Free Embroidery Designs

I would like to buy some alphabet designs from the internet, and I have the PED Basic software to put them onto a memory card for my Brother PE-150 machine. If I remember correctly from my first machine(this is my second time owning this kind of machine), I can put the letters into individual files on the card. I want to know how to merge the letters into a word, such as a name, so that I don’t have to embroidery each letter individually. I haven’t yet opened the PED Basic program, because I wanted to find out if I needed something else first. Thanks!

You need an editing software program. Embird is very popular with home machine embroiderers. Your start with basic and then add other programs as you wish.

You can get a trial here – http://www.secretsof.com/content/1853?PHPSESSID=d577402e3683026a2f7c375ffeec4ca0

And here is a free tutorial for combining letters into words – http://www.annaboveembroidery.com/usemfo.html

It looks like a slot for something like a compact flash card. Does anyone know what type of card this is? I can’t imagine I’d have to buy "special" cards. I know I’ll need software to digitize/convert images in PES format. I’d imagine the software also knows how to format the card so it can be read by the embroidery machine.

First, you have to have a card reader for machine embroidery and then you buy the card for your machine that is compatible with the card reader.

You use Brother memory cards or cards made for Brother machines. Again – these have to be compatible with the reader box.

You get these items from an embroidery machine dealer – preferable on-line.

Walk-in dealers don’t always have the cards in all formats, or any at all and have to order what you need.

They are more expensive than at online dealers.

To take advantage of downloading from the Internet, you need a card reader and a rewritable memory card.

You can get Brother’s PED Basic with a card for about $100 – On-line.

This is one dealer that I have bought from. They have a graphic showing how the card reader works. Note the PC requirements. http://www.sewingsupplywarehouse.com/pedbasic.html

Another dealer that I have bought from – http://www.allbrands.com/products/abp01060-0165.html

Digitizing is a horse of another color. This is software that allows you to create your own designs or digitize pictures and clip art. It is fairly expensive around $1,000.

You can download a free trial of Embird Embroidery Software here – http://www.secretsof.com/content/1853?PHPSESSID=f1d6a79654e8e476eaffaf7784b652a6 It is a very popular software and what you are downloading is the Basic program. It doesn’t digitize, but it is the base component for this software.

As you learn and want to expand, you buy plug-ins that allow you to digitize, among other things.

Free designs to download (I have used many of them) – http://www.brother-usa.com/HomeSewing/GetCreative/free-designs.aspx

When you buy or download designs, make sure they are no larger than 4 x 4. That is the maximum stitching area for the 350.