I have a brother SE350 with a 4 inch hoop it usese PES files.

i agree it is addictive you will want a large than 4 x 4 field

Go try some out at a sewing machine shop and try them out, as well as takings some lessons.

I have a Baby lock Ellisomo, I truly love doing embroidery on this machine. It is very EZ to use.

Go try some out at a sewing machine shop and have them show you how it does embroidery.most shop are very helpful, you also can take lessons. You can also buy nice used ones from them.

Also in most cases you wouldn't use the smaller hoops. I use my 8 x 8. And also my 8 by 11 1/2 all the time. The small hoops to me are a waste of stabilizer.

I'm a newbie to embroidery world just got a BROTHER PE 500 -bought some design cd's on e-bay but cannot get them to show in my machine! can anybody let me know what I'm doing wrong<

I finally settled on the bro pe770. it works for me and the price was great $779

I also got the brother PE 770, with the hopes of finding a simple, inexpensive software just for adding names, monograms and quilt labels. Can anyone help?

I see from the Brother website that your machine hooks directly to a computer to download designs from the iBroidery.com site. Does the manual say you can use designs from a cd?
Here is there troubleshooting page:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com...od=hf_pe500eus

Page 71 of your manual shows how to retrieve designs off your computer.

I hope this helps.

Chase