Hi MiMi. Welcome to the board! I've had my Janome 6600MC for a year now, and she's my new best friend. They're a very sturdy machine and I've had no problems at all. I agree with everything Moonpi wrote. Find a local dealer with classes, it's the best thing to give you peace of mind. After all, it's a big investment! By embroidery, do you mean sewing the crazy-quilt type stitches by machine? Or the bigger embroidery patterns you can get as downloads, etc?