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Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with designs stitched in strands of thread or yarn using a needle. Sewing machines can be used to create machine embroidery.
Machine embroidery is a term that can be used to describe two different actions. The first is using a sewing machine to "manually" create (either freehand or with built-in stitches) a design on a piece of fabric or other similar item. The second is to use a specially designed embroidery or sewing-embroidery machine to automatically create a design from a pre-made pattern that is input into the machine. Most embroidery machines used by professionals and hobbyists today are driven by computers that read digitized embroidery files created by special software.
With the advent of computerized machine embroidery, the main use of manual machine embroidery is in fiber art and quilting projects. Many quilters and fabric artists now use a process called "thread drawing" (or thread painting) to create embellishments on items.
Industrial embroidery machines are now available in 20 and 30 head models. These machines are limited to certain manufacturers and can set you back up to 6 figures. Cedars company is a manufacturer for special embroidery machines from 2 to 45 heads. Melco Embroidery Systems is the only manufacturer of commercial embroidery machines in the United States.
