I have a Husqvarna Topaz it does embroidery and has a large throat for quilting.

My local dealer has a bunch of used dream machines coming in as trades towards the new top of the line (I forget the name), so those can be bought fairly reasonably and are hard to outgrow.

Christy, I agree with Cari on the Janome 500e. I have a Brother 770 and liked it fine - except for the screen and size and width for embroidery. I also have a Babylock combo sewing/embroidery -- and I love that one, too. BUT after I saw the Janome 500e in operation at a quilt expo this summer, I knew I wanted it. It comes with a side platform that supports the largest hoop - which is one of the problems with other machines (the lack of support on the big hoops). I especially like that the hoop attaches on the right side of the machine, so your quilt can have all the space to the left. The large hoop is great for the edge to edge software, the on board editing features are so user friendly, and the harp space is great for quilting projects. I did get a great deal, buying at a show.
Since you have sewing machines, you will find a dedicated embroidery machine a plus - I piece at my Babylock while I embroider something on my Janome -- and that way I do not have to keep changing machine pieces to go from quilting to embroidering, either. Any of the top names are usually quality machines - so good luck, and let us know what you do. Merry Christmas!

I too have a used Baby Lock Ellisimo Gold 2 and absolutely love it. I have to go 2 hours to any dealer for cleaning, repairs or thread/fabric/stabilizer, so choosing a local shop brand was not a worry. My EG2 has had little needs and sews beautifully and true.

Thanks again for all of your help! I found a deal on a Brother NQ1400E used and with lots of stuff with it. Machine has a total stitch count of just over 300,000. I look forward to learning how to use it and learning more from this group!

Happy New Year to you all!

Janome sells a 15000 sewing /embroidery machine that has a hoop (a little over 8 x 8) that is built to quilt your quilt with machine embroidery (continuous line designs work best). It uses magnets to hold the fabric on the hoop. I have used it for a King size quilt and won a 1st place ribbon in my local show and then was accepted to display it at the Houston Quilt Festival. It took patience to quilt the whole quilt, but well worth it.

Best of luck!

Where are you in KY? If you are near me, I'd be glad to help you learn--I've been doing this for 20 years. And I'm still learning!

I have a Brother pe770, (the older version of the 800). I love how easy it is to use. I found lots of nice designs built right in the machine to learn with. It took a bit longer to learn how to download designs on my laptop, & transfer to usb for machine to read, but manage just fine as long as my laptop's speaking to me,lol. Not computor savy, so l haven't tried the digitizing software, yet.