What a surprise this will be!
 

I bought the Brother HE1 embroidery machine for my 22 year old granddaughter. It uses a 4" hoop. What can she make with a hoop that size? She loves to sew and is going to be thrilled to have her own embroidery machine!

Nice looking couple.
Can't help with the embroidery machine and hoop.

There must be some small patterns that are online. I would search on Google.

Since the 4" machines were the first introduced, there are lots and lots and lots of designs available. Monogramming is also a great thing to do.
Here's a good site to get an idea of designs available:
http://www.emblibrary.com/EL/default.aspx

yes, lots of 4 inch patterns, and what a lucky girl...............also, thanks for the service of that young man............calla oh, I think those 4 inch designs simple are great on towels.............

Check out anita good design.

Point her to urbanthreads.com - they have designs that are aimed at that age group. She will be able to get some ideas from there for projects.

emblibrary.com has nice designs and a lot of resources for newbies, you can always do a giftcard so she can pick what she likes

a lot of designs, got to smartneedle and urban threads. they both have 4" hoop designs, good luck have fun.

There are thousands (probably tens of thousands) of machine embroidery designs available for the 4x4 hoop. When embroidery machines first came on the market, that was about the only size available. She can probably find many free designs. Many digitizers market their designs in multiple sizes. Hope this helps.