I played some with a friends Babylock (Brother) machine prior to buying a machine for myself. There was a device that you can hook up to your computer where you can download designs, then you put them on the "card" and plug that into the machine. It was really easy and of course...fun! Good luck with your new baby!

yep, look at this - allbrands.com embroidery machine cards for babylock/brother/white

this means that your machine probably reads .pes files. it probably has a 4 X 4 embroidery field.

http://www.allbrands.com/products/abc0217.html

allbrands.com is a really good resource for embroidery machine stuff. when i bought my machine (used) i stopped by the dealer and found out what hoop it took. they were $40+. i found them for $25-$30 at allbrands. for some reason when i ordered from allbrand's ebay store, i got free shipping. i also got my PED-basic from allbrands.

if you have a question about something being compatible with your machine, they (allbrands) are really quick to answer back.

fun, fun!

Congratulations on your new toy - you will have lots of fun.

Fabric Luvr,

I think I'm going to have to do some homework before I do anything else. I do not understand embroideryspeak. PES??

I'm sure between you and the rest of this board and my friends here in town, we'll get her figured out.

M

Fabric Luvr...I bookmarked a ton of the sites.

Someone posted some sites about stabilizers and thread. THANK YOU. I also found an article at the same site about hoops. I understand more now than I did earlier. I will be getting some books though!

you know what made all the difference for me was the video that came with mine. since our machines are so much alike, i'd be happy to see if i'm able to copy it to dvd for you (it's a VHS tape).

even if our machines are slightly different, it still has the basic of information about the process.

as far as .pes, each embroidery machine is programmed to read a certain file type (like microsoft word uses the .doc extension and excel uses the .xls extension). our machines read the .pes extension. so if you go out to look at designs to download, you'll see the files come with different extensions. yesterday i got a few of the $1 designs from emblibrary.com and i had to designate which format. other formats would be .dst, .xxx, just to name a couple.

let me know if you want the DVD -

Congrats on it's arrival. :) Happy stitching

As promised here are the pics to the machine. First is the front and then the back. Found a local babylock dealer. They looked up the price for hoops. a 4 x 4 for 71 and a multi-positional for 77. We shall see.

Here are the pics!

[IMG]http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...erymachine.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...erymachine.jpg[/IMG]

Check with Allbrands.com. They may be cheaper. I just got my "Amazing Box Max" today from them. It was only $199.00 & I had a coupon for $10.00's off so I got a good deal. My dealer wants $299.00 for it. Some want as much as $399.00 for it. I ordered it on Monday & got it today. They are real fast & can answer all your questions. I know they sell hoops. I looked them up but can't remember what price they were. I do know they are real expensive. Good luck Deb

The webpage is www.allbrands.com. They are out of Baton Rouge, La. Also try Sewing Machines Plus.