Greetings, and a warm welcome from Saskatchewan, Canada. Not to overwhelm you, but there are alot of things to consider before buying a new machine. The local machine sales shop that I work in has so many perks, I can't imagine some of the problems that other buyers run into. If you buy your machine from a department store, make sure they have a repair shop on the premises, other wise you will have to pay shipping to some other location to get work done. That can add up very quickly. If you buy from a local machine sales shop, make sure they do warranty work right there, or recall work. A lot of the new Pfaff machines have free recall updates that fall under warranty work. Do your homework. Make sure the shop that you buy from gives free lessons. The shop I work in does alot of the free lessons. Check on the length of the warranty. The shop that I work in, the machines come with a 1 year warranty, but the owner throws in an additionaly 2 years of warranty and labour. That also comes with 3 years of 3 trips to the shop for a free cleaning, oiling, check timing and many more extras. Even if your machine has run out of warranty, if you have paid for a check up (74.95 Can.) it warranties your machine for one year. Even the used machines that we sell in store come with a 1 year warranty. Service is very important. We see people come in with machines that they bought at Walmart and Zellers, and they aren't working, 4 months after they bought them, and they can't take them back to the store, warranty has run out, and too late to return them, and they are very mad because it is a brand new machine. Watch our for cheap machines also, a lot of them are made with plastic parts and are only a small step above a TOY sewing machine. Good luck, do your home work, and keep in mind what stitches are important, and if all those embroidery stitches are really going to be used. We have customers come in the store, and have bought $8,000.00 embroidery machines, and 2 years later haven't used any of the stitches or the USB hook up to their computer to do any of the custom embroidery or digitizing of any anything. They spent all those bucks, and what for, they just wanted a sewing machine. Well, boy, hope your head isn't reeling, Greetings again from Auntie B, Saskatchewan, Canada.