You have a particular pattern in mind to embroider with your embroidery machine. You search the stores for this pattern, but you can't find it anywhere. Frustrated, you look online for the pattern and still nothing. What options do you have?
If you are able to get a picture of what you want or even draw one, you can send it to a company that will digitize your pattern for your use.
But where do you find the company?
If you do an online search for 'digitizing embroidery' many companies will come up. With the large number of websites to look at, you may find it confusing or even overwhelming to choose a company to digitize your pattern for you.
The easiest way to choose a digitizing company is to make a list of what you are looking for. Look at each company's website to see how much experience they have. Check to see if they have pictures of their work on the site. That way you can see how well they digitize and embroider images. Look to see if there are any customer comments on the website.
Most of the companies that digitize embroidery patterns will also offer embroidered items on their websites. Looking at the pictures they display may give you a clue how well they digitize patterns.
If you are still unsure where to turn for digitizing a pattern, check out the online message boards. Do a search for 'embroidery message board' The results will give you a place to start. If you are trying to compare several companies, ask if anyone on one of these forums has heard of any of the companies. They may be able to give you feedback on where to go for someone to digitize your image into an embroidery pattern.
That said, you most likely won't get one straight answer for the feedback. Everyone is going to have a favorite company or two to work with.
Once you choose a company to digitize your pattern for you, you will be asked to submit the file as a .jpg or jpeg format. They will use your .jpg in a program that digitizes patterns to create the file for your embroidery machine.
Depending on the company, the price for this file will vary according to how big you want the finished design to be. Something that takes up the back of a jacket is going to be more stitches and consequently cost more than a logo on a baseball cap. You can generally send in a copy of the image you want digitized to get an exact quote on their charges.
No matter the price, once your chosen company has finished digitizing your embroidery pattern for you, you can embroider it on to as many items as you wish.