Hello,
I have seriously been contemplating getting in to embroidery work. I know a lot of you wonderful folks on here do beautiful embroidery work and I was wondering what machines you currently use? Have you used and would recommend me to use or stay away from? Thanks so much for any and all input!
Hugs
April

I would recommend getting one with the a large hoop capability...some of the cheaper ones only go up to 5 X 7 or 4 X 6 and it is getting harder to find designs that will fit. You may think that size is ok now, but as you realize what "can" be done, you may be very dissatisfied.

Amma
I was looking at the Pfaff creative 2134. It has an extra accessory called a Grand hoop that they say is almost two times bigger than the average. My question is how do the embroidery designs work. Do I have to buy exclusively from pfaff or can I buy fromt he web?
Thanks so much!
Hugs
April

You can buy anything off the web all you need to know is which format Pfaff uses. I have a brother ULT 2002D because I wanted disney.

Thanks Renee! Appreciate the information.
Hugs
April

Most of the sites on the web will have the designs in the format that you need. You just need to make sure you order in the correct format. If you don't, you have to then convert it to the format you need.

When the patterns are designed, they are added a format name at the end of the file name. Like a word document is .doc or an Adobe file is .pdf, the endind file name for each machine is different and you can not use made for one machine into another machine.

You can buy on-line, because when you go to a site that sells designs in general, like emblibrary.com for example, the first thing they ask you is which machine are you planning to use the design on and which is the largest hoop size you own. This way they only let you buy desings made for your machine that will fit your hoop, and if you try to buy a different format or something too big, they warn you. Some sites don't do that and you have to be careful when ordering.

You have to be careful when buying cards, to make sure that your machine can read them.

I agree with the previous posting to get the biggest you can get. You may think that a 5 x 7 is fine now, but when you see the designs that are available out there you will wish you had something bigger.

Maria

One more thing is that you have to educate yourself on how the machine is going to read the files that you buy. How the machine is going to communicate with the computer.

I got a Brother PE700, which is a great machine. It has many built in designs and that was great for maybe 3 days. After using it for a while I wanted more. I went on-line and saw a lot of designs I liked, but no way to bring them to the machine. I later found out that I needed a new piece of hardware called PED basic. This connects to your computer and you put the desings ina card, which I later put into my machine and the machine reads it. That was another $130.00, plus the cost of each individual pattern, which is not a whole lot.

My friend has a viking and she can save the desing into a 3.5 disk and put it directly into the machine.

Please make sure you get all the information from your dealer before you get home and find out that you have a good machine, but you need more.

Maria

I have a PR 600 which I love. I buy most of my designs from Embroidery Library.

Sybil

i have a janome 350E and i love it, and all designs comes in my jef format, very very few that don't. i buy them online a lot and from my lqs. much much fun