Writing MonogramWorks
As I write this, I am stealing precious moments from the final development of MonogramWorks. You’ll see it soon. It has been a large project for me and everyone here at Designer’s Gallery, and I thought the process might be of interest to you. Continue Reading…
10 Tips for Digtizing
It’s January and “Thank heavens all those holiday projects are mostly memories.” Yes, only mostly. Have you ever given something to someone before it was fully completed? I’ve heard this more than a few times over the years, but this year I heard it a lot. It’s the New Year, after all, so you might as well get them back and finish them up!
This year Designer’s Gallery will be 10 years old. It’s gone by in such a flash. And the worst part is that each year goes by successively faster. I’ve always held a 5 year plan for products I’d like to make, and that used to seem like a long time in advance, but now it doesn’t. Is there an appropriate response to the feeling that you’re getting older, and that time is winning out? Yes there is – salute Father Time with the middle digit! Then celebrate every opportunity to participate – make something special for every occasion.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of digitizing. So I thought maybe I could put up a few pointers on that topic. Now, I don’t claim ownership of these – I’ve learned a few things on my own over the years, but some friends of mine have said things more clearly than I managed to do, so I use their wisdom here as well, with their permission. Continue Reading…
We got some videos for our Adorable You! program posted on YouTube! John Deer’s Adorable Ideas put these together and they did a great job!
Whether or not you have Adorable You!, or even an embroidery machine, the project ideas with these techniques are easy to accomplish and people love the result!
Enjoy!
-Brian
Hi everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I’m now also blogging on Ann The Gran.com
So give them a visit if you haven’t been there in a while!
Regards,
-b
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes words are all you’ve got. This month let’s talk about the letters used in embroidery. Specifically, there are two basic types of lettering used in embroidery: Pre-digitized letters and True-Type auto-digitized letters.
Let’s start with True Type letters. True Type letters, originally developed by Apple Computers are the mainstay fonts used in computing. There are also OpenType fonts, a later Microsoft and Adobe technology, which are similar. The fonts describe the letters by drawing the outline of the letter. This outline can be used to create an embroidered letter. The sample below was created using the Letter tool in MasterWorks with the TTF option on an Arial Bold font:
Continue Reading…
The BriTon Leap Store is now open – check us out!
Some of our products can be purchased directly through us, such as our Convert It, Mac and Adorable You! products.
We offer the best prices, the best support and the best return policy anywhere on these products!
Thank you for your support!
Overcoming the 7 Fabric Challenges
I’ve never seen a succinct list of the fabric ‘issues’ in embroidery, so let’s make that list and discuss the problems and solutions:
1.) The fabric ‘pulls’ or ‘puckers up’ because of the tension applied to embroidery thread.
2.) The fabric ‘pushes out’ from being squished flat under the embroidery.
3.) The fabric is a loose knit or weave, therefore stitches that are close together wind up in the same needle-hole.
4.) The fabric has a nap which can poke up in-between the embroidery stitches.
5.) The fabric gets perforated by the needle which can weaken or even cut out a hole.
6.) The fabric slides around in the hoop.
7.) The fabric gets marks from the hoop, A.K.A. ‘Hoop Burn’. Continue Reading…
We had a great time at the Love of Sewing retreat in Providence. A big hello to the Blue, Yellow, Green and Red groups! Red – you gals were a lot of fun, but I’m still blushing.
Here’s a photo of Nancy Zieman giving one of her talks. Sorry about the photo quality.
Nancy Zieman
The Gallery Connection October ’09 – Embroidery Software Basics
Typical Embroidery Application
I was in St. Louis last week. Got to see the arch during a nice little traffic jam. It made for an interesting place to be stuck in traffic – here’s the iPhone photo:
Traffic at the Arch
Also I went over to Calico Country in Carbondale, IL. (Go Salukis) We had a couple nice days and the events went well. We talked about Interactives, CustomWorks II and MasterWorks. There was a glitch with serial numbers on the DensityWorks boxes, but by now that’s been resolved.
Coming home Sunday morning, I took Hwy 3. It was beautiful! Even got to see Chester, IL, home of Popeye.
Thanks to all my new friends in Southern IL!
Janice at Sew-Vac, Ellicott City, MD
We had a great event on Saturday at Sew-Vac in Maryland! We got a chance to explain and show the Designer’s Gallery products and Adorable You! We even made a shirt together.
Thanks to everyone who attended!
So Mr. Jobs and the team at Apple released an updated OS X called Snow Leopard. We were nervous. But then got word from some of our customers that Convert It, Mac is working fine! Hooray!
So after some worrying about it, Chris came up with a solution – for me to teach the classes at BLT via Webex. So we tried it and it worked! Three days of Selling Designer’s Gallery classes with no significant tech problems. The only issue with teaching this way is that it is hard to get feedback from the audience. You can’t see their faces and they tend not to respond because they forget that you’re ‘live’. Anyway I’ve had lots of positive response so we pulled it off successfully. Still, I’d rather have been there.
Each year I look forward to Baby Lock Tech, our annual dealer convention. But this year I won’t be attending.
See, I got the flu last week. Even though I’m over it and the doctor says I’m not contagious, people will still worry. The ’swine flu’ epidemic has everyone scared. It’s better not to have the concern, so I’m not going.
Stay Well!
From my last post:
As Office, Vista, Visual Studio and Internet Explorer all have horrible issues making them virtually unusable, I’m wondering how long it will be for a competitor to take some market share. Continue Reading…
More? Yes more.
Vista and the UAC thing. No I’m not going to complain about what you think. I don’t mind a mode that asks me if I really clicked that button. I can turn it off, which I’ve naturally done. No the thing is that Microsoft has no brain in their organization, and if they do, that person is locked away somewhere. Continue Reading…
I have repeatedly tried this Vista thing. And I’ve decided to warn you all about it. This is my fourth Un-Install of Vista. So let me start with what’s going on: It is S-L-O-W. Continue Reading…
I have never seen a company implode as fast as Microsoft seems to be doing. I am a long-time user of many of their products, and I have to say how disappointed I am. Worse, I cannot get away from them because I make products for you, who mostly use their operating systems.
So let me complain about some specifics: Continue Reading…
I always have fun when I’m hanging out with Sally and Lee. After the last event I did in Nashville, Lee took me out on his sailboat. He even let me have a good long turn with the tiller!
Sally put up some photos from the event, so I thought I’d put the link in here.
