dad asking for daughter - embroidery business?

My daughter is considering embroidery as a part-time/summer business. She's in high school, loves horses and thinks that she can make money doing custom designs etc. She's looking that the Janome 300e as a starter machine. I think the 1600 CDN is pretty steep for a started business. My questions:

  1. Is this a good starter machine? She has two other sewing machines, a Kenmore and an old Singer.
  2. Is there money to be made in this biz? I figure that once the machine is paid for , things will be cool but that could take a while.

I'm a computer guy, so I know my way around that part of the machine. It's the market that baffles me. Thanks for reading this. If anyone has any computer questions, email me and I will answer them.

Brian m.

Reply to
Brian m
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How about trying to get a used machine, that will cost less. I tried to make a business with my Kenmore 19001 embroidery machine, got the word out, but I didn't get much takers. I was able to get a few jobs of embroidery, but not much, so just decided to use it as a gift maker and for my own use. Now her being a teen, she probably can sell to her friends, and eventually get the business up and running, and if she does, then she can go on to purchase a new machine later.

Maine-iac Rose @->-- remove the thorns so you don't get pricked, and add a hyphen between the 2 words to email me.

Reply to
Maine-iac Rose

what about a babylock ellure? its 999-US, and a nice machine.

if she is involved in horses, i would think that there would be a ready business for monogramming, ect. tho, before doing anything on suede chaps first, i would practice on suede!

also...what type of riding does she do? i ride dressage, and while i use white for showing, i LOVE having a variety of "funky" saddle pads for training and schooling....just a thought!

betsey betsey "we do not inherit the earth, we caretake it for our children"

Reply to
Two x over

Thanks for the info. I checked the Ellure and the 300e still seems a better buy, 999 would be something around 1300 here. I didn't see where the Ellure had any computer access in it's stock form while the 300 has the CF slot. She rides English, both dressage and jumping. She is thinking of the saddle pads, as she has already made some plain ones (no embroidery). Chaps were mentioned but we would have to see how they fit into the hoops etc. I guess what makes it difficult to get prices on these units is that they are a commission sale and no one wants to be undercut. But service after sale is important also I would think. If things work out we shall become permanent members here, it seems. :) Thanks again.

Reply to
Brian m

Can't make any suggestion as to which machine is best ( am already trying to get another prospective machine embroiderer to come and ask her questions here) but have you considered asking around at your local pet shops, garages, sport facilities, youth groups, schools,restaurants, cleaning businesses etc if they might be interested in you designing or just stitiching for them. I made up varous samples of sweatshirts, tee-shirts, towels baby bibs etc and each time I went to a restaurant/cafe/pub/sport venue, computer shop, hairdressers etc, toted my wares and got a mass of orders! I started with a couple of orders and built up from there. Some businesses have headed note paper which they want incorporated in their logo so the hardest part of the work was already done ( never been an artist with pencils or paints)..... I'll never be a millionare but it is really nice to be able to make a bit of extra cash through the year. Hope this might give some an idea of how to start. Regards ConnieD

Reply to
ConnieD.

The Janome 300E is a great machine, the embroidery size is exactly the same as the top range Janome machines, Also the cf card facility for geting designs over to the machine works out to be a lot cheaper and more convenient than brothers card writing! and you dont need any software to get the designs written onto the card, although some dealers will insist you do. The embroidery field is considerably larger than the brother embroidery only. (5.5" x 7.9") you can also use the gigahoop and free arm hoop from the 10000 machine unsupported both hoops will work but you dont get then selected in the machine so you have to manually work out where your design will come in the hoop. I have a 10000 and whish I had waited for the 300E to be launched.

Reply to
Limara

Thanks, good advice. What purpose do the gigahoop and the free arm hoop serve? I took a look at the free arm but couln't figure out what it would do. It says it is for hard to reach places on jeans or something but I couldn't see how. The 300e sounds like the best deal, even if it will break the bank.

Reply to
Brian m

As the owner of an embroidery business I think I can help a little bit. You don't say what you mean by a custom design, but if someone comes to me and wants a custom design for their business I will look at the size of the order, the complexity of the design and the fee can be anywhere from free (easy design + large order) to $125 USD. To create that design I have invested over $5,000 in software alone and the average custom design takes me 1 hour to do.

IMHO there isn't a lot of money to be made in doing one off custom designs, and most customers are more than happy with their personalization embroidered with a stock design. In order to do that you'll need a lettering software to digitize the name and position it with the design. The professional versions of that software are in the $1,000 range, but I know there are home versions available for much less.

I'm not familiar with the home machines, but here are some critical things to look at when you are buying a machine for production use:

  1. How fast does it sew? Even a small design is going to be 2,000 to 3,000 stitches. Jacket backs can easily go over 50,000 stitches. My professional machine will sew at 1,200 stitches/minute, but I run it at 800 spm because the quality of the finished work is much better.
  2. How big is the sewing area? Rehooping is a technic used on home embroidery machines, because of the limited sewing area. If you are trying to make money it would kill any profit because of the time involved.
  3. How easy is it to thread? The pro machines have multiple needles each of which is threaded with a different color. Without that feature you have to rethread the machine with every color change. With practice you'll get very quick at it, but it would be better to start with a machine that is easy to thread.
  4. Does is have a thread trimmer? When the design sews it will fill in an area and then jump to the next. If the machine doesn't trim there will be an extra bit of thread that has to be cut out.

Yes, there is money to be made. But there is a great deal more to a successful embroidery business than the sewing machine. For example my most beloved piece of equipment is my Hoopmaster. (A device to ensure the accurate placement of the embroidery) At $800 it has paid for itself 10 times over. The customers are paying for finished goods. The customers are not paying for my time to sell them, they are not paying for my time to trim the work, or rethread the machine, or goods damaged in the sewing process, etc, etc, etc. Of course my costs to do those things are reflected in my prices, the better I am at keeping those low means the more money I make.

If your daughter wants to sell embroidery I would recommend she get with a local embroider and work for them as a sales rep. I have had others selling for me. I would set them up with a book of sewouts, goods to sell, and order forms. I would handle all of the sewing, goods ordering, credit card and check processing.

Good luck Dean

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Reply to
Dean

Terrific advice from Dean and Connie. I'll make sure we consider all the points mentioned. Thanks!

Reply to
Brian m

The giga hoop is a larger hoop where you can get up to 230mm x 200mm area, this is done by stitching one part and then you take off the hoop and turn it round and stitch the other part of the design, you could use it to combine designs OR for one design then you would need to split the design there is a very short tutorial for the splitting for the gigahoop feature at embird

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that explains itbetter than I can. The free arm hoop you use to stitch cylinder objects without taking them apart, shirt sleeves, cuffs, etc, you will notice that hoop has a long arm, and a small stitch area ( 2" x 2 " ) you feed your item to be sewn over the flat bed of the machine and then the free arm hoop will enable you to stiitch on the top of the fabric only, its a fantastic device just a shame it only has such a small stitch area!

With the 300e the stitch area and possiblities of geting even larger designs are not so limiting as the other home embroidery machines on the market. the other embroidery machines are 4" x 4" Also with the Janome you dont have the added cost of having to purchase specalist memory cards and card writers to get the designs to the machine, that can be another big outlay on top of the cost of the machine and an essential one as you will not want to rely on purchased design cards. I own both brother machines and Janome, I have a brother pe 150D and quickly needed the larger stitch area and bought the Janome 10000, and if I could now do it all again I would be buying the 300E and a top range sewing machine to go with it, if I have a hour to spare I either have to sew or embroider, the the seperate machines I could run them side by side

Reply to
Limara

CAD would be much more than the price of the 300E!!!

Reply to
~Spidey

We normally pay twice what Americans pay for their machines, so it should be about $2,000.00 CAD, not a good proposition.

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Reply to
~Spidey

brian.. also realize that there is a learning curve with the embroidery machine....things such as suede are better off NOT being hooped (you use an adhesive stabilizer in the hoop and stick the suede on that....), ect.

there are some good books out there as well to help with the curve.

i havent investigated that janome...but i download things all the time and put on the card for the ellure.... betsey "we do not inherit the earth, we caretake it for our children"

Reply to
Two x over

one cheap monogramming program is monogram wizard...can be found for

149-US....i just bought it a few weeks ago and love it!! betsey "we do not inherit the earth, we caretake it for our children"
Reply to
Two x over

connie... i have been searching for a belgian terv design...all the one's commercially available are not to my liking. would you be able to quote me a price for digitizing???

betsey(i readily admit i am not experienced at digitizing.....) betsey "we do not inherit the earth, we caretake it for our children"

Reply to
Two x over

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