Working With Stock Designs Part 2 is our next Embroidery Webinar of the Month. This webinar will be  next Tuesday afternoon April 27th at 1 PM Eastern time.  I will be working with designs purchased from “Great Notions” stock designs and “Dakota Collectibles” stock designs.

• In this webinar I am going to show you how to create a large jacket back sized design from a small left chest design.
• I will also show you how to remove pieces and create new pieces to replace the ones that were not working out the way that  you want them to do.  This very often happens in stock designs.  You may like the total look and it may be just the design that you customer is looking for but some of the peices in it just do not look good.  After this webinar you will have the answer to that problem!
• I am also going to take a small one color outline design and fill in all of the areas and give it some color.  This design also is a small left chest sized that my customer decided he wanted  for a jacket back after he saw the result of what I had done with the design.
• Do you know how to make teeny tiny stars?  I am also going to be showing you how to do this in the webinar!
• Do you know how to make a new design from pieces of other designs?  I am going to show you how to do that!

You will get all of this information and much more from this series and you will be able to take any digitized design that you have had in the past and make a lot of changes to it.

I will be offering this very informative series as a  video product that can be purchased after we the webinar.  The purchase price is going to be sold for more than the price of the webinar, so you want to make sure that you attend the webinar if you are an Embroidery Tips and More member.  If you are not, you can go to Embroidery Webinar Of The Month to gain your access into this webinar.

If the timing is wrong for the webinar, you want to get access to it and register for it anyway.  All of those that are registered will get access to the videos after the webinar.  I know that the timing may be wrong for some people.  I just cannot have a time that is perfect for everyone, so make sure that you take advantage of this offer while it is still available. 11 am Tuesday will be the cut off time.  Do not wait another day!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

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Last week I hard the privilege of participating in the ASI Education webinar, ” The 5 Hot Apparel Markets.”  This webinar was full of information what you can do to approach and work with these  Markets.

The 5 Hot Apparel Markets that you should be focusing your efforts on are:

• Financial Institutions
• Government Agencies
• Health Care
• Education
• Service industry

Nicole Rollendar, Editor of Stitches and Director of Education for ASI Central, did an excellent job of creating this webinar and I had the privilege of working with her, Pat Baldes of Personalizationsolutions and Jennifer Cox from NNEP. Pat and Jennifer are both very sharp and knowledgeable in the embroidery and all areas of the apparel market.

To watch the replay of this webinar click on link and it will take you directly to the webinar “The 5 Hot Apparel Markets”.  I know that you will enjoy this webinar.  You will want to take notes at you are watching it.

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

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Requirements For A Good Digitizer

How do I find a good  digitizer for my embroidery designs  and what do they charge?

First of all, what is a good digitizer?  A good digitizer is someone that will work with you and help to make you look good to your customer.  A good digitizer will know the embroidery process and know what it takes to make your design look the best that it can on your particular type of fabric.  A good digitizer will ask the following questions:

• What fabric is this design going to be sewn on?
• Will you be using this design for any other type of application?
• What format do you want the design to be finished in?
• Will you want to increase or decrease the size of the design from the original size?
• Can I make some modifications to the design to make it sew better such as increase the letter size or choose a different font style?

There can be many other questions, depending on the design and the information that you have given them. When you are looking for a good digitizer, look for one that uses the same software that you do and request that you have a copy of the outline file.  This will allow you to make changes such as resizing or removing lettering from the digitized file.  You may have to pay a little more for this privilege, but it is well worth it.

Digitizer must know embroidery production

Make sure that your digitizer knows production so that you have as few trims and color changes as possible.  Make sure that he or she sews out the designs before sending them to you.  This is a problem with a lot of digitizers, especially with Graphic Artists..  They get their software and think that since they can create any type of graphic art, they can digitize.  This is far from the truth.  They don’t usually know anything about the sewing process and have no idea about push and pull comps, underlay or density.

The best place to find a good digitizer is through the sales rep in your area that sold you your embroidery design software.  He or she should be able to direct you to someone that will be the type of digitizer that you are looking for.

Most good digitizers charge from $9.00 to $20.00 per thousand stitches.  Sometimes they charge by how long it takes and sometimes it is by how complicated the design is.  There are even good digitizers that will give you a choice and will create designs based on a scale.  If you want a lot of detail it will cost you more than if you want less detail.  If you want color blending this is an additional charge on top of the stitch count.  If you find someone that is charging less, then you had better try them out on a design that is for a customer that would not complain if it is not the kind of quality that you envision.  If the price is low, I would truly beware.

This brings me to the subject of going over seas for your designs.  Yes, their designs are very inexpensive; but can you communicate with this person or is it a company that employs a lot of digitizers?  You have no control over who you are going to get.  Sometimes the designs are OK and sometimes they are horrible and you cannot specify who you want to digitize your design.

This can also be true in this country if you are dealing with a large company.  They will send your design to the next person that is available. Sometimes they even contract them out to other companies and maybe overseas.   This is even worse.

Digitizer must sew out designs

Make sure that your digitizer sews out the designs before sending them to you.  Many digitizers with such a low fee do not sew out the designs before sending them to you.  Many of this type do not even own an embroidery machine.  If you have a design that you have purchased for a low price and it has a lot of issues in it, it will cost you money in the end.  It will drive up your production time so far that it will cost you money to do the job.

You want to make sure that you are working with someone that will give you a trouble free design and you can make money on their work.  This is truly one area that you do not want to skimp on in your embroidery business!  This is one area where you get what you pay for. Don’t forget you are going to charge the customer for the digitizing fee.  This is not a charge that you absorb in any way shape or form!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

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“Cruise To Embroidery Success”

It is time to plan for your next vacation and join us on Royal Caribbean’s “Mariner of the Seas” for a fantastic time on our 3rd annual “Cruise To Embroidery Success”.

On January 23, 2011 we will be departing from Los Angeles, California for a vacation of a life time to the Mexican Riviera!  This past cruise to the Caribbean was such a great time and I am really looking forward to the one coming up January 2011.

I had the opportunity to meet some of the most wonderful people that I have ever met in this industry. These  embroiderers came from all walks of life. We had embroiderers that were just starting out in the business as well as embroiderers that had been in the business for over 15 years.  There were young embroiderers and others that started their business’ after retiring from their life long careers!  We had a grand time networking and sharing all kinds of information about our personal lives,  embroidery, heat transfers, digitizing, and whatever else was on the minds of the embroiderers that would help to grow their business!  This was networking at it’s best!

Visit the ISS Show Before The Embroidery Cruise

This year the cruise will be held in conjunction with the  “ISS Show” in Long Beach, California. This is the largest ISS Show held during the year!   This is a great opportunity for  you to see all of the new equipment and products that are available and have a chance to talk directly to your suppliers.  The show starts January 21 and we are leaving for the Mexican Riviera on January 23rd.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime that you do not want to miss!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

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