The Saga of the Download Queen
After months of thinking, looking and talking about embroidery machines, you’ve done your research, you are over the sticker shock and you are now ready to purchase your first embroidery machine! So, cheque book in hand and dragging a very reluctant husband to the sewing store, you decide to purchase that really, really expensive machine that you fell in love with immediately after watching a demo and listening to an enthusiastic salesperson tell you all that you would be able to do with the machine, and of course mentioning that it was very easy to learn and that you could go home and embroider any design immediately, all the while listening to your husband muttering in the background, “My first car cost less than that!” Then you have to purchase a “few” spools of thread to get you started, one or two shades of red, one or two shades of blue, one or two shades of green, and on and on; as your husband is still muttering in the background, “I could buy gas for the car a lot cheaper than that”!
Off you go home and set up the embroidery machine. You have a card for your machine, so you embroider your first four-inch design on anything that is handy – and you are hooked! But you realize that you have just started and there is so much more you need. So back to the sewing store, where they greet you with great enthusiasm! But this time you leave your husband at home because now you have to buy stabilizer, sticky spray, more thread, the perfect pair of scissors, etc. and his muttering is really, really distracting!
Now you have almost broken the bank, but you want to do some embroidery with more than the designs on the card that came with the machine. And you realize you need a computer so you can find all those free designs that every one is telling you about. Dragging your ever-more reluctant husband along, you are off to the computer stores to do some research on a computer. You tell the oh-so-young clerk that you want a computer for embroidery and he gives you “that look” and starts talking to your husband as he is quite sure you have lost your mind. With a very large sigh, your husband tells the computer clerk that “she really does need a computer for embroidery” and so you decide on a computer that will be just what you need. Of course, you do need a CD burner and a few other bells and whistles, reminding the clerk that your friend told you not to forget the printer and scanner and a thumb drive too! While your husband is muttering about purchasing a new truck to replace his car, you pay for the computer, pack it up, take it home, unpack it, get it all set up and then sign up for an internet connection!
What’s next? You have the embroidery machine and the computer, but where are the free designs? So you join multi mailing lists and learn about all the sites to download designs, merrily going from web site to web site downloading every design you can find. As you download the designs, you simply throw them into the “My Documents” folder, as that is the default folder that opens.
After winning the award for the Download Queen of the Month three months in a row you realize that you don’t have a clue what you have downloaded because (a) most of the files are zipped and (b) you are not sure what freebie811.zip really is. And how do you unzip files?
Vaguely in the back of your mind you remember that on one of those mailing lists you heard about another software program you just had to have, as everyone keeps talking about the miracle of Embird. Oh, you tell your husband, who is anxiously checking the amount in the bank account, “It’s a free download, honey”, not mentioning that it is only free for 30 days or 100 uses. Oh, look, you can now see all those free designs in Embird! And it shows the zip files too! But what are all those funny letters at the end of each design – .pes, .hus, .dst? They won’t work in my embroidery machine! So you now learn about converting designs to your format.
The time has finally come to sort out and organize those designs and take them out of My Documents which of course in hindsight you should have sorted out while downloading, but who had time, there were too many designs to download and no time to organize!- and lo and behold, Embird will do that, too! But your 100 uses are up. Oh, my, that only took ten days! Oh, but you heard that you could change colours with Embird and a few other wonderful things, so you must purchase it; and the wonderful thing is you can purchase on line!
Every morning, you rush to the computer to read the messages from all those mailing lists, and while reading the messages someone mentions Embroidery Library, so,telling yourself that you will only look, you go to the Embroidery Library web site, just for a quick look of course! Well, as soon as you start looking at all the designs, you think you have died and gone to heaven! And the quick look turns into a cup of coffee and an hour or so wandering through the site. You definitely want that gorgeous “Out of Africa” design or the stunning “Buffalo Calf Woman” design, but they are too large for your embroidery format. How can you ever embroider them? Back to the mailing lists and you find out that if you join the Champagne Club at Flying Needle that you have heard so much about you will learn how to split them! Off to join the Champagne Club and you are now hooked on editing and splitting designs. “Oh, my”, your husband sighs, “will this ever end?”
As the hours and days and weeks go by, your design collection is getting larger and larger, you become an expert at converting designs and changing colours and have added the ability to split and edit designs. Life is wonderful, at least so far.
Then you realize that the designs you have colour charts for are using Madeira Thread and all the thread you purchased is Marathon. Now what? No problem at all, you have heard that the My Thread Box software will do the trick for you. A bit of research, download a free video at Flying Needle and you are hooked on “just one more” software program!
As time goes by, you spend more and more time on the computer, working with Embird to convert, resize, colour change, split designs and all the other wonderful things you can to edit designs with Embird. Then on to My Thread Box to make thread charts and do colour conversions. Oh, a month has gone by and there is a new lesson from the Champagne Club! The folder system you set up is working perfectly and you have graduated from being a download queen to an Embird addict, but the embroidery machine sits idle, the housework doesn’t get done, laundry is just wishful thinking and meals become more and more erratic. That doesn’t seem to be a problem, as your husband is spending more and more time out in the driveway polishing his new truck and you know that pizza and Chinese food are only a phone call away and that you can throw the laundry in the washer while you are eating your take-out, everyone is happy! Now, if you could only find time to embroider all those designs!