I have been signing my blogs as the Embroidery Dinosaur for a reason, I have been in this business for 29 years. That's a long time in our fast changing world and I have seen a lot of evolution. I started out fresh from college after taking a Graphic Arts program and was hired to work for a schiffli embroidery company. That was in the days when we drew out the designs at 6:1. It was a great way to get an understanding of the possibilities of embroidery and the importance of negative space. I met my husband who was waiting to be transferred to Montreal. That came through and I moved back to the city I was born in.
I then worked for a digitizing company for a few years and with the support and encouragement from my husband started Artistic Embroidery Digitizing. All we did was digitizing. Our motto was "we do one thing and we do it well". Just over ten years ago I go itchy feet. I had visited the west on a vacation to Whistler and fallen in love. Our daughter was young enough that it would be an easy mover for her. So we decided to grab the opportunity and we packed the family and moved west leaving my partner Tara to run the Montreal office.
At that time my husband got involved in the business. He got us organized to have our stock designs posted on embroidery.com and helped get us going in the west.
Also around that time Pulse showed me their system and I was wooed. I found it a very innovative and progressive software. So the old dinosaur learned some new tricks. It is one of the things I like about this business. There is always something new to learn.