Embroidery Machine Lovers - July, 2012
 

Someone suggested on the original thread that we start a new one (the other has over 900 posts and hard to get through).

I'll start the ball rolling and if you guys like it we can continue to post on this one for July?? If not, you won't hurt my feelings.

I'll begin:

I've been quilting for over 10 years and started out with a Bernina 180E. Loved the embroidery feature but found I really didn't use it a lot since it was pretty outdated. The embroidery packages were super expensive ($150) and I had not purchased the software so I was pretty limited in what I could do. It did stitch beautifully though.

Since I now have two grand daughters I thought it was the perfect time to upgrade my machine and purchased the Ellisimo. Love it! I'm doing a ton of embroidery and quilting for them.

Would love to hear and learn from others who own or want to own a new embroidery machine.

Karen in CA

I would love to own an embroidery machine. I feel about embroidery like I did when I originally started quilting... overwhelmed. I would love to be able to use the machine to make labels and to personalize towels and a few other things. I would love to see how they work too and how people chose their machines and likes/dislikes. I wasted some money when I started buying things for quilting b/c I didn't know what I liked to do or what was quality vs. junk. I would like to avoid that mistake with embroidery.

I own a Bernina 200E and just recently bought a gently used 830. Love the 200 but have not yet played with the 830.

I have been doing ME for 2 years. I started out with a Brother SE 400, then Brother PE 770. Now I have a Quattro 2. I am having a ball embroidering burp cloths, towels, onesies, and bibs for my GD who will be born in the Fall. I also have embroidered 3 baby quilts and just have to quilt them now. I love combining ME and quilting. So much fun!

This should be very interesting to watch. Embroidery is not my thing, but I'm thinking of getting a used upper end machine and a lot of them seem to have embroidery on them. I know I wouldn't make quilts with them, but would maybe use one for towels, quilt labels, maybe baby items...

I bought a used Bernina Artista 220 that had been upgraded to a 720. It came with 2 different size hoops, about 100 different CDs of patterns, thread, dozens of feet, stabilizer and a table that has a drop-down for the machine and a flip-up on the back to double the size of the table. It was a fabulous deal and I now embroider all my labels for my quilts. The value of everything I got is probably some where around $20,000 and I only paid $500. Always nice to have a friend decide to quit doing embroidery just when I had the cash and needed an embroidery machine!!! It can also be used as a sewing machine, but I haven't used it like that yet because I love my Janome I piece on.

I've been sewing and quilting for a quite a few yrs. Last Sept I was able to buy a slightly used (7hrs of use) Viking Ruby and I was in heaven. I knew totaly nothing about embroidery except that it was cool and I promised myself not to let the embroidery part of my machine to go to waste. I take the monthly embroidery clubs offered by my dealer/LQS and I read all the tutorials, etc that I can. I love using the cutwork needles that Viking has; it makes doing cutwork so much easier than by hand. A few months ago I was able to get the 5D Professional software so that I can do more and I will take classes for that as well. So far I've done some FSL, stained glass wall hangings, cutwork tablerunners and placemats, coin purse done ITH with a zipper, bookmarks and a mesh beach bag and a few other things. I've almost finished collecting enough designs to make a sashiko (sp, sorry) quilt. I've also collected some quilting designs as well. I love doing embroidery.

As I mentioned before, I recently purchased the Brother PE 770 to learn embroidery. I now have thread, hoops, and stabilizer. I have made a few practice designs; just to see how it works. I am at this time, however still feeling a bit overwhelmed because there is so much to learn; it seems. Quilty-Louise has been wonderful and trying to explain to me and has very generously taken her time to answer all my silly questions (THANK YOU, LOUISE!!!). I look forward to seeing some of all of your projects to give me ideas and to show me what can be done with these machines. I'll be constantly watching this thread!

I have a Janome 300 ( a old machine theses days ) I don't do very much now but do love to embroider blocks to go in with my scrap quilts
I have embroidered a lot of pillow slips for friends, I use Embird software and find it very easy to use, with my EM I can sew on my other machine while the embroidery machine is doing its
thing.
My sons x-girlfriend downloaded so many designs for me they will keep me going for years, but I still go and have a look at Embroidery Library's site

I'd say you got the deal of the year!