OT somewhat - embroidery SM?

Polly,

I have a Brother 180D (it will do the proprietary Disney designs). It works very well for my purposes but the embroidery field is really constrained. It will only do 4 inch by 4 inch designs max without some extra trouble and taking a chance on not getting the registration right for starting where you left off. If I was getting a different machine I'd still consider a Brother machine with as big a field as possible for your budget. I have several friends that have two sewing machine/embroidery machines so if one is embroidering the other can be a sewing machine. It works well for them.

Donna in Bellevue

I have the Viking Designer1, can't remember exactly the year I bought it, second year it hit the market. I kept my other machine and often sew on that when the Designer1 is embroidering. I do my majority of all sewing on the Designer1. The other (Husqvarna 6440) is standby, used when the Designer1 is embroidering or I use my OLD 194? Singer straight stitch if I have miles of straight seams to sew since it goes like a bat out of Hell and no other machine has that speed.

I've never regretted buying my embroidery/sewing machine and wouldn't change a thing. I also like that it uses floppy discs and I don't have to plug it into a computer or mess with reader boxes and such, just my personal preference. However, I've decided if it dies I won't replace it. Way too much money now. I've found that in the last few years I've really scaled back in the amount of machine embroidery I do. I guess I'm getting old. :(

Val

I have the Husquvarna Designer 2 (now called the quilt designer 2) for almost 7 years. I absolutely love it. I use it for both all the time (should say, "used", as I am too busy getting the house cleaned since it was listed today). I have not regretted my decision at all, except I did not do a very good job negotiating and probably paid quite a bit too much.

Debbi in SO CA

Val wrote:

I have a 30yo Janome Memory 7 that I would not part with for any price and I still do most of my sewing on it. All metal, solid, a real work horse.

I recently got a Janome 11000 embroidery machine - which interestingly featured the Memory 7 in its promotional material, so I have the earliest and the most recent computerised Janomes lol - that I will set up to work virtually only on embroidery.

I like the Janome 11000 because it does not have to have anything attached to convert it for embroidery - selecting options on the touch screen changes it back and forth from one mode to the other. It is a nice sewing machine and has a large embroidery field (8X8 standard hoop with magna one hoop even bigger). If I could only have one machine and I wanted embroidery capacity the J11000 would be my choice for that reason.

If I had to choose between a super sewing machine and an good sewing/embroidery machine, I would take the super sewing machine. But that is a reflection of my preferences only and so not really relevant to anyone else's decision. I must admit I only got the embroidery machine because I had a REALLY great deal offered. I love what it can do but I could live without it. I would HATE to have to give up my beautiful workhorse sewer.

I bought my Brother 8200 way back when just for the emroidery aspects. Then I started using the sewing parts and began to find it the equal, if not the superior in most areas to my at the time TOL Bernina 1630. The only part it fell down in comparision was the ability to change some of the decorative stitches and the fact that the stitches wer 7mm instead of 9 mm.. Had I had the 8200 first, I might never have gotten the 1630. The 8200 was also consdierably cheaper.

Linda PATCHogue,NY

Linda PATCHogue, NY

Hi Polly,

Well aren't you an 'enabler!' LOL

I love having machines that do both. The problem is, if one is really into sewing (and not just the embroidery) you really then need two machines because then you are freed up to do something else with the other machine while the first is embroidering.

I thought I'd love having a machine that did both but once I got into the embroidery capabilities more it really limited me. My Viking 1+ just does too many wonderful things! When it 'sat' and did embroidery I couldn't use it for any of the other wonderful things it did.That is exactly the reason I purchased a 2nd embroidery machine, a Viking Rose, last summer. It uses the same embroidery format, shares the same embroidery cards and hoops,and shares all of the snap on feet, with the 1+. The Rose was the 'step lower' model to the 1+ when they were both new, so I have two high quality and very similar 'feel' machines and it's great; I can set up one for embroidery, the other for FMQ, or with a walking foot...and leave them like that and go from one to the other. You can really do two things at once :) When the Rose is embroidering and I'm using the 1+ for something else, DH tells me I'm running a sewing machine sweat shop.

I really can get my projects done a lot faster this way.

-Irene

Never for a moment let this pure and innocent face fool you. You bet your boots I'm an enabler. I did a crib size quilt top of little teapots and asked DDIL to embroider "I'm a Little Teapot" on it for me. How's that for enabling? Polly

"IMS" Hi Polly,

I have a Bernina 180 and version 4 of its embroidery program. I love using both of them. However, both are now outdated and I doubt there will be much support for either of them much longer. I know my embroidery program won't work with Windows Vista should I need a new computer. And the upgrade is quite pricey. It's so sweet of you to think of boosting your DIL's embroidery capabilities. I wish I knew more about other machines to help you make a choice. I do find that I don't need to use two machines while doing embroidery though. There are many thread color changes to be made and its disrupting to me to hop up from a different sewing machine every few minutes (or less) to change the threads on the embroidery one. I like to use that time to do cutting or just leaf through my library of books and patterns.

Not having any wish to own an embroidery machine! I can give you an unbiased opinion. For myself, I would always appreciate separate machines. We have a separate washing machine and dryer - I turned down the idea of a washer that then dries. We sought a fridge/freezer that had separate motors.

I have heard it said that it is good to set an embroidery machine up to do a motif, say; while still being able to sew seams and such on the sewing machine, at the same time.

This may, of course, because I have a very compartmentalised mind? . In message , Polly Esther writes

Personal opinion here.... I also considered an embroidery only machine for exactly the reason you mentioned. But found that they were in many cases being phased out. And the ones that were still available were not "top of the line" in any respect. So I bought a Viking/Husqvarna Rose specifically to be able to do the auto embroidery. Now at the time I was selling Singers and Babylocks, both of which brands had machines with very nice embroidery capability. The reason I went with the Rose.... the Viking machines stitch out faster than the others, and, at the time had a whole lot more pre-digitized designs available than the others. (That last has probably changed since many designs are now offered in multiple formats so are available for many different brands all on one disc.) If I were looking now... I would go for one of the machines that uses either a disc or USB stick to hold the designs, instead of a proprietary "card". Less hardware needed and such. I would also check into larger design field availability. Of course it depends on the type of embroidery your DDIL wants to do. The continuous border hoop from Viking is great for putting a design along a border or edge of sheet and so on.

Lots of changes in the field since I bought my Rose, but I do like her. She is also my travel machine (the embroidery unit stays at home unless I am going to use it.) and she pretty much stays in the trunk of the car.

Good luck look> There's not much I wouldn't do for our DDILS. Can't think of anything.

I have had my babylock esante for about 5-6 yrs now and I LOVE it! However, that being said, I do SO much quilting that I felt it would be better to get a cheapo machine to peice on so I wouldn't wear out the 'good' machine doing something that a much cheaper machine could do just as well.

I had an old singer before I bought the babylock and it was night and day between the two, so much so that I never touched the singer again, I still have it but I don't see myself using it anytime soon. I then got into quilting much more and my fiance bought me a cheaper machine from walmart that did all my peicing. I just recently upgraded that machine to a Janome jem gold II and LOVE it!

If I had to give everything up but one machine I honestly do not know what I would do. I find the embroidery machine does sew very well but I find my other machines allow for greater control when peicing, especially if the cottons are rather thin. I suppose I would choose to keep the babylock only because I use it primarily to do my quilting and I would eventually get used to peicing on it. But I do like having the two of them so I don't have to choose!

From my SM 'research' a coupla years ago: The gal there said IF you want an embroidery machine--get one--they are so much easier to work on--shorter shop time--than if you had both, the SM/embroidery combo. Since I'm not into machine embroidery (if I can't do it by hand then I'm not gonna do it), wasn't a big factor in my selection. I did end up with the Quilter's Expression 2046 with 90 total stitches counting the buttonholes. I only use the extra stitches when I'm top stitching 'fancy things'--like 4 LC pillows. I am trying the 'blanket stitch' on DD's quilt..jury is still out on that.

Butterfly (MISS being able to just hand embroider and hand quilt...one of these days)

Have you planted St Joseph yet? They had a news bit on the Evening News this past week. Said he was a non-denominational Saint. We have planted him at a number of places--and he is still there. We didn't say the 'requisite prayer' or buy the 'kit' that is out now, as we didn't know there was one and we've sold every one so far.. You do NOT have to geta big one and it can be plastic..just ask him in your own way to sell your House so you can find a new home.

I have my sewing area set up , as my son dubbed it, Command Central. The Designer1 is HQ, in the Koala cabinet, the serger is to my left on the pull out thingy of the cabinet, from my D1 I do a 180 in my twirly chair and my

6440 is on a table directly behind me ready to go. Very convenient and Mister Oliver is hardly disturbed in my lap when I go from one machine to the next. Works good.

Val

I have both a Designer 1 and a Babylock Ellageo machines. They are combination machines---The Babylock is usually set for embroidery only, bur it's easy to remove the embroidery unit and have a great sewing machine. Since I got that one, I've used the Viking just for sewing. I personally wouldn't buy an embroidery only machine unless it was at least a 6 needle machine. The smaller ones are SO limited to the size hoop to use. A 4x4" hoop is fine for some things, but it gets old quickly, once a person sees how many designs are available. Plus, I've never seen a small embroidery machine have the quality the combos have. Email me off list if you want to discuss this--I've embroidered a long time. Actually that's much more my passion than quilting. Gen

This was a MAJOR problem I had with Bernina software. I had my original PE 200 embroidery machine, but the Bernina version of the software. When Windows PE came out, Bernina didn't keep pace with the times, and I could only get software to work by upgrading to Artista. Now the original Bernina Wizard/Customizer software was $1,900 and they offered me a $200 discount on the Artista software. They would not support XP.

I was able to upgrade to the Brother PEDesign software from the Bernina software for $200 and have upgraded it ever since. I am on version 7 now. Brother seems to offer patches, even for it's older programs.

L>I have a Bernina 180 and version 4 of its embroidery program. I love using

Linda PATCHogue, NY

My goodness, there's just so much to consider. I was hoping to surprise her but am thinking she needs to weigh the possibilities herself. I know all of you are very busy and do appreciate your taking the time to help me get DDIL one that fits just right. Thank you so much, Polly

I have the Bernina Artista 200 with the version 4 software. I haven't had any trouble with having both in one machine. I did buy a Bernina 210 to take to classes (that 200 is HEAVY) so if I'm embroidering something that doesn't have a million thread changes, I use it. I think the Bernina 730 is the model that came out after the 200--pricey but I love my Bernina!!