Free Digitizing Software?

[nkelley09]

Is there any out there that someone can recommend? I don't need anything fancy to start, I'm just looking to put together some simple projects and really can't afford to buy a $200 program at this point.

[skittlebub]

Stitch Era Universal is free to download, I'm trying that at the moment.
Embird has a free 30 day trial, I only got to use it once before the trial was up so I don't know how good it is.

[amarok]

from another post i found this tip:

SophieSew is a freeware digitizing program that you might want to give a try. There are others, too. ( Search for freeware embroidery digitizing software )

i'm using stitch era with combination with the husqvarna viking's one thousand euros software. looking at a design on the screen is kinda sad with stitch era, so i need the second program to look at the stitches, but era is like the best digitizing program you can get for free and if you have tried other programs with the same basis, then you can work miracles with it. i'll be posting more pics of the program and my designs later on, but there is a desing i've made with a screen capture from stitch era in the "Machine Embroidery: Completed Projects"-board.

[mrsflibble]

the Embird trial doesn't alow you to save anything you've worked on which is annoying. sophie sew is good though, but I've no put in enough work to be able to advise any further.

[Meheidie]

Threadworks is an ok one.  Its totally free. A little bit of a learning curve but for free its pretty good.

http://www.thredworks.com/index.php

[SciFunk]

I'm a little late to the party, but SophieSew is great! I downloaded it about a week ago and went through the tutorial videos, then did some of my own stuff, and apart from the frustration of a new program I'm really enjoying it. It does crash occasionally, so you need to save your work often, but it's not so annoying that I would pay hundreds of dollars for a similar program that doesn't crash as frequently. I think learning digitizing software has a steep learning curve, so don't think Embird (or any other paid program) will be any easier to learn than SophieSew.