I have the Brother SE270D which has a 4x4 embroidery area. I also have a Brother PE700II which has a 5x7 embroidery area. If you can, at least get a 5x7 area although I do like my 270D since it is a combo sewing and embroidery machine. I bought both of mine refurbished and they have been great...save a little money that way.

Good luck in your hunt!

i have the brother pe770 and i love it. it does an excellent job

Welcome to the board from Southern California!!!

How much are you willing to spend?

my goodness, soo many choices from you all !!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, about all I can agree on is a 5x7 hoop and USB port. I only have about £500 (UK pounds) to spend.

At the moment I am making totes and bags to sell in a friends shop. Not making alot of money but it has helped me to save this amount. Now I find that I may be losing my main job in a few weeks, so I am hoping to expand a little bit by doing more personalised stuff to tied me over. Especially with it coming up to Christmas. So I need a basic machine that I can take out of the box and understand the instructions immediately!

Unfortunately with most of you being in the US many of the makes don't seem to be readily available here. And shipping costs would be horrendous.

I am looking at refurbished ads, but don't really have the confidence, I can't afford to waste the money. Just a simple little machine that can cope with fonts is all I need.

thanks all, I will keep searching Tinax