I have two stand alone embroidery machines and love them both. I have only made one quilt with embroidered blocks but I use both machines in fits and starts. The great part is that you can be sewing or quilting on your regular machine while the embroidery machine does it's own thing. If you are really lazy like me you can use varigeted thread on your emboridery machine and not have to keep changing the thread color. It has a start and stop button so you don't have to hold down a foot pedal etc. My kind of embroidery.