Interview with Design Stash

How did you get started with digitizing?
I've been sewing and drawing ever since I was a small girl. Before I started designing cross stitch designs, most of my jobs as an adult have had to do with sewing... from sewing wet suits, to bridal alterations (that's where I learned to be really picky about my work!), and then custom-made draperies, slipcovers and other home-decor items. It never occurred to me until a few years ago to try to combine the art and the sewing! I got my first embroidery machine in the fall of 2000, when we were stationed in Puerto Rico. Shortly after we moved there the year before, I started my business, mainly doing custom-made draperies and slipcovers. As word spread about my business, I started doing more clothing alterations and sewing on of patches for uniforms and I saw a huge need for embroidered name tags done quickly. At the time, the nametag orders had to be sent to the states and the turn-around was quite slow. It was not unusual for service people to need new uniforms (with the sewn-on name tags) ready by the next day for their temporary duty assignment. So I purchased a Brother PE-150 (which I still have!) and the PE-Design 4.0 software and started embroidering nametags for uniforms. I was very, very busy! As I was learning my machine and software, I had tried many different free designs I downloaded off the Internet. I quickly learned what I liked and did NOT like about how certain designs stitched. I also found machine embroidered cross stitch designs at that same time and boy, was I hooked! I had stitched many cross stitch designs by hand and could not get over how much faster it was to do it on the machine! I didn't have much time to "play" after that, since we got orders to move to Washington State on fairly short notice. Once we settled in a bit, I purchased and started playing with the Viking Cross Stitcher software. It took some time and effort to learn the program, but I'm glad I stuck with it!

What personal information would you like to share?
As you have probably guessed, we're a military family. My husband is in the navy and we have 3 school-age children, ages 13, 12 and 8. We live in the northwest corner of Washington, in a small town called Anacortes. I grew up just a few hours' drive from here (where our families still live), in Sunnyside, WA. Ever since leaving "home", we've lived in Virginia, Puerto Rico, and 2 different places here in Washington... I'm hoping to not have to move anymore! I've been working at home doing either sewing or my designing business for almost 9 years now. The hours get long, but it's very rewarding. As for hobbies, I love to work in my yard, read a good book, crochet, or watch a baseball game.

Has your business changed since you started digitizing?
I don't know if I'd say it's changed so much as I would call it a continuing learning process. When I first started digitizing, my main concerns were about getting the shapes of things correct, relying heavily on outlines to do so. Now, I like to rely more on shading of items rather than on outlines, if it's possible. Or I might use the outlines to help define the texture of an item rather than just the outside shape. Later on, I'm sure I'll find some other design element that I want to work on. My favorite "themes" to digitize are still flowers, fruits and the occasional "fun" design. However, during the past 15 months or so, I've been working with a wonderful Artist, Roni LaBree. I love turning her artwork into cross stitch, but it is definitely the biggest challenge I have faced so far! Getting ready to turn one of her paintings into cross stitch is a real lesson in color composition and how to bring out certain elements in a particular design, while still trying to stay within certain size or color number restraints.

What types of future projects are in the works?
I have more of Roni's paintings waiting to be digitized; it's hard to pick which ones to do next! Each one takes a little over a month to digitize, and with a busy family life, the time it takes to digitize something can easily stretch even longer. I also have a few sketches that I've been working on, dealing with the set of fruit that I've been working on for the past three years. The details that I want to implement on them are taking some time to figure out though, so there's no telling when those will finally be ready. I've had lots of other requests for other types of fruit designs, so I've been playing with sketches for those, too. I have a huge list of things I'd like to do, as far as design ideas and/or general ideas for the business, but there never seems to be enough time for everything! I love getting design suggestions and ideas from customers. I may not use an idea exactly how it was suggested, but sometimes if the idea is combined with something I've already been thinking about, the designs just seem to "flow" and they're a lot of fun to work on. Keeping it all fun is what embroidery is about!