Advice on Brother embroidery machines

It uses 45 watts. Buy one !!!! You won't regret it. I can't sew at all and I found using this machine very simple. You don't need special Brother thread. Don't buy any cards or designs until you've used the machine a while and see what you can download for free into your card (I like Ultimate Box).

You can use a "Baby Monitor" to allow you to do other stuff while the machine embroiders by itself. You'll hear when it stops and needs the thread color changed thru the monitor.

Bob

PS: What is the price for the PE-150 at your Walmart ????

I second that. I thought the same when I started quilting. But when I started machine embroidery I found another addiction. Finding time for one addiction is hard, but try it for two!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yikes! Never enough time to finish everything I want to do and I am broke feeding my addictions! :)

Melissa in NJ :)

***This is a light bulb. I can do that. ***This is what I needed to know.

Don't buy any cards or designs until you've used the

***Do I have to have the machine close to the computer or is the card something that I can use in the computer without having to buy an external drive? ***They were on clearance last week for $259 but today they're up to $300 ***No, it's a PE 150 (my mistake on the number--sorry! :( ***I've looked there but they are around $300 there. ***Thank you, thank you!

***How difficult is it to download? I have dialup service on my computer so it will be slower than DSL ***Yay! Thank you again for this one! ***Great!

***Is this like a card that you would find in a digital camera? Could I use my external drive for the digital camera for the card? **Great tip. ***Great!!!

**Thank you again for this one, too. It seems you are a serious Ebay shopper!

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU! This is a great group! I'm keeping this email so I can refer to it after I get the machine.

So how limiting is the 4x4 area? Are most of you with these smaller machines happy with them or do you wish you had the larger embroidery areas? I'm looking to get one of these for my wife for Christmas and debating whether to drop $2k on the Pc-8500 or to start her off on the smaller machines and maybe upgrade later?

My machine has a 4x4 area. It can take a while for a design to stitch out. With the larger areas, it takes even more time. I was in a shop recently where a Bernina with a 16" long hoop was stitching a large design. It was apparently taking most of the day. It would do one color and stop. Then the clerk would go to the machine (between customers, phone, etc.) to change the thread color. The work was beautiful - except where someone had bumped the hoop while it was stitching - but how often would anyone want to have a huge design stitching away all day?

Look at what you might want to embroider. How big is the area? If it is large, could you do it in sections, or does it need a larger hoop size?

My 4x4 will do almost all of the designs that I want to do, so I feel no need to "upgrade" at this point. YMMV.

It depends on what you want to do. Any design larger than that requires breaking up into pieces, multiple-hooping, and lots of other opportunities to go wrong.

had the > larger embroidery areas?

We're not particularly happy with the 4x4 that we've had for quite a while. We just don't do some of the larger things we've talked about. But it does most of what we want - we just can't do large jacket backs, all-in-one scenics.

It's like anything else - would you use the extra features or extra size or whatever it is that bumps something into the next price category? If you would, then it's well worth the additional expenditure of money and learning time. If not, then it would be like living in New York because the THEATER is there, but never going out.

- Herb

I think you will find that a Brother that does the 5 x 7 inch size is worth the difference.........If you buy too small in the beginning, you just have to spend the money again in order to upgrade...........I have a 2002D Brother, and love the large hoop for borders!! You can repeat the design right in the hoop, and the onboard computer helps you set it all up............Get something she won't "outgrow" in a year!!!!!

i second the motion on the babylock ellure. its a great machine. i "upgraded" from a 4x4 field, and find that this machine is suiting my needs very well.... betsey "we do not inherit the earth, we caretake it for our children"

Hi, I bought my first brother machine with the 4 X 4 area, and really thought it would be adequate. And for the most part it is, but occassionally I will see a beautiful design (mostly scenics) I would love to stitch, but the hassles of splitting are many. Now I wish I had gone up to the 5X7 area. If I had to do it over again, I would go for the larger.

I got a new PE-150 for $300. That represents a $1700 savings on the 2k machine. I could use $30 of that savings for a multi-position large hoop which makes doing somewhat larger designs (especially where all you want is a "name" at the top or bottom VERY easy. Also, with EMBIRD ($60) program you can easily resize larger designs to fit the 4x4. Also, think about how many things you'd do LESS than 4x4 (socks, monograms, etc.). Unless you a VERY serious about embroidery I see no reason to spend the extra $1,700. I don't think many occasional embroiderers necessarily "outgrow" their 4x4 machines.

Bob G

"Warrior_13" wrote in message news:Q%3tb.31161$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdny03.gnilink.net...

I have a Brother PC7500 for 5 years now. I love it - haven't had one bit of trouble on the sewing or embroidery. It only has a 4x4 field and it's been adequate for me. I have used embird to make some designs a bit smaller so I could use them. A larger hoop would be nice but I haven't even considered upgrading - there's nothing that I've REALLY wanted to do that I haven't been able to do.

Good luck - You're wife is lucky.