Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/03/video-review-of-a-cool-embroi.html
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You can do more than patches with one of these, if you work in sections. I did this with a an older model single needle brother back in 2008 for a friend who loves Zelda.
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Yeah, I was thinking that the nicest feature was the ability to emborider directly onto the clothing, rather than just onto a patch.
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The process is interesting but seems that the machine would be something not to be recommended considering getting it to do stuff seems very slow, there’s a lot of trial and error, uses proprietary formats, not very user friendly, etc. I’d be keen to see something like a Glowforge but made for embroidery, i’m sure something nicer and more efficient exists but this Brother machine seems like a hard sell beyond doing one offs for “fun”
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There is a piece of independant embroidery design software called “Embird” that is much cheaper than the software sold elsewhere, just as capable, and simple to use if you have a little CAD experience. Look it up. I’ve made all kinds of stuff with it.
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Yup. This is a pretty low end machine. Ok for basic sewing or embroidery but very much entry level for either function.
If you’re really serious about embroidery you’ll want a real multi-needle embroidery machine like this: https://www.brother-usa.com/products/pr670e
My wife and I did embroidery as a business for a while. We started with the single needle brother and ended up with two. We bought them used from the local sewing machine repair shop.
They are the easiest thread change on a sewing machine but extremely slow with a tiny sewing area and limited file size on a proprietary card system that costs extra.
As we picked up some business, we realized it was taking far too long to run and the have issues like the satin stitch on them is super loose.
We scratched enough together to get a used Toyota ESP 9000:
It’s a 15 needle beast with a 12” x 12” area. But even used it took us a long time make back the cost. And embroidery clients are ridiculously picky a lot of the time. Not a business I recommend.
We use an ancient copy of Wilcom on Windows XP to do all our digitizing. We got it with the machine. Otherwise it is stupidly expensive. But for cost, Embird is pretty good.
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Sewing machines are just the worst with this kind of vendor lock-in, propriety formats, and accessories. And the software is so many levels of awful. Even the thousands of dollars embroidery suites set the bar so low for usability. I’ve long fantasized about making a modular and “open source” sewing machine that does away with all the proprietary bullshit.
That is a sexy beast. I love those industrial machines.
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I’d have done that on the back maybe… 
I’d give an arm and a lego to try one outten
There are a couple of problems with embroidering finished clothing. One is that the placement of seams, buttons, and other parts of a finished garment sometimes make it very difficult to hoop. The other is that if anything goes seriously wrong during the embroidery, your garment can be ruined. I have wound up having to make patches just to cover the holes from failed embroidery.
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