Award Winning Embroidery – Since 1958

The Deer’s Embroidery Legacy’s Story

Our mission is to advance the beautiful art of machine embroidery by providing top-quality products and proven education to embroiderers everywhere.

John’s grandparents in their first embroidery factory in 1958. Embroidery machines, like this Shiffli machine, weren’t as small and portable then as they are now.

Founded in the 1950s by John Deer’s grandparents, Embroidery Legacy started as a Schiffli loom factory producing patches and lace for North America’s bridal industry. We created patches for hundreds of companies, including the NHL, MLB, Walt Disney World, the Boy Scouts, and Girl Guides (just to list a few).

John’s digitizing mentor – A true Schiffli master digitizer at work… This is how John learned how to digitize!

Over 40 years, we expanded to 2 large factories, operating 6 Schiffli Looms and 136 multi-head embroidery machines, employing 54 people, and becoming one of North America’s top embroidery manufacturers, producing over 10 million embroidered goods per year.

Tradeshows were a big part of our business in 1990s. Check out that first-place EMB Honors plaque!

In the mid-1990s, as commercial embroidery moved overseas, we pivoted to a commercial digitizing production house, known as Punch Perfect, serving global corporations like Coca-Cola, the NFL, and ironically enough John Deere (the tractor company) with John Deer (our CEO) winning 30 awards for his work.

John has taught tens of thousands of people to digitize. Here he is at a sold-out event in 2018.

Adapting again in the mid-2000s, we shifted our focus towards home embroiderers as John Deer’s Adorable Ideas, creating nearly 30,000 quality designs and running numerous live embroidery events worldwide.

John celebrates over 40 years of digitizing experience – He’s had lots, and lots, of practice.

Today, as Embroidery Legacy, we honor our heritage by offering an extensive range of beautiful embroidery designs, cutting-edge software, premium education, and live events. Our history reflects our commitment to excellence in embroidery.

Our highlights

John & his grandmother (one of the founders of our company) both share their award-winning embroidered masterpieces.

In 1975, John’s grandfather and aunt working hard to sell patches at trade shows – believe me, we know our patches.

Our second factory in the late 1980s – We had over 136 multi-head Tajima machines running 6 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Embroidery Legacy content has reached over 10 million views on social media platforms. We love to educate and inspire!

From MLB to major league stitches—these sports patches were a home run! Creating officially licensed designs like these was an exciting chapter in our embroidery journey.

We were proud to be the official producer of Walt Disney World patches—each one digitized with love, full of detail, and stitched with Disney magic.

A lasting blend of heritage and technique, our 500+ vintage lace designs were expertly digitized by Swiss Schiffli masters in the 1950s for the bridal industry.

John has won 30 awards for his digitizing, including this Dog cap, which won him his first EMB Grand Prize in 1998. He was the first to use three 2mm layers of 3D Puffy Foam.

In 1999, John took home a first-place prize for this Spider-Man jacket (it also took first place for his kids).

John wrote the book ‘Digitizing Made Easy’, which simplifies embroidery digitizing and has sold over 60,000 copies!

65 years later we’re still proudly a small family run business

Meet our family

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 40 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 popular book “Digitizing Made Easy”, and coached hundreds of thousands of embroiderers globally.