I can tell that you are a new to sewing.You have been given a lot of information here - a lot to digest.Very good info too. But, you are wrong in the idea that you can not get special feet for the Brother machines from Wal-Mart. I have a Brother from Wal-Mart. It is a good little machine, I use ALL of my feet from my old machine, and my other machine on this Brother. Once you figure out if you have a high or low shank machine - you can even buy specialty feet from Hancock Sewing at a very reasonable price. I have not found a foot I can not use on it, you MUST find out if the shank is low,high. or slant. Yours is most likely a low shank - most of today's machines are.