How hard is embroidery to learn?

[dirkdiggler]

There is no substitute for good digitizing. Stitch type and direction can give a design a lot of depth.


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That's why some are basically free and others are high, we have learned you get what you pay for in digitizing.  Its the most important part.

[GraphicDisorder]

There is no substitute for good digitizing. Stitch type and direction can give a design a lot of depth.


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I would say you can make a crap machine sew quality work with good digitizing.  So its more important in my books!

[lrsbranding]

Some of the best money I spent on embroidery was the digitizing course from Balboa.  https://learntodigitize.net/training/   
Very easy to follow along.  There is also an E3 tour that shows all the functions and where they are.
I originally bought E3 to edit the outsourced digitizing but now do everything in house.
I can't agree more with the posts about digitizing will make you or break you. When I first started embroidery my mindset was that the outsourced digitizing must be correct because those people do it all day long so all my problems must be with me. That was my first mistake. My Barudan sews different than the Tajima. Especially on caps. Some of my designs have 2 files of the same logo. One named Barudan--- the other Tajima---.
I'm not saying outsourced digitizing is bad and they don't know what they are doing, so don't yell at me, I'm saying that even if you do outsource knowing how to digitize is important for good embroidery. It's much easier to be able to edit it yourself and move on.

[hoogie]

I've been following this for a bit and thought that I'd jump in and throw my two cents worth in here. We started with emb. and then added screenprinting, lol backwards from what most have done. As for logo setups. We used to set everything up ourselves, but in the last year and several dig. companies, I've landed on one that has fast turn and good quality, an revisions back within a two hr time frame. I've just found that outsourcing has far more profit than sitting down and doing it ourselves. I want the machines running nonstop. We started with a single head then added a four head then added another single. Large runs I run 5 heads for the job and leave one single open for logo run outs. Running the numbers it's working, I'm looking at adding a 6-8 head here before to long. Only thing I really setup in house are names or web sites. Margins are super tight running against larger companies. But our contract customers keep us busy. Walk ins eh theres not much room for making money, if there stuff pays overhead I consider it a win. But those have become fewer and with the move to a new building off the beaten path I hope its fewer yet. hard to make money after you sit up there for an hour talking to a customer and helping them figure out what they want. I'd say take a look at what your wanting to do. If its smaller orders there might not be enough margins in there to make it worth your time. Don't skimp on a machine. We've run several different kinds and now only run tajimas. Sit in a couple of crash courses for logo setups. The programs are getting easier and easier all the time. They have come a long way from our tape reader or 3x3 punch board with cross hairs to setup logos lol.

[doceman21]

I have been doing embroidery for 23 years and have become very good at it... in my opnion the hardest thing to learn was tensions, hooping was the easy part it always helps when you have a hooping board but i have done it both ways by hand and with hooping board yes the hoopmaster is by far the best way to hoop all garments i also have digitized and found out it is easier to outsource as it takes along time to do it your self you just need to find the right one. running the machines are the easy part as long as you have the tensions down i have run all types of machinery and over the years have learned how to repair them you can do alot of work on just a 1 head machine, but multi heads are definitely more efficient. and there is money to be made in embroidery ...