Just looking for a little advice. I am thinking about purchasing an embroidery machine, and what are some of the things that I should look for? Any advice is much appreciated because I am totally ignorant of what to look for.

First, decide if you wan a dedicated embroidery machine or a 'duel' unit that does both sewing and embroidery.

Get the largest embroidery field you can afford. I loved my Viking 1+, it does beautiful sewing and embroidery but is limited to a 4x4 field. I bought a Janome 10001, again, a sewing and embroidery unit. It will stitch out 7x9 field, higher if I use the optional giga-hoop but that requires splitting the design and turning the hoop.

Be sure to check out the type of software that comes with your new baby too. As you become more comfortable embroidering you may discover that the 'mega' software you bought with the machine is too bulky and hard to deal with. A good small program like Embird may do you just as well.

Good hunting!

Cindy in TN

I just bought a used one.....seems to bereally nice. I would try to find one that will do as big of area as you can afford!

Not only the embroidery area is important but also the cost of editing programs should be considered. I bought a Baby Lock Elena with a maximum field of 5X7 a few years ago. When I brought it home to practice the designs the machine came with I realized how limited I was in editing the designs by flipping, copying, adding wording in different fonts and positions, etc. I could not afford to buy the whole program at one time so I purchased it in sections which wound up costing almost as much as the machine. I still have two more sections to purchase but don't want to spend another $500 dollars. I am not sorry that I bought the editing programs since I can resize, have a whole font library, catagorize all of the designs I get for free and purchased in an organized filing system, etc. I can download free designs and change the size, color and add phrases on the computer and print it out to see how it looks before I embroider it. Hope this helps. I wish I had this information when I purchased mine, would have saved up to buy everything at one time and saved some money in the process. Good Luck:-)

You want one that is user friendly, one that has a bobbin warning and thread cutter. I stitch-counter is handy in case your thread breaks or bobbin runs out, you can jog your machine back to redo those areas. I have a Janome 350E and really like it. I started with a Brother combo and traded it in for the 350E. Each machine has a 'language', Janome is JEF, Brother is PES. I also believe that you want a USB port to transfer designs to your machine. You can use a flash-drive easily.

Thanks so much for all the info, already. It will be awhile, but wanted to make myself as familiar as possible before even looking. Look forward to more info that others may be able to pass on.