Not sure how I missed this thread, but it has been very interesting. I started out with a Bernina Deco 500 that was used. Met several other people that had embroidery machines at our quilt guild and we decided to get together and work on specific embroidery projects. We all did not have the same machine. We learned a lot from each other and also about thread, designs, stabilizers. I upgraded to the Deco 650 for a bigger embroidery field, then a progression from the Bernina 165 to 200 that was later upgraded to a 730 and now have the Bernina 830. There is so much you can learn about any machine by going to the manufacturer's website. There are some free designs and also projects that will lead you through doing things on your machine if you can't get to classes. There are also Yahoo Groups for specific machines that have a lot of information and you can ask specific questions if you have a problem.
mltquilt