As for monogramming, I needed to do a bib for a baby shower. The mom hasn't decided on a name yet, so the group picked D'artagnan to refer to the baby. Before I got the machine, I decided to do a bib with D'artagnan on it. Can't get more cute than that.
However, since the fonts on the machine stunk out loud, I needed to do my own. So I looked around for software to build designs, and found Embird. There aren't really that many options in software, likely because the audience is so small. Embird works out to about $450 with the font engine; thankfully they have a demo version because the sewing machine was less than that.
The font engine works pretty well, but it has a pretty steep learning curve. It took me about 6 hours to make the first design I was happy with; something that I would think should take about 10 minutes. The tool is not designed with the user in mind, the program is very esoteric. The help actually takes over the program and shows you what to click to do certain things, but it takes forever to run.
What I was happy with is that the program allows you to simulate sewing, so you can see each stitch and where the jumps and locks will end up being. his allowed me to see (slowly) where I needed to modify the design without testing it on fabric.
After lots of tweaking and attempts, I ended up with a design that has 2,159 stitches. I hooked up the usb and transferred the design to the sewing machine, put in some thread, and let the machine so the work.
Not too shabby; I would consider it a success. Despite the shortcomings in Embird, the software gets the job done. The bad part is the insane price. If it was about $100, I would consider buying it, but at more than the machine, it isn't going to happen; demo it is. If I was doing this as a business, I would probably get it, but that isn't going to happen at this price. Embird should have 2 license options, one for personal and 1 for commercial, like lots of other programs.
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