My suggestion if you decide to purchase a machine is the Brother PE770. It's a good intermediate machine. If you buy one that the largest hoop size is 4x4 you will quickly want something larger. The PE770 has a 5x7 hoop and is plenty large enough for most designs. As you get more skill you can then decide if you want a machine with more needles or a bigger hoop size. There is a learning curve but it's not that difficult.