by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

Hi cuties, I hope your New Year has gotten off to a great start no matter what weather you are having... so sorry for those of you in the Boston area..... lots of cold and ice!!

Right after I joined the Cute embroidery site I began saving every free design I could find and eventually I've accumliated 28,186 and over 90% are freebies!!!
We had a problem and were without internet for over a week, sooo, using that time I decided to go through all my embroidery patterns and clean some out, over 28,000 is
just too many to be used OH! and I have a separate folder for designs for 'holidays and occasions' that contains 1,049 designs.
I separated all my personal patterns and art for digitizing, and deleted some designs that "I know" I would never use and I got that number down to 18,821 and that is still far too many to ever use LOL
Needless to say I am very picky now, about what designs I decide to save he he
And how many embroidery designs have you accumliated.....
Hugs Dolly

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by mops Moderator 07 Jan 2018

I started embroidering in 1993 when all you could get were designs on (expensive) embroidery cards. So I was rather selective in what I bought and have about a dozen that can still be used in my Brother 190D.
I did not come to the internet until 2007 and Cute was the first site I went to and within a few weeks bought a membership. As I was well into digitising at that time I did not download many freebies. Or so I thought. But after all those years it all adds up.

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dollygk by dollygk 08 Jan 2018

And I began embroidering in 2007 after I lost my husband... YES without thinking the designs we collect add up ha ha!

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by meganne 07 Jan 2018

I think we nearly all start out that way until we stitch out a few shockers and realise they're not worth having. That's not to say that all freebies are poorly digitised, equally not all designs we 'purchase' are well digitised. I have edited, especially the mapping, of quite a few purchased designs and swear they are just not worth buying (cheaply), just to save myself from having to digitise them.

I rarely download freebies these days, (except for alphabets which seem to suck me right in, saying: "you need me, come get me"). LOL!

I do love Cute's Alphabets so, despite being able to digitise, I will often choose a Cute letter if I want a Monogram type design.

As for how many designs I have: Far too many to even think of trying to count them.
But I did work out that I have over 20,500 individual letters in alphabets, (only counting 26 letters for each set and not counting the alphabets letters I have digitised myself). WOW! That is really an eyeopener!!!

Time for a cleanup!

I wrote this post over four hours ago but we had a power blackout so all I could do was save it and shut down my laptop before its battery died.

We have had record temperatures here today reaching 41.7* C (108.86*F) in Sydney's western suburbs. I guess we should be grateful the power didn't fail until late afternoon after the sun had lost some of its heat.

1 comment
dollygk by dollygk 08 Jan 2018

Meganne, when your heat reaches 50 C then tell me about it, we have reached 50 many times here in Jeddah!!
I agree that not all freebie designs are poorly made in fact the designs I had offered free were very well done, they sewed out very well and I've had many Cuties tell me so... nice!
Thanks for your comment...

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by marianb 07 Jan 2018

Not sure, and not sure I want to know.. Will get on top of my filing one day..

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by dollygk 07 Jan 2018

I have also saved EVERY snowman design from Charming Station, they are just too cute to ignore and any way one day 'I plan' to make a quilt with those snowmen!!!!

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marianb by marianb 07 Jan 2018

me to..

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by Sewmum1 06 Jan 2018

Congratulations on sorting your designs. Not sure how many I have but like others very quickly stopped spending time downloading and concentrated more on embroidering

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dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

I will look at designs from the better embroidering sites but still may or may not save them!

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by kustomkuddle 06 Jan 2018

I don't want to know. Many are are fonts that are in multiple sizes, and single designs in multiple sizes so the number goes up exponentially.

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dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

I do have many font designs and don't know why I save them because I prefer my Embird Font Engine he he

meganne by meganne 07 Jan 2018

So do I Dolly, or I will Manually digitise each letter, in Xpressive, so I will have a font design that I REALLY like. :-)

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by asterixsew Moderator 06 Jan 2018

Hi Dolly. When we first begin machine embroidery we seem to download every available freebie regardless of quality or suitability. Then somewhere along the line we become more selective. I have reached the stage that I rarely save freebies. In the Autumn I spent some time pruning my collection of designs and like many others suspect that I have many designs that I wont ever use but that doesn't matter. Anyone with a subscription here on Cute can quickly add almost 6,000 designs to their collection. And to the question as to how many designs do I have, no idea at all and have better things to do such as embroidering than counting to find out

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dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

I forgot about the alphabets having so many files and even with what I have collected I usually use my Embird Font Engine he he

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by shirley124 06 Jan 2018

Like you when I first started I downloaded every free design. Some time back I weeded out all the badly digitized ones and ones I would never use. Hard to say how many I have as I save in 2 formats. I do keep the freebies separate from the one I purchase. Hugs

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dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

Well, even the badly digitized designs can be somewhat fixed... as I do look at each design in Embird Studio before I sew to see if they can be better stitched, there are exceptions like patterns from the better sites!!

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by 02kar Moderator 06 Jan 2018

I'm not telling because it is not a contest. hehe But all of mine are categorized so I can find what I need in seconds to a few minutes. I gave up on most freebies long ago because I didn't like the quality. So good to know you found a lot of well digitized free designs . Enjoy each and every one of them. Tha's what is important.t

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dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

I had not meant this to be a contest, more like an awakening LOL

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by graceandham 06 Jan 2018

Don't ask, don't tell, as we say in the USA.

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dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

Ah..... so you just don't want to know!!

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by dailylaundry 06 Jan 2018

Happy New Year Dolly! I desperately need to weed out designs that I won't use!! It is a great idea!! Hugs, Laura

1 comment
dollygk by dollygk 06 Jan 2018

When you have no internet it's easy to weed out he he!

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