information doesn't change, so the result is that the stitches get further apart, or closer together, depending on whether the design is being enlarged or reduced.

Our designs are in expanded format. However, unlike designs with lots of fills, and designs that are very dense, these designs are influenced by traditional handwork, so they are loosely digitized - as though a human being made them with needle, thread, and patience.

Consequently, our designs scale more successfully than most expanded designs.

10-15% either up or down will not be a problem. Enlarging has less problems than expanding, since, even if the stitches are further apart, a heavier 30wt thread can always be used, and often creates unusual and creative effects. Reducing design size too much may cause thread breaks as the stitches get closer together.

Some newer home machine software programs, and many commercial digitizing software programs come with conversion programs that convert expanded embroidery files to condensed embroidery files, and recalculate the stitches. A simple way to tell what your resizing software is doing is to check the number of stitches in the design after it has resized it. If the number of stitches has changed, then the program is working in a condensed format.

 

Many of our Monogram Sets come in two sizes. For example, our Victorian Monogram Set 1 comes in either 2 1/4" ( 59mm) or 1 5/8" (40mm).

Both sizse are packaged together so that you can quickly set up a traditional monogram, with a larger center letter flanked by two smaller letters, without haveing to go through the effort of rescaling.

While this is a big issue for some home embroiderers, it really shouldn't be.

Commercially produced designs, other than those marketed by the original machine manufacturers, often have arbitrarily assigned screen colors. Ours are no exception.

The purpose of a screen color is simply to identify one color change from another. There is no relationship between a screen color and a thread color. You can use whatever thread color you like to sew out a design.

Also, since our designs are not naturalistic, they are open to an enormous range of creative experimentation. Even our Bluebirds don't have to be blue just because we chose to call them bluebirds.

Embroidery thread comes in hundreds of different colors, and choosing a slightly different blue or red will often change the look of the design. Colors can also be changed or adjusted to take the surrounding fabric color into consideration.

We encourage you to be creative, and not to be limited in your creativity by sticking to the screen colors. We provide suggested thread colors in a .txt file that accompanies the designs.

If you really want the screen colors to match our suggested colors, your software should allow you to change the screen colors.

Yes. Designs acquired by download or on diskette come with a text file (.txt) that contains information about sewing sequences, thread colors, etc.

If you are trying to read this file from within your embroidery software program, and are looking for files with embroidery format extensions, the .txt file format won't show up. Try changing the file format option to "All files (*.*)", or look for the file in Windows Explorer or My Computer.

If you have purchased designs from one of our retail dealers, or by mail order, the designs are multi-format, and include an installation wizard for installing them to your computer. Follow the directions that come with the packaging and on the diskette labels.

If you downloaded designs from our website, see the instructions below.

1. The downloaded designs are compressed ("zipped"), and need to be extracted before they can be used. To extract the files, locate them through Windows Explorer, or My Computer. The files are self-extracting, and have an .EXE extension. They have a little rectangle icon with a blue border and a white center.

Double click on the zipped file icon, and the file will self-extract.

Complete Monogram Sets have 52 design files (The exception is the Greek Set- the greek alphabet has only 24 letters, so this set has 48 design files), along with 1 .txt file with information about thread colors, sewing sequence, etc. in a file format specific to your machine's software. File extensions are: Singer, P.O.E.M (.csd), Tajima (.dst), Melco expanded (.exp), Husqvarna/Viking (.hus), Pfaff (.pcs), Babylock, Brother, Bernina (.pes), Janome/New Home, Elna (.sew).

Individual letters come as a zipped file with all 7 of these formats, along with the .txt file. You would simply use the format that you need, and delete the others.

2. The designs will be in a download folder, which is within your internet service provider's software. Locate this download file through Windows Explorer, and then extract the files.

After the files are extracted, they can be transferred to your embroidery program library.

Go to the "Start" button, then to "Find" files or folders. Type in the filename, and then click on the "Find Now" button. The program will search your hard drive until the file is located.

For designs purchased and downloaded, you should have received a confirmation e-mail message about your purchase. This confirmation message contains a link to allow the downloaded product to be downloaded again if the internet transmission is broken, or if there are other technical problems associated with the transaction. Click on this link, and download your purchase again, this time making a note of the filename. All purchased designs for download have filenames in a similar format: e.g. 98157.

If you experience difficulty downloading purchased files, or if the download is interrupted, you can re-download your purchase without having to pay for it again. Go to http://www.digitalriver.com/cs/ and follow the customer service instructions. You can also call 1-800-351-1290 (24hrs, 7 days a week).

For the free "Letter of the Month", go to http://www.embroideryarts.com/free/free.html and download the file again. You might also bookmark this page so that you can come back to the free download page next month without having to fill out our mailing list form.