The Deer’s Embroidery Legacy Story

Award-Winning Embroidery – Since 1958

Originally created by John Deer’s grandparents in the 1950s, The Deer’s Embroidery Legacy (then known as Dress Crest Embroidery) first began as a Schiffli loom embroidery factory. In our humble beginnings, we began by creating lace for the bridal industry across North America.

Over the span of 40 years we grew from 1 small factory to 2 large factories operating 6 Schiffli Looms, 136 multi-head embroidery machines and 54 employees. During this time period we created all sorts of embroidered goods (such as clothing, sports apparel and emblems) and were voted one of the top 100 volume embroidery manufacturers in North America (producing over 10,000,000 pieces of embroidered goods per year). In the mid-1990s commercial embroidery production shifted overseas and away from North America. Out of necessity, John transformed the company into a commercial digitizing production house.

Throughout the late 1990s & early 2000s, John Deer’s Embroidery Legacy (then known as Punch Perfect) digitized hundreds of thousands of embroidery designs per year for corporations across the world. This included work for Disney, Coca-Cola, GM, the NFL, & the NBA & John Deere (ironically enough) to list a few among thousands. During this period, John personally won 30 awards for his work. In the mid-2000s, the commercial digitizing market also began to shift overseas so John once again transformed the company out of necessity.

This time, John Deer’s Embroidery Legacy moved away from the commercial embroidery market and redirected its focus towards home embroiderers with the name John Deer’s Adorable Ideas. For roughly a decade Adorable Ideas crafted a database of close to 30,000 quality embroidery designs, numerous educational series and ran thousands of live embroidery events across the world.

Now re-branded as Embroidery Legacy to honor our roots, we offer thousands of embroidery designs, embroidery software, online education, tools, live events and more. Drawing from our past, we strive to provide embroiderers from all walks of life with the best embroidery products & education available. Our goal is to help further the beautiful art of machine embroidery by coaching embroiderers around the world.

It’s no mystery… quality embroidery is our history.

Meet Our Family

65 Years Later We’re Still Proudly a Small Family Run Business

John Deer Embroidery Portrait

John Deer – Owner & CEO

Winning 30 commercial digitizing awards, John Deer has been the most awarded embroidery digitizer in the world for over two decades now. As a 4th generation embroiderer, John has an incredibly unique history in the embroidery digitizing industry as he is the last remaining Schiffli Master Digitizer still alive and teaching in North America. John learned and apprenticed under Swiss Schiffli Master Digitizers (then known as “punchers”) over 30 years ago in his grandparents’ factory, before computers even entered the digitizing world.

John has run 2 commercial embroidery factories, owned one of the world’s largest production digitizing houses, wrote the book “Digitizing Made Easy” (which has sold over 51,000 copies), and coached 100,000+ home and commercial embroiderers globally.

Jesse Deer Portrait Image

Jesse Deer
Marketing Director

Bethany Deer Portrait Image

Bethany Deer
Operations Manager

James Deer Portrait Image

James Deer
Social Media Manager

Ken Kim Portrait Image

Ken Kim
Creative Director

Leanne Portrait Image

Leanne MacKinnon
Customer Support

Jennifer Deer Portrait Image

Jennifer Deer
The Real Boss

What is the Embroidery Legacy up to Today?

Click one of the buttons below to browse some of the amazing products we have to offer:

Embroidery Legacy Design Club Stitch out Example

Embroidery Legacy Design Club

Save up to 90% on 30,000 embroidery designs

Embroidery Legacy Digitizer's Dream Course

Digitizer’s Dream Course

Learn how to create your own embroidery designs with proven results

Hatch Embroidery Software Embroidery Legacy Official reseller

Hatch Embroidery Software

Powerful yet easy-to-use embroidery & digitizing software

Embroidery Legacy's Design Doodler Software

Design Doodler Software

Easily draw, doodle, or trace custom designs without digitizing

Embroidery Legacy Embroidery Designs

Machine Embroidery Designs

Browse 100+ categories with 30,000 beautiful quality designs

Embroidery Legacy Echidna Hooping Stations

Echidna Hooping Stations

Stop the hooping frustration with the Echidna hooping station