About me and the EmbroideryWare software startup

By | May 17, 2016

Hi my name is Jim. The following is a short story about me and the EmbroideryWare software startup.

About me

I started sewing in college when I bought my first sewing machine to build touring packs for my bicycle. It is still in my inventory. A SailRite walking foot sewing machine (eBay affiliate link) and a PFAFF 1222E (eBay affiliate link) was later added to the stable.

My interest in embroidery started when I got the idea to embroider towels. My guests needed a way to identify their towel from others. Without this they would use several new towels which meant tons of laundry to do.

The Brother PE-770 was the first embroidery machine I bought. The machine was great but I quickly outgrew it. It has found a new home with a good friend.  I got a custom oil painting in exchange.  I think I got the better deal. 🙂

The brother taught me a lot about embroidery. It is a great machine for someone starting out in embroidery.  I embroidered all the towels mentioned above on this machine.

One project that proved challenging on the brother was a Celtic knot I designed to be applied to the edge of a curtain.  The Celtic knot had endpoint that did not line up with the 9 alignment points available in the brother.  The brother has nine fixed alignment points, center, four corners and four midpoints of the edges. I need an alignment point at a specific stitch in the design.

To figure out if there was better alignment technique; I spent many hours watching youtube videos on embroidery design positioning. While watching these videos I came upon ones on the Viking Designer Diamond (eBay Affiliate Link). The videos of the Diamond showed me that design positioning can be simple. The Diamond achieves this by using a datum point and a rotation point. The datum point could be placed at the specific stitch in the design that I wanted.  This resulted in me buying a used Viking Designer Diamond on eBay. It is truly a wonderful machine.

EmbroideryWare software startup

When getting familiar with the Diamond I found designs stored in it that stitched out like they were hand sewn. The embroidery digitizing program that I used did not have this capability. This missing capability became the inspiration to develop a program. The program was started in December of 2015 and was originally called “Handstitch”. It later was renamed “EmbroideryWare”.

Writing this program started out as a small project but now has turned into a passion. It is a fully capable fun to use digitizing program. You will discover this once you start using it.

International following

EmbroideryWare has an international following.  Below is a list of countries that have visited.  Welcome!

International following

Spread the word

If you want to show me support you can do it many ways. Most importantly tell others about it. Also you can like my facebook page, subscribe to my youtube channel and twitter accounts.

If you use the affiliate links in the side bar they will take you to the home pages of eBay, Fabric.com and Amazon.  This is recorded as an referral which will benefit EmbroderyWare.  If you make a purchase, I thank you!  Eventually I will have products in the store you can buy.

I am active in sewing forums here in the United States as “jimmysb”. Unfortunately, I am not aware of forums around the world. This is where you come in. If you actively participate in sewing forums in your community I would appreciate if you mention your experiences with EmbroideryWare.

Thanks!
Jim

One thought on “About me and the EmbroideryWare software startup

  1. Becky Moyer

    I have 2 designs under my belt and I need to really sit down and become engulfed in the manual. Thank you for bringing affordable software for us embroiderers. I am sure to learn many more things and how to digitize from jpeg and other files. People are amazed at the embroidery that I have done before I purchased EmbroideryWare. Just wait till I start designing my own!

    Becky Moyer

Comments are closed.