Hi jjk1939... i am also new to embroidery and this site.. don't worry they are all so nice here. I think you'll be fine. They help you here. There are many to answer questions and if they don't know the answer they will give you links to go help. It's easy to get around this site and many tabs along left side to guide you. I too have tried digitizing and i'm not great at it but i keep trying lol. Have a great day...
enjoy the site
Lee
have a great day
Lee

i stitch one out and while shil in the hoop i use an overhead projector trancperacy to go around the outside of the design(in permanent marker) and put the 4 markers of the hoop so it centers like a cross and use this to roughly place where i want it positioned. hope this helps cathy

Welcome to cute. If you have a printer and the software on your pc you can print the pic, cut it out and put it where you want it. Make sure you mark the hoop markings on the pic. You can stitch the first st without cotton and put a marker where it starts. Hope it helps. *4u

Hi and welcome to Cute

I've photocopied the plastic grids that came with my hoops. I can mark the outine of a design on the copy and then work out how to fit other design elements in.
Can't help with digitising - its a mystery to me!

I just do a design, carefuly remove it from the stabilizer and used it as a template...*********

Welcome to cute *4U you have some goood answersand I have done this and I mark my hoop on the top of the fabric with either a washable pen of dissapearing one then I make sure the center stitch on my machine lines up with the center I have marked, if it is off I just adjust in my machine until it is right on. usually it is just a smidge off so real easy to line up perfect. for placement of designs here is a site with a chart.
there are a lot of sites that have placement charts.

Have a look at this site. It tells you about placement http://www.susaglenndesigns.com/How_to_Use_Paper_Templates_s/68.htm

You should beable to find good placement with your embroidery machine. I do mine on my computer first, print it out then put it on my project for placement. H&*