Embroidery Software For The Mac!!

I received a wonderful email yesterday from a lady who told me that there was  embroidery software program for all of us Mac people.  I downloaded it today and after a few user error glitches I have it working!!  Thank you Kathie!

It's called "Convert It" from www.macemb.com and so far I love it.  It converts your designs to most formats and lets you see your designs on your computer screen.  Now I don't have to go to XP just to convert a design to VP3. 

Once the design is converted, I can put it on my USB stick and put it into my Topaz 30 (or any embroidery machine)   

It gives a thread list but it didn't say which thread list it was using..ie Madeira, Marathon, or something else.  When I talked to the lady, I think I had her a little confused about the threads, but it does work.  Now I can see my embroidery designs!  I haven't tried printing anything out, but it says you can..templates too.   It doesn't edit anything, but I have software on XP that I have for that.

I also learned how to take a snapshot of my screen from the lady I talked too as she wanted to see where I was having problems.  Neato!  I have some uses for this handy trick now.   

Check out the site if you have a Mac and do machine embroidery.  It's a little pricy but worth every penny.  I use it for reference when I'm doing an embroidery design as my Topaz 30 has a black and white screen.  I can just follow the color chart without having to print anything.  It's been a huge timesaver.  

Another Electronic Orgasm

The first electronic orgasm was my Ipod Touch.  I've wanted a Kindle 2 for the past week or so.  My house is really small and books take up so much space.  My husband's collection of hardback comic books takes up most of it.  LOL.  Men.  They never grow up.  Which for me is a good thing and I don't mind.

Back to the Kindle 2.  My concern is wireless connection.  Or possible lack of it.  And *cough* the price.  After getting a Yahoo! Answer back that I could just use my USB port to transfer books with the Kindle 2, it's more tempting.  Then....  I discovered I could download Kindle for FREE on my Ipod Touch.  Does it work?  You betcha.  I've downloaded a couple of books by err..borrowing someone's wireless internet that my Itouch has found when doing a scan.  Maybe I need to go wireless.  I don't like "borrowing" even if it is for less than 30 seconds. 

 *A couple of hours later after feeling guilty about borrowing someone else's wireless connection--  I followed the signal to a neighbor and said that I was getting wireless internet from her house and if she knew it.  I told her how excited I was to download some books from her service.  She started laughing and said it was okay.  I feel much better but hate to take someone else's connection.  I wish I could just download directly from Amazon right to my Itouch*

You can even get quilting books on Kindle.  Not great ones, but it's nice to know that.  Maybe I should email the companies and beg for them to put quilting books on Kindle.  

Back to more quilting/embroidery related subjects.  I got a box today!!  Woo Hoo!   Wanna see what I got?

From Quilted with Love

Enough bobbin thread to last a lifetime. Total yardage? 20,000. I bought some NEB prewound bobbins as they work too. The only catch is that the Topaz won't know to stop when you run out of thread. If I wind the bobbins on the Topaz bobbins, the machine stops. I love that there isn't a low bobbin sensor where you have to guess how much you have left.

Having real thread color cards is almost essential when doing machine embroidery. The software doesn't always transfer colors right especially if the digitizer uses a different format that you have to convert or a different brand of thread. Embird and 4D extra will convert threads for you. Embird does a better job of it. If you need to order thread, you have the numbers for easy ordering. What I hate is when companies charge outrageous prices for their thread charts..like 40 bucks. Forget it.

Anyway, it's been a good day.  

Paper Pieced Stars

Paper pieced one star:

From Blogger Pictures

Then to get an idea of what it will look like next to the embroidery designs:

From Blogger Pictures

I wish I could just strip piece the stars, but each strip is an odd size.

I also fell in love with the pattern in one of my embroidery magazines and will work on making it and embroidering it. I picked out pink and green fabric.

From Blogger Pictures