Candace--Thanks for getting back to me. I have taken the "mastery class" offered by my dealer (doesn't seem as though that's the same class(es) you mention) and am enrolled in a series of classes called "Elite Techniques" that starts next month. I have, however, reviewed the mastery classes on exnovodesign.com. I have also taken a 6-class beginning embroidery class but that class wasn't machine specific and didn't address multi-hooping a single oversized design so much as resizing designs to fit, replicate, or otherwise arrange within a given hoop area and a bunch of other stuff it's really good to know. At my dealer's recommendation for quilt embroidery ("if I were going to buy only one of the larger hoops"), I bought the jumbo hoop, not the mega. They are both the same length (400 mm)--is there something about the mega that makes multi-hooping more intuitive besides the facts that the mega hoop is narrower and probably fits better/more easily on quilt borders?
I keep thinking there is some single feature or utility I don't know about or have overlooked that will allow me to stop stitching an oversized design in one hooping (e.g., in my case spelling out a baby's name--Nathaniel Geoffrey Whitehead-- in 2"-sized capital letters and ~1" lower case letters that I don't want to resize to fit within my hoop), print registration marks, and continue stitching with the rest of the name in a second aor even a third hooping. OR, barring that, the ability to insert registration marks so as to align a bunch of shorter files (e.g., 'Nathaniel' in file 1, 'Geoffrey' in file 2 and 'Whitehead' in file 3). The second option seems awfully crazy making and risky because of the challenges of initital letter placement in the second & third files. If there is such a feature, I can't find any references to it in the manuals--but in my newbie experience that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So, I was hoping that someone who IS able to do that could tell me if that is something they do with the help of specialized software or if it's a basic feature within their embroidery machine functions. If it's the former I can stop beating my head against the wall and start figuring out the best software to purchase (something I would like to avoid because it's expensive and I am really not interested in digitizing or creating original designs beyond rows of text in a border or a quilt label). Thanks again, Fran.