Released February 6, 2010
By Heidi Kilgore
Everybody always wonders where I come up with our ideas for designs and appliqués and just how they are created. In the following story I’m going to try to explain a little about my day, my appliqués, and how I do just that.
I’m usually up by nine in the morning and the first thing I do is check email. After I get something to drink, I sit down and let the email run, knowing Shawn will be out there somewhere on the email waiting to tell me the next project idea. As I read through them, sometimes I find a customer needing help; perhaps they are not happy with the colors or having a difficult time stitching it out. When customers include a scan of the design, often I can see right away what went wrong. Quite often it is a stabilizer issue. So, I give them my best advice or more specific instructions for their particular machine and apologize for any inconvenience. Then, I turn my attention to the last appliqué which needed to be test sewn two days ago, but here it is, still not done.
When choosing the graphics for each I listen to the forums and the stitch chat folks and we bounce ideas off of each other as to what to do with designs, as to whether it can be appliqué or not. Remember, as much as I love it, some graphics could not be used to create an appliqué, no matter how much I wanted to do them in that way.
While going through my day and the next several days doing an appliqué, and yes, they often take several days, I continuously think about the color combinations. In my mind, I change colors of the fabrics that I know that I have in my stash for this project. I always get excited when I’m near the end of the set because it takes the stress off. Soon, they are sewn out and scanned and ready to go. Is usually takes a day or better to put one design together, and another couple of hours for the sew-out, to make sure everything is in its place, if not have to go back to the beginning.
Testing an embroidery design is an involved process where the digitizer sends the design to the tester, the tester stitches it out and then informs the digitizer of any problems. The digitizer then addresses the problem areas and sends the adjusted design back to the tester. Depending on the complexity of the design, this can take from just one to many exchanges between the digitizer and the tester. However, when I finish an appliqué it is then test sewn by me, and only me. I have tried test sewers they really don’t know what I ‘m looking for in that appliqué. So, if you have a real problem with one, it’s only me to blame and I take full responsibility for the design.
The beauty of appliqué comes from the endless possibilities of final projects resulting from the variety of fabrics each person has in their stash. By choosing different fabrics and thread colors, you can create countless different looks using the same design. In my earlier articles I told you to make sure you have good quality fabrics in order to appliqué. This is extremely important because when it comes to the satin stitches necessary for appliqué your fabric, machine and thread take a real beating.
And now we come to the hard part of a design. It may stitch out perfectly on my machine, but then it’s sent to the site and someone else buys the design and they may not get the same results. You wonder, and I do also, what happened? Perhaps we should all have one universal machine, that way we would know that it works for everyone. There are many things which will affect the outcome of a design, ranging from different machines and the changing of formats, to different threads and fabrics and each digitizer has to take all of these variables into consideration when creating and testing the design.
The machine I own right now does great outlining for the appliqués, but in the past I have had some real “stinkers” which just did not outline very well. I have bought some real expensive designs only to have the outline mess up at the very end of the design and be so totally out of sync with my design that I became disappointed with the digitizer that I swore that I would never buy another one of their designs. When I was on my third or fourth machine I realized it wasn’t the design at all but the machine itself.
Needless to say, I’m up all hours of the night and day thinking of only one thing and that is sewing and producing a great design for you and the members of the site.
I hope this gives you a peek into the life of a digitizer and you can see how much goes into the design for you to enjoy and give to your loved ones at Christmas or whichever holiday or just for them being special to you.
You can read about Heidi here:
http://www.designsbysick.com/bio/?name=heidi
And you can see Heidi’s designs here:
http://www.designsbysick.com/bydigitizer/?digitizer=Heidi
dear heidi, and we the users thought we sometimes had a bad time. thank you for a facinating article. i am a one-handed operator(due to a stroke five years ago) and my embroidery has kept me sane (well sort of!) greetings and thanks from england. kim
Comment by kim.mayer — February 7, 2010 @ 6:39 am
Kim, so glad you liked the article. To say the least all designs are labor of love from start to finish and I love what I do, but sometime I would love to pull my hair out. I know about keep ones sanity during the hard times of life and I’m so happy that you haven’t given up. Keep the faith and keep up the good work, and God will bless you and give back some of what was taken. You will be in my prayers.
heidi
Comment by heidi — February 7, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
Hi Heidi,
Thank you for all your hard work. Digitizing is a detailed, time consuming, job. I have several programs, to do the digitizing. I have no patience and look forward to all your new appliques. I have purchased SICK designs, since 2005, when I discovered Sick Designs,formally, Hands Of Love,on EBAY.
Please, keep on digitizing!
Lynn in AZ
Comment by Lynn — February 7, 2010 @ 1:42 pm
Heidi, loved your concept on one universal machine. How much easier that would make all our lives! You wouldn’t have to figure out which size bobbins you need, if that foot fits your style, will it really sew that 6 layers of fabric?? Maybe someone will invent the prefect machine for us, and with all due respect to men, let a woman test it out first!! Thanks for all your great patterns, keep it up!!
Comment by Beedragonlady — February 7, 2010 @ 3:40 pm
Thanks for the article, i have also found that the outline on some of the designs was not correct and found if i added more stablizer then the design stitched out better. Again, thanks for taking the time to create such lovely designs.
Comment by Icilee Johnson — February 7, 2010 @ 5:50 pm
Heidi:
This article caught my eye. I appreciate your comments. I’ve been digitizing a little but didn’t care for the software. It was tedious at best. I just purchased another program that I really like and I’m enjoying using it. It took me two days to digitize a design. I’m very fussy,and tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to embroidery. It made me feel better to know that I wasn’t the only one.
Peg
Comment by Peggy Friel — February 7, 2010 @ 7:58 pm
Ladies, I’m so happy that you liked the article. I still vote for that one universal machine. It would make life a little easier for all. But you know we as women also so a lot of information sharing that has helped me and other sewers a lot.
happy sewing to all
Heidi
Comment by heidi — February 10, 2010 @ 10:16 am
love your article. keep trucken. love JoAnn
Comment by Joann — February 13, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
I love all the designs that I have purchased from this website and recently purchased a Janome 11000 Special Edition.
I am having such fun with the machine I would like some input on what digitizing software would be a good investment and it must make .jef formats.
Thanks
Comment by carol — February 14, 2010 @ 7:32 am
Carol I have the Elna 8200, and it also uses .jef formats. I use embird for my ditigizing, have ever since working for Designs by Sick.
I myself found it the easiest to learn in a short amount of time, good friends, and good tutorials.
For the amount of money invested it has been well worth the cost.
Happy Sewing
Heidi
Comment by heidi — February 14, 2010 @ 11:21 pm
Heidi - I too loved your article. I purchased a Janome 350E about 3 years ago (and also own a Janome 6600 for regular sewing). Have always wondered why I have problems with some patterns from Designs by Sick not embroidering out well. Couple of examples (which probably aren’t your designs…) - the 5×7 American Hotrods. I did one for a friend’s husband at Christmas and I had spaces between that were nearly 1/4 inch. I was so disappointed and hated it (painted inbetween to try to help - but I personally didn’t like it). Another design I had trouble with was the animated cars - same thing and the animals on motorcycles were so scant I had to sew twice (increasing design 1%) to make them look decent. Is this because of my machine and if so would a different Janome help or a different type of machine or is it better to save designs in a different format than JEF and change? I also have embird (love it!).
PS I never thought to take a picture and send it back for comments. Always stuff to learn for sure.
Comment by Callie — February 18, 2010 @ 9:53 am
well sis, i use a jef format myself, and i create in pes format, no, it’s not the format for sure. Not really sure what the issue is, could always write the ditigizer or tried a different type of fabric or stablizer, there are so many questions when it comes to this art, and not enough answers.
heidi
Comment by heidi — April 19, 2010 @ 8:57 pm
Thanks for this article and the timely comments. I just spent the evening and probably the rest of today picking out embroidered letters that messed up my beautiful towel design. Of course, the poor stitching was at the end of the embroidery session. Similarly, my experiences with applique are far from satisfying. The comments have given me ideas to try as well as reasons for problems. Thanks for all the long hours to produce quality designs.
Comment by Cindy — April 21, 2010 @ 10:30 am