I am in a delima. I am thinking about purchasing a used brother pacesetter ULT 2001 or a brother 6500. I have never owned an embroidery machine. Would it be helpful in quilting. A lot of people say they don't really use the embroidery. I don't want to waste 900.00 . Tell me will I find the embroidery useful and would quilting on either machine be better than my old white computerized machine. Please give me information to help me decide. Thank you so much for comments. I am not a great quilter, should I spend my money on lessons?
I have joined a quilting club and I am learning.
Give me heart felt honest advice.

I like my emb machine. I can embroider blocks to put in quilts, make labels, embroider out appliques or on other items.
I think that some people are intimidated by their emb machines...I did not use mine for almost 6 months after I got it..then one day I sat down with it and the manual and started right into it :D:D:D
I guess it depends on how interested in embroidery that you are.

this review site might help...
http://www.consumersearch.com/sewing-machines/review

Personally speaking, I use my emb machine alot for my quilts. I love the look of added embroidery.

I sew & quilt on it too, but I do free motion quilting. Once in a while I will use a quilt design to quilt blocks when making a quilt as you go, but I haven't tried the designs on a big quilt yet.

Once you get into embroidery I think you will find you use it on many many things other than quilts.

I use mine for clothes, purses, pot holders whatever I can hoop. LOL

Good luck.

I would get the Ult
I had the 8500 and loved it and then got the Duetta...and I love, love it...so much when I got a great steal on the Pfaff Creative Vision 5.0 I had to buy it as well.
Get the largest hoop size you can afford. Brother machines are very user friendly.
I use the emb. for gifts, in the hoop projects (baby bibs, baby wipe cases, makeup bags, etc...) and for quilting some quilts.
PM me if you have any questions and I will try and answer them.
Kirsten

I wanted to buy one of the machines that has an embroidery function but decided against it for 2 reasons:
1. I am not a huge fan of embroidery, and odds are, I won't start at the tender age of 50+
2. I would need a second machine to do the piecing or other sewing while the embroidery machine is doing its thing and I would not want to carry this machine to classes.

Using the embroidery is great for some and not so for others, I use mine a lot as some will tell you, I love it, but then again, there are still things that I do with out the use of it. There is no way to tell until you try it whether you will end up using it a lot of a little or not at all. Some find it difficult, others easy, there are a lot of people on the board that use their embroidery machines so if you decide to go that way there is a lot of help.

I have been having a ball with mine. It's so much fun.

I love to have the embroidery machine just "clicking away" while I am sewing on another machine...piecing, quilting, making tote bags, raggy quilts, gifts. I would really miss my embroidery machine if I didn't have it...heaven forbid.

I too have embroidered out quilt blocks such as 2 fishing quilts I made for my youngest son & grandson...both were different, yet similar. They were really a lot of fun to make them.

Go to some LQS and get demos, ideas, and see if they have classes, etc. There's lots of ideas, tutorials, etc. on boards like this now, and gobs of info on the internet.

Good luck and have fun!

I have the Brother ULT 2003 D for 4 yrs now and it has been a work Horse the only thing I don't like is how hard it it to replace the bobbin shuttle after you clean it but other than that it does wonderful embroidery and sewing