Survey says? Where do you get your embroidery info?

having been a professional digitizer since 1990 I know that the resources for learning our craft are scarce....to this day. The financial entry threshold to our industry used to be very high so no one wanted to tell anyone else what they knew or had learned for fear of competition. Now the financial threshold is way more manageable yet those with skills still seem to be hesitant to share and teach. The home sewing market has been much better than our commercial market in tutorials and product reviews... the "crafts" market is by far the best in utilizing current social media .

If you look up YouTube training videos you will find several, but it seems most content creators have posted a few and then stopped... not consistent, not prolific... they ran out of steam.

That is why I have mentioned several times on this forum and spoken to you directly by phone (Justin) (and others in the industry) about creating a YouTube channel that specifically is for this industry, from home to industrial digitizing / embroidery providers. I think with my credentials and life situation at the moment I am in a unique position to help.

This channel is in beta now but will be released shortly (before the end of 2016). The key is that content needs to be regularly consistent... regularly helpful, and NOT BORING. Too many start with a good concept and then just never upload anything for too long and lose their subscribers.

Five playlists on the channel:
A. Lessons on how to digitize.. methods, not necessarily software specific.. but "rules" specific. Heck just the alphabet alone could be over 100 videos... left to right, right to left, serif, sans serif.. one letter at a time... you get the idea... and you get to hone in on ONLY what you want help with.
B. Our own website tutorials.. hey, marketing is marketing and some might be interested in a behind the scenes tour.
C. Embroidered Dollhouse vlog... you have seen pics of it, now those that are interested can watch the progress and through comments actually help with design and decoration.
D. FAQs for embroidery and digitizing... TONS of info to help with here.... comment driven, should be fun. (show 40 wt , 60 wt and 75 wt thread sewing small lettering, lets see the difference on real fabrics for example)
E. Embroidery machine videos... common preventive maintenance/ common issues, etc. How to hoop different items, you get the idea.
F. Product reviews. Lets try things out and see where they fit. And lets experiment with crazy ideas the subscribers have. Heck I have not seen fishing line used for auto headlights and windshields in YEARS... why is that? lets sew some things and try ideas like that out again.

B is not an actual playlist.. it only has a finite number of issues to cover so it would be placed in a different section... not to be a continuing video maker.

what is a Workhorse Poka 5? and how will it help people find info on embroidery? (the subject of this thread) and as a side note.. what is "heavy embroidery"? you add weights to it? you do a ton of garments at a time? please explain. thanks!

That youtube-channel sounds really helpfull and interesting.

Here are some blogs and forums that I now check regulary:
FORUMS
- T-shirtforums (http://www.t-shirtforums.com/embroidery/)
- Signs101.com ([url]http://www.signs101.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?341-Embroidery):[/url] the embroidery-forum is not that active but it has some great info

BLOGS / SITES
- Impressions (http://impressions.issshows.com/commercial-embroidery.shtml)
- mr x stitch ([url]http://www.mrxstitch.com/category/machine-embroidery/):[/url] has some really great articles
- Erich Campbell blog ([url]http://www.erichcampbell.com/la/):[/url] very good and interesting articles
- Machine embroidery & digitizing group (https://plus.google.com/communities/100515485116560836146)

Most likely most already know about these forums/sites, but thought that I would share my personal list here.

We manufacture almost any type of garments. We quote based on volume, materials and size specifications. We also have our own TAZ Hawk Compact Automated Printing Machine, Workhorse Poka 5 for heavy Embroidery .

GREAT info Spiderworld!