Customizer 10000 Plus is the software package that every MemoryCraft model owner 10001, 10000, 9500, and 300E owner must have. Through its three programs, you can:
- Transfer embroidery designs from your computer to your Memory Craft
- Create embroidery designs from graphic images
- Create lettering for your embroidery designs
- Create multiple-design embroidery layouts
- Combine several designs together so you hoop less often
- Create templates to guarantee perfect placement
- Create large embroidery layouts for the GigaHoop
- Convert .sew designs to .jef designs
That's a lot of power to use with your Memory Craft!
When you install Customizer 10000 Plus, you tell the install process which model Memory Craft you use. It will adjust the software to your model's transfer process.
Customizer 10000 Plus is the name of the software suite. The three programs that comprise Customizer 10000 Plus are:
- EasyImport
- EasyEdit
- EasyGigaHoop
Each program has an important part to play to make your Memory Craft work to its potential.
EasyImport
The EasyImport Program has three basic purposes for you. They are:
- To digitize designs
- To transfer designs from your computer to your Memory Craft
- To convert .sew format designs to .jef format designs
Digitize Designs
In the computerized embroidery world, the word digitize has a very specific meaning. It means:
To create an embroidery design from a graphic image.
An embroidery design is a set of instructions in a language that a computerized embroidery machine can read. Your Memory Craft needs these instructions in a .jef format file. The instructions tell the embroidery machine exactly how to lay down stitches that will become your beautiful embroidery. Embroidery machines can only read embroidery designs.
A graphic image is a picture. The pictures we want to use to create embroidery designs have few colors, and are clear, simple designs. We want clean, uncomplicated graphics because the digitizing you will be doing is called auto-digitizing, and auto-digitizing requires these types of graphic images. After all, the software is doing the work for us.
Pictures must be on some form of computer media, such as your hard drive, a cd-rom, a floppy disk, or a compact flash. You can even scan them and then save them on your computer media. Saved pictures are in digital format, such as bitmap (.bmp) or clipart (.wmf).
Pictures are only used in computer software. You cannot send them to embroidery machines because they can't use them.
To digitize a picture using the EasyImport program, we IMPORT graphic images into the program. (That's how the program got its name.) They will show on the left side of the design screen, which is the graphic image side. We digitize the picture into embroidery. The embroidery shows on the right side of the design screen, the embroidery design side.
Many of the lessons under the EasyImport category show how to use this program to create embroidery designs.
Transfer Designs
When we talk about transferring embroidery designs, we are speaking of any manner of moving the designs from the computer to the Memory Craft. Different model Memory Crafts have different procedures.
We can transfer designs to the MC10000/10001 by
- USB cable, if the Memory Craft is within 12 feet of the computer. That is the length limit for the cable.
- Compact Flash (also referred to as ATA PC cards or PCMCIA cards).
- Wireless technology
We can transfer designs to the MC9500 and 300E by
The designs are existing; that is, they have previously been digitized. They may have gotten to you in different ways:
- You may have just digitized it
- You may have downloaded it from an embroidery web site and saved it on your computer media
- You may have purchased it in a collection of designs on a cd-rom or floppy disk
No matter how you acquired the designs, they must show on the right side of your screen in order to be transferred to the Memory Craft. If you just digitized the design, it will already be on the right side of the screen. For all other designs, we must OPEN them into the software. When they open, they will show on the right side.
If you digitized the design in the EasyImport software, when you saved the design on your computer media, EasyImport saved the graphic picture with it. When you open the design, it shows the picture on the left side of the screen, and the design on the right side of the screen. This feature allows you to do additional modification to the design, such as changing thread colors and fill patterns, rotating, flipping, and resizing.
If the embroidery design was digitized in some other embroidery software, when you open the design, Easy Import will give you an information alert telling you there was no associated picture. You will not be able to modify the design except for rotating, flipping, and restricted resizing.
Convert .sew Format Designs to .jef Format
The embroidery file format for Memory Craft models 5000, 5700, and 9000 is .sew. Many designs in this format are still available for you to sew, but they must be converted to .jef to be used in models 300E, 9500, 10000, and 10001. Simply by opening a .sew format design, it automatically converts to a .jef format design. You don't have to do anything else! Once it is opened in the software, you can transfer it to the Memory Craft just like any other embroidery design.
EasyEdit
One of the biggest confusions about this program is that it has the same name as the additional program that comes with Digitizer 10000. Where the secondary program with Digitizer 10000 is an embroidery stitch editor, this EasyEdit is actually a very creative embroidery layout program.
The EasyEdit Program has four basic purposes for you. They are:
- To create templates to use with the Clothsetter
- To combine multiple designs together in the form of layouts
- To combine several designs together to minimize the number of hoopings
- To create lettering
Creating Templates
A template is an exact-size picture of an embroidery design. A crosshair is printed on the template indicating the center and orientation of the design. Using a template helps you position where you want the embroidery to sew, which is why Janome embroidery designs include pre-printed templates.
EasyEdit has the ability to print templates for any .sew or .jef embroidery design.
By laying it on your fabric, you can rotate the template any way you want it, even on an angle. A bit of tape or a pin holds it in place. Or, you can draw the crosshairs on the fabric, instead.
Note: Many people refer to the plastic grid that comes with the embroidery hoops as a template. We prefer to call them "plastic hoop grids" to distinguish them from templates.
Templates work with the patented Clothsetter, which has two basic purposes for you:
- It holds your hoop still when you clamp the outer hoop in the bracket. It is a great hooping aid.
- It matches the crosshair on your fabric
When you move or rotate the fabric over the outer hoop until the red crosshair on the arm of the Clothsetter matches the crosshair marked on the fabric (from the template), and then insert the inner hoop, your embroidery will sew exactly how and where the crosshair is pointing.
Using templates with the Clothsetter is a Janome patented process that ensures accurate embroidery design placement. Janome is the only company that has it!
Creating Layouts
Multiple embroidery designs can be imported into EasyEdit's template screen so you can position them into alayout. A layout is an arrangement of several embroidery designs. EasyEdit's template screen represents a piece of printing paper in your printer.
EasyEdit has the ability to create layouts that are quite large, as large as 3 sheets of printing paper long and 3 sheets of printing paper wide. We tell the EasyEdit program how large we want the layout to be, sized inprinting paper. Printing paper can be any size you use in your printer, such as 8 1/2" x 11", or 8 1/2" x 14". After you print the layout, the sheets are taped together to create the large layout.
Here is an example of a layout that is two 8 1/2" x 11" sheets long and one sheet wide (8 1/2" x 22"):
When the layout is printed, it will become a template showing crosshairs. We can mark the project fabric matching the crosshairs, and use the Clothsetter to place the embroidery where we want it, just as we placed it on our creative layout screen.
This is the two page template of the two page layout:
Combining Several Designs to Minimize Hooping
The above layout contains 15 separate embroidery designs. This might mean hooping and sewing 15 times.
EasyEdit allows you to combine designs together so they can sew in one hooping. EasyEdit's combine functionwill unite them together so that they will become one design.
For example, in the layout, we combined the window on the right and the table and chair into one design to sew in the B hoop. Each combined design will get a repositioned crosshair. If you refer to the template pages above, you can see that the 15 separate embroidery designs have been combined into six hoopings.
Creating Lettering
Easy Edit has the ability to create seven scalable fonts. That means that you can generate lettering in seven different fonts that can be as small as 13 mm (approximately 1/2") to as large as 30 mm (approximately 1 1/2"). The fonts can be arced, rotated, sew across the width of the hoop or the length of the hoop, and can be generated in any thread color.
Lettering can be combined with embroidery designs to minimize hoopings. And of course, they can be printed as templates to ensure perfect placement.
The fonts are:
EasyGigaHoop
The EasyGigaHoop Program has one basic purpose for you. It is:
- To create arrangements to sew in the GigaHoop.
Create GigaHoop Layouts
The largest sewing field on a Memory Craft model 300E, 9500, 10000, or 10001 embroidery machine is approximately 5 1/2" x 7 3/4". This is the size of Hoop B. (We are giving approximations in inches because Hoop B and its sewing field are actually measured in metric equivalents.) If the hoop were larger on the right side, it wouldn't fit on the sewing bed of the Memory Craft.
The GigaHoop is a large hoop that is the size equivalent of two overlapping B hoops. It has brackets to clamp the hoop to the Memory Craft embroidery carriage arm on the top and bottom of the hoop. When the hoop is clamped to the carriage arm, the sewing area from the right side of the hoop to the dotted line is the size of a B hoop.
The GigaHoop is ingenious in that by turning the hoop around, we get another B hoop-sized sewing area. Embroidery designs for the GigaHoop are actually two B hoop-sized designs that overlap so they appear to be one very large design.
The EasyGigaHoop program is used to arrange designs for the GigaHoop. Arrangements are created as "right side" and "left side." In the arrangement below, all the embroidery within the black box is the right side. All other embroidery is the left side.
A GigaHoop design sews in two passes: you sew the right side, just like any other B hoop-sized embroidery design. Then to sew the left side, you turn the GigaHoop 180 degrees. You detach the removable clamp from the bracket at the #1 position and reattach it to the bracket at the #2 position. Because the hoop is turned around, the left side portion of the design is sewn upside down. The EasyGigaHoop program ensures the left side is turned upside down for you.
There is a lettering capability in the EasyGigaHoop program to allow you to add lettering to your arrangements.
