A big huge thank you to Caydo for sending the Caydo CE01 smart embroidery machine for review. As always, no monetary compensation was received in exchange for this rave review.
If you’ve been around here a bit, you know how much I love personalized products. Over the years, I have featured a few dozen personalized products. Maybe this love of personalized everything stems from never finding a single pre-made souvenir or gift with my name on it growing up, or maybe it’s because I just love gifts that show that the gift giver spent a little extra time on it. But whatever the reason, I’m absolutely drawn to anything I can have personalized.
Thanks to Caydo, I’m one huge step closer to being able to create just about any personalized product I can dream up. No hunting gift shops, no leaving dejected because they still never have my name or 2/3 of my kids’ names, now I can make all those personalized products I love so much, all by myself.
Well, not exactly all by myself. I mean, I’m *heavily* relying on the magic that is Caydo to help bridge the gap between my embroidery skills {or lack thereof} and my desire to make really cool gifts for family and friends. So far, we are an amazing team.
Why do we love the Caydo CE01 smart embroidery machine?
It is the easiest way to personalize clothing, wall hangings, and so much more. Think sports season embroidery for all those personalized items for all your family’s activities, think embroidered work clothing, and think personalized stroller blankets for each new baby, and so much more. Never again will I spend hundreds of dollars and then weeks waiting for all of our gear while it goes into a personalization queue on top of shipping and processing.
The Caydo CE01 smart embroidery machine is a computerized wizard that makes learning how to embroider easy, even for absolute beginners like me. It has a large 7” full-color HD touchscreen that makes designing, and then creating, your project as simple as possible. Whereas other models have a small screen that is harder to navigate, the Caydo’s larger screen makes it so much easier to preview designs, adjust settings, and operate the machine easily.
Two different hoop sizes come with the machine, which can be used for different sized projects. A standard 4×4 inch hoop is great for baby clothing or tea towels, and a larger 4×9.25 is great for tote bags, sweatshirts, wall hangings and more. I personally love that the larger hoop was perfect for helping control our larger projects, and I really loved that I could easily add to the design as I created my project when my daughter suggested I add another line to the tote bag I was making for her.
Once you have your fabrics in the hoop and clicked into the embroidery attachment, you’re almost there. Then you simply select one of the 130+ embroidery designs that are pre-loaded on the machine, or you can download additional embroidery designs and then transfer them to the Caydo via an external drive inserted into the USB drive. Or, you can get really crazy and start designing your own embroidery motifs all by yourself as I’ve just started to do.
To begin with, I used only Caydo pre-loaded designs and fully utilized the fonts in the machine to embroider names, graduation dates, and more. As I got more comfortable, I searched online for designs and then loaded those as I needed. I’m really excited to make our own logo and artwork embroidery patterns as soon as I fully master the designing and converting to embroidery files.
Minutes to set up and start creating
It arrives all ready to start embroidering. In fact, I opened the box and set up the threads and was embroidering within an hour – which would have honestly been quicker except I was going step by step through the online guides and watching videos to make sure I had the machine threaded and the bobbin created successfully. I loved that everything I needed was included, such as polyester thread in multiple colors, pre-wound bobbins, stabilizer sheets, and a whole package of tools to get up and running quickly.
I didn’t even have time to grab my sewing kit upstairs as I was trying to beat the clock to create a Senior Gear item my daughter could take to her first day of school. I did just fine with all of the included tools and threads, although I probably would have been quicker if I had grabbed my seam ripper when my first attempt at bobbin-winding went a little awry.
Once it’s loaded with thread, your hoop with your fabric is attached, and your project is picked, the fun really starts. The first time the machine whirred to life and started embroidering like magic, I was absolutely entranced. It’s surprisingly fast and can operate at up to 700 stitches per minute, and it’s ridiculously fun to watch embroider. I found it super easy even for my absolute beginner status, and it had great stitch quality from the first go.
Caydo CE01 smart embroidery machine specs
The Caydo CE01 smart embroidery machine has a 7″ large HD touchscreen for clearer and smoother operation
1-on-1 customer support for stress-free stitching
It comes with 4×4″ & 4×9.25″ hoops for creations of all sizes and a complete accessory kit so you are ready to embroider out of the box
Our project: Senior Gear
When my daughter first dreamed up making her own Senior shirts, I was totally on board. Considering they were $60+ in retail stores near us, the idea of making them for under $10 was definitely a draw. When she described what she was looking for, it was right when the Caydo arrived and I was hoping I could figure out the machine in time for designing the “Senior” logo sweatshirt she wanted. Designing the logo was fairly easy, I just created the image in Photoshop and then used a free embroidery program to convert the image to stitches. The result was pretty cool, honestly.
Then I just had to figure out how to make the rough sewn applique she was hoping for. She already had a scrap of this white fabric that she loved, so we decided this would be the perfect applique background for the Senior logo.
After the embroidery was done, I then snipped the fabric all around the embroidery. This took longer than I had anticipated and was messier than I had imagined with all the tiny threads being snipped. The included snips in the Caydo package came in so handy, because my scissors couldn’t get nearly close enough to the embroidery otherwise.
There were definitely times I almost gave up on the project when I saw just how rough the applique looked, but in the end with a bunch of trimming, I think it turned out amazing. And, it all came together under budget, which is my favorite part.
This girl has big dreams for her next project, and I’m excited to do more designing and embroidery with her.
About Caydo
If you are even kind of considering getting started in embroidery, you absolutely need to check out Caydo. In addition to the CE01, they also offer a whole assortment of craft supplies like manual embroidery kits, yarn winders, and so much more. The focus is beginner-friendly products, but they can be utilized by a variety of different users. Because you can create your own designs and bring them to life quickly and easily, the machine can definitely be used by intermediate embroiderers and those with lots of experience.