I have a Brother PQ 1500 Nouvelle I bought used and after a lot of struggle with thread breaking it will do nice stippling with just about any now. I use a large needle, not universal. I think it is a microtex 100. Different threads give different looks, so practice with some and see how you like it. My machine doesn't like me to go very fast, but I can go fast enough so I think we have come "to terms" so to speak.