Back Home,about Embroidery Machine Formats and using Flash Drives

Hello everyone,
just back from a week caravanning at Mingo Crossing, near Gayndah. That is about 80Km south west of Bundaberg in Queensland. absolutely lovely spot, right on the Burnett River.It was SOOOOO cold, glad I had my thermals....lol, rained for 1/2 the time but still enjoyed the week relaxing and sightseeing.Our caravan group( about 18 of us) had a ball 4wdriving around. We visited Paradise Dam where the ranger gave us a talk about the endangered long neck turtles he is breeding there, and some of the group braved the heavy rain to visit the annual Orange Festival in Gayndah.

Embroidery formats: I wish to talk a bit about embroidery formats. Depending on your brand of embroidery sewing machine, the formats differ. Some of them are the same for different brands.For example PES format is mainly for Brother machines but is also read by some Bernina,Singer and Janome. Husqvarna Viking uses HUS and VIP, whilst Pfaff( which is owned by Husqvarna now) reads PCS (an older version) VIP and VP3.Bernina has various ART formats, but also reads EXP and some of them read PES. Singer mostly uses XXX.Janome use JEF,Sew,Jef+ and some PES. I believe there are also some other formats kicking around. Isn't it a shame that the various companies don't get together and do a "one format suits all" brand.

I have also just found out that my two embroidery machines ( a Bernina 200e and a Husqvarna Viking Designer 1),which I put designs on via flash drives,downloaded from my computer, do not like flash drives that are larger than 1Gb in storage capacity. I have had to especially order two new flash drives via Ebay from the USA, under 1Gb to use in my machines. Whilst the cost wasn't much, it was a nuisance. Apparently I can still plug each machine to my computer by the leads supplied and send them over directly, but I prefer to use the small drives. Usually my computer is downstairs and my sewing room is upstairs, so that would not work for me. I rang a number of sewing machine shops before I bought them on Ebay, and no-one had any for sale of a small capacity.

Next posting I wish to talk about using different iconiser and digitising programs to change formats on your computer.

Bye for now

Jennine