Congratulations on your nursing degree and good luck in your future job. Wow, you really got quite a bit of money to play around with for your sewing machine. If you are mostly going to be doing piece work, why don't you get a featherweight or some other vintage machine? They are supposed to be real good for that and then you could get another machine that could do other things. That way you have a backup in case your main machine has to go into the shop.