Ann The Gran Community

Well...ah...okay Lynn. Only if you give me a curve on the learning part. I usually have to have my grands check out things before I run them...and they are 6, 7 and 8 now. :o(  They LOVE being able to show Grammie how to do things on the computer.

If you are by Okeechobee...the reason for the high "rim" to the lake is because it DID overflow and kill thousands back in the early years of Florida. We took two direct hits from hurricanes in 2004....for some reason both of them...just three weeks apart...hit the coastline at Port St Lucie...and came across the islands onto our mainland. We lost so much, it took us until this past winter to finish everything...that's three years to get all the red tape done!! Pity.

I would be willing to come over by you if you want to give me lessons on placing my things into folders! :o)  I could download them onto my USB's, then bring along CD's and we can get them organized and into cd's...then I can bring the cd's home and put them into my computer and then download them back to the computer or directly into the flash drives. Then I wouldn't have to spend the first two hours of my ME time looking for my design. I must confess...I have actually gotten so frustrated about not being abel to find a design, I have actually gone back to the site and purchased the design a second time just so I don't have to continue looking for it!!! Yup...that's how frustrated I get w/ trying to find them. :o(

Kath :o)

Kath 

I use to live down that away.. lived in Lake Placid for awhile...now I'm north central FL near Ocala, have a laptop, could even show you on that the Sat we meet if that works for you.  What program are you running XP and what type of machine do you use? Saving them should all be the same no matter what.  It's easy once you remember the order you have to put them in.  Took me a few tries and I'm like you.. forgot where I put them so now when I have to unzip a file I keep clicking next until I come to the window where I can change where I want to SAVE my zipped files in.. sometimes I even just slap them on the DESKTOP, then I know I can't loose them... it's easy from there.

Just play with some designs (make sure you have duplicates.. lol), try moving them around, you will be surprised you are smarter than you think

lynn

 Okay, ladies. I've been reading all these wonderful and helpful posts about sorting and saving your designs. I have to tell y'all that my feeling are getting hurt.   About 8 years ago I personally designed a program for organizing all my embroidery designs. I designed it for my own needs and every single need or want that I could possibly think of that you might have.

First of all, you wimpy embroiderers with only as many designs as will fit on a flash drive, well,  I can fit all 70,000 of mine on 6 flash drives or 2 DVDs. Now all those designs amount to less that 6 GB, a negligible amount of space on my computer, so I keep them there. I also have them backed up (automatically every night at 11 PM) on an external hard drive, along with all of my photographs, all of my digital scrapbooking elements (which are what reallly hog to space) and my My Documents folder. My digital scrapbooking designs and my photographs are also backed up on a portable external hard drive and my embroidery designs and MY Documents on another, smaller, portable external hard drive that I carry with my laptop. I also burn all of these to DVDs a couple of times a year, 2 sets, one set for the safe in the house and the other set for our safe deposit box at the bank. I'm a huge advocate of backing up often and in several ways.

My embroidery designs are sorted on my had drive into several folders, Original Designs, Purchased (commercial) Designs, Downloaded Designs and, of course, all the Free Designs from my web site. Within the Commercial designs folder are folders for each of the companies from which I've purchased designs, Dakota, Amazing Designs, Embroidery Library, Brother, OESD, etc. So you can see that I'm fairly well organized. BUT when I want to find something I look for it in Catalog XPress, the program I designed for us. You see, for example, I have designs of cats in several Amazing Designs sets, several OESD sets and at least 2 Brother sets. But all of the cats are in Catalog XPress in the Cats folder. When I want to stitch a cat, instead of having to look through all of those folders, I look in only 1 place. If I have a design with a cat and a dog it will be in both the Cats and Dogs category. If the cat and dog are wearing hats the design will be in the Cats section, the Dogs section and in the hats section. If the hats are red, white and blue the design will also be in the Patriotic section. And, to carry this even further, if the cat and dog wearing red, white and blue hats are riding in a car the design will also be in the transportation category, in the Cars sub-category. You could, of course, do this on your computer by putting copies of the design in folders with those names, but then you'd have multiple copies of the design. With Catalog XPress I have only the one original design.

You say that all your designs are on flash drives aor CDs and Catalog XPress doesn't know where they are? Yes, Catalog XPress has the memory of an elephant. Or at least the memory of a much younger woman than I am. When you click on a design that says "Not Found" look at the address bar at the top of the screen and Catalog XSPress will tell you exactly where to find the design. You complain that all you can see are wimpy little cartoon pictures of the designs (on the other hand, in Windows Explorer you don't have any pictures at all). Again, not so. Right click on the design in the preview window and choose 3D view. Now the design appears in all its stitch-filled glory. Picture not big enough? Grab the edges and pull it bigger. Sorting is the main function of Catalog XPress, but not the only one. The programmers who helped me develop Catalog XPress thought of lots of things that didn't even occur to me or that I didn't think were even possible.

So, all this talk about sorting and storing designs with no one mentioning my baby, well, my feelings are hurt . . .

I'll have a name tag project in my blog this week, so so lookl for that if you're still wondering how you're going to make your name tag for our luncheon. I'll probably copy and paste some of the above rant about Catalog XPress in there, too.

Okay, I'm finished now . . . 

Ann 

Lynn,

Rats! Ocala is a long ride for me. That was so sweet of you to offer to help me on Saturday...however, I should have my friend, who is a snap w/ the computer...remember, the one I mentioned that has all her's catagorized and in folders, then broken down by name...help me do that. It would be a lot closer and save you from bringing along your laptop. Incidently....that is on my "save my dimes" list to purchase too. I just want a basic one...email and save downloads to. So I am always looking for one on sale. :o)

Should I bring some of my smocking in the hoop designs that are sewn out to show you? How about the Heirloom sewing? Would you be interested in seeing a couple of things I did w/ heirloom sewing? I also have some smocking designs I did on Velvet material for my grands Christmas dresses. Just want to bring everything and see everything that everyone else is doing too. Are you certain this is just for one afternoon....we can bring jammies, pillows and blankets and make a night of it too!!! LOL

Kath :o)

Whew!! Okay...okay...Ann...Mea Culpa..etc. Actually I have no idea what Catalog XPress is either...so you see, I REALLY DO have a good reason for not knowing what to do w/ all the designs!!!! I actually did try to catagorize my designs...and the way I do it is to save them on CD's and then use a Sharpie Marker and write on them!! Quite a system, huh??? LOL

Kath :o)

Hi Lynn

where do you live, I am over in the city of Hernando, right next to Inverness and Crystal River.  Where do you shop for supplies if you want to go in person?  I go the Citrus Sew and Vac, where I bought my Janome last September.  Maybe we are neighbors.

MS Ann... My apologies to the creator. Didn't mean to rain on your parade... Honestly.   I've been so out of the loop I didn't even know you had created such a wonderful product out there.  I've had my nose to the grindstone until the last few months, haven't done much surfing and downloading of any designs including ones off AnnTheGran.  I'm going to have to check out this product you created, sounds simple enough and overwhelming in how it remembers where you put something when You don't.  I am impressed. But then again, you are a VERY VERY clever lady and I am looking forward to being in your presence in July. Anyone that has taken on what you did with such a wonderful web site ...my Hat's off to you!!  

Again, I have been working with mis-matched, odd categorized and poorly stored designs I was so proud of myself for just getting them somewhere where I could actually find something without having to go back to my original floppy and then hoping I didn't have to put it back through the Disk Manager.. due to corruption LOL  I'm getting excited learning about all the new products that are on the market you have advertised. Stabilizer has come a LONG way. Watch out.!!!

Elaine, I live east of SilverSprings, my address is Ocklawaha but I'm off 40 a few miles.. we aren't far from one another. Haven't been in Sew & Vac but know where it is. I'm trying to use up a lot of stash from the past 4 years so trying not to buy anything unless it's to finish a project.  I do sneak in a little here and there though.

Kath.. I would LOVE to see your work, I'm going to try and put a few outfits together before the end of July, haven't smocked anything in several years. It was hard to quilt, sew or smock after breaking my hand in "05, past 2 yrs I was just pieceing quilt tops, it was mindless for me. After this wonderful Blog created by a wonderful person.. I'm getting my hands limbered up. (yeah, I'm brown nosing..[:'(]  I didn't mean to step on anyones toes.. Forgiven?)

Well, another day I can't sew tomorrow.. have to go to the Top of the World tomorrow.. UGH  but will chat with you all later in the day... Don't get to crazy while I"m gone..

night

lynn

Wow,I don't show up for a while and look what happens! LOL. Yes ,Ann's Catalog Express is amazing ! I have it ,along with Alphabet Express,which by the way ,they work together as well. Cat X,is probably one of my must haves and sure saves me a lot of precious ME time. Once I got all of my designs into it(which took me about three weeks) (ladies I have a ton of designs,over 20,000 now) it is a snap to find them,plus all I have to do is double click on them and it brings them up in my Janome customizer plus. If I want to ad lettering I right click on it and it brings up Alpha X to add lettering. How much easier can it be? After all the banter on having everything saved in case of a hurricane,good idea,but like Ann made some cd's to put in the safe and a set to take with me just in case.In Florida ,you just never know Every time I add new designs I back it up again and that you can do right from Cat X. I don't worry any more about what is where,I know where it is!! (btw, I have over 600 cat designs,lol) Yes it even keeps count on the number of designs you have ! I have a lot of $$$ invested into the designs and now I have assured myself that I won't lose them.And yes it is very,very easy to use. I am not exactly a computer whiz and I had it pretty much figured out within minutes of installing it.You guys would really like it and the price of it for what it does is also amazingly low! Once I had both Cat X and Alpha X,I don't know how I got along without them.Actually I do, I spent a lot of time looking for designs instead of sewing,LOL !!

Kath,Yes bring some of your samples of your smocking and heirloom stuff to the luncheon,I would like to see them as well. I am going to be bringing a couple of things to show you all as well,can't bring too much or tom will say,I thought we were going to have lunch,not sew.LOL

 Well the bath is coming along fine,Tom got the plumbing and wiring in yesterday.today is the medicine cabinet and light strip and finish wiring the new outlets( I had only one in there)then he can start on the drywall,patching and sanding,oh joy !I received an e-mail yesterday that the wallpaper border will be here on Thursday,which surprised me as they said it would take at least 10 days,lol. So I am happy about that and so was Tom. I also ordered wallpaper for my bedroom,as long as I was right there and besides it was at a price I couldn't afford to pass up,especially for one I really wanted.It has been a while since I priced wallpaper and Whew,had it gone up. I am glad I am only doing border's and not the wall's as well. Ouch ! Tom is taking pictures along the way so we can really see how much it has changed,just with a few added touches. tom hates the faucet I picked out but I like it. I think once he sees it all together he will too.Right now it's the elephant in the room ,so to speak.

I have been busy the last few days running some FSL  bookmarks I found and am not happy with them at all. Talk about stitch intensive,I think the digitizer went way over board on those,lol. So I am going to put them back in the drawing board and see if I can remove some of the stitches to make them work.The basic design is good,but has way too many stitches in it. The whole thing was out of shape and just looked funky,lol. so will be working on that today and trying to finish up some other projects at the machine as well. As long as Tom is busy with the bath ,then it gives me time to play at the machines and get some things done with limited interruptions,lol.Yes he is one of those........the minute I sit down at the machine I hear............honey can you come here and look at this? or Honey where's the peanut butter? or where is the what ever's,LOL.Better yet,he can be sitting within 6 inches of the phone and say,honey can you get that? LOL and yet he wonder's why I talk to myself ,lol ! The one at the top of the list is,Honey let's go do this today,lol.Either way I can't win,lol.

Well,you all have a great day ! Take a look at CatX and Alpha X. They are worth everything you pay for them and more if you count the time you save looking for your designs !

Ann,

So sorry that your feelings are hurt.  I don't know if your statement about "whimpy embroiderers" was directed to me, but it sure sounded like it. 

I was only making a suggestion to everyone that backing up designs to a "Compact Flash" card was a good idea in case of a emergency evacuation.  Also, nice to have if someone get a computer virus and/or computer crash.

By the way, I have a laptop that is in my sewing room next to one of my embroidery machines.  It is dedicated for the use of my embroidering.  I have all of my designs on my laptop, neatly catagorized, named, pictured, etc. and can get to them at a click of the mouse.  I also have them all backed up on cd's.  Each time a get a new embroidery card, or download designs, I immediately put them on to cd and also onto the "Compact Flash" card.

I may not have the 70,000 designs that you have and I am proud of you for having so many.  I do have a very nice collection of designs and some of them I have bought from ATG and will continue to buy and still back them up on the Compact Flash card.

Once again, sorry that your feelings are hurt.  So are mine and others.

Sandra Pinson in Titusville

Hi Lynn,

I responded to your note a while back but didn't see it posted so I must have "done" it wrong!!  Grrrrr!  I would love to meet you (and pick your brain!!! Ha! Ha!) sometime since we live on the same side of Florida not to mention the same side of Ocala!  Could we "do" lunch sometime??

Sandy

 Oh, Sandra, I wasn't referring to anyone in particular and my tongue was firmly planted in cheek. I was just chuckling to myself over newish MEers who have so "few" embroidery designs that they would all fit on one flash drive. I'm afraid that after 14 years or so I have an embarrassing number of designs and, although the size of my collection isn't large enough to make a dent in my hard drive, it would take 6 1 GB flash drives to hold all of them. Now, as it happens I have 7 flash drives, 3 2 GB and 4 1 GB. I use them for all manner of things, but not to store my embroidery designs.I find that DVDs are more efficient and much less costly.

One thing I HAVE been considering, though, since my primary machine (Brother 4000D) has a USB port, is to, like you, put all of my designs on my very old and very first laptop (Win 98, 6 GB hard drive), connect it to my machine and just leave it there, somewhere out of the way. No one wants the thing and I definitely can't sell it; can't even give it away! But, that would require my actually DOING it, which is something I'm not good at (getting things done).

I'm really sorry if I caused any offense. I really, really didn't mean to and apologize profusely . One of the things about message boards and email is that we can't see the expression on the person's face who sent the message, or hear her tone of voice. You can trust that if I say anything harsh or out of the way I'm kidding. 

Ann, apology well accepted.  I am so glad that you did not ban me from your site .  I love the blogs and the forums.  What was I thinking when I wrote my last response?  I wrote it before taking my harmone pill.  I think menopose was kicking my butt.  Thank god for PremPro.  After reading my own post, I took two pills.  If I die today, write on my tombstone,"She overdosed on her harmone pills" .

I don't have your Catalog Xpress because I have my own way of catagorizing my designs.  I do have your AlphaXpress and love it.  Took me no time to figure out how to use it, and now I abuse it.

I am just kidding about what I am about to say so don't take it the wrong way........Well here it is.......... If by some unfortunate chance you pass away before me, would you PLEASE put me in your will and leave me all of your embroidery designs.  I have lots of room on my hard drive and I promise you I will back them up.

Sorry, you can't have my designs, because I have left instructions that mine be buried with me.  I may be able to use them in another lifetime .

Sandra Pinson in Titusville

i live in holiday florida  

Hi Terry,

Welcome to the forum ! Would you care to join us in Orlando on July 19,2008 for a luncheon? We are all getting together at the Golden Corral  5535 S. Kirkman road at 1 PM. Just to chat,get to know each other and possibly start a project for charity. You are so welcome to join us for fun,food and lots of talk about  ME,family's and what ever we want to. So far there are 19 of us going and some,like me and other's are bringing their hubby's as well. Let me know by replying to this forum,just click on contact and it will get to me ,I promise.

Again ,Welcome and we hope to see more of you !

Gee Terry,

I almost forgot to mention that we will be hooking you up with other's in your area to get together with as well. It will be a great way to start some new friendships and get together with other's in your area for sewing,ME and other fun things. Please feel free to join us !

 I regret, that I have to cancel lunch with all you wonderful ladies.  Would love to see all the heirloom,

 embroidery and sewing projects.

Keep me posted about the next gathering.

Lee Johnson-Ayers 

I'm sorry to hear that Lee,we will miss you.Yes we will keep you posted on further gatherings.

wow, I learned to sew on a treadle machine in 8th grade, we had electric ones but no one wanted to use the treadle ones and I thought they were fun. When I lived overseas in Istanbul, Turkey they had only treadle machines and they made the most delicate clothes and then hand embroidered on them.  You must win the prize for having so many machines, you lucky person you.

I live in Ormond Beach.  Didn't know there were so many embroiders in the immediate area.

Marge