Help with SOFTWARE!!

Hi, do you have a local sewing center? They would be able to direct you to someone in the area that can help you more one on one than just purchasing software and being left alone pretty much. I would recommend buying some stock designs there or online and sew them out to practice on the machine quite a bit before you tried to actually digitize yourself. Practice the machine then use a local digitizer to create the designs you want for a white. THEN if you still have the bug (hopefully) then and only then spend the money, time, and energy to learn digitizing for yourself. Sorry, I liken this to exercise equipment... best of intentions but once the reality sets in they become expensive dust collectors.

i am also trying to find a cheap-ish program that will allow me to digitize my own embroidery. The first one I tried came with some nasty computer viruses (SewArt), but I guess that's what happens when you try the free stuff!. I also tried Embird's free 30 day trial which allows you to create some designs, but cannot export it in a file that is readable to your machine without paying the price. I don't know what program is best... I need something that will simply convert my jpeg/tif/png files to the proper machine format.

Stock stitch files have always been useless for me. I use corel draw (windows only) and then for digitizing I use Wilcom E3 which is a plug in for Corel Draw.