QuiltingD, I have nothing new to add but I think your friend will get quite frustrated if she tries to use regular thread for any higher density designs and thinking back to when I started with my embroidery machine I know that I could not have judged what was higher density. Starting machine embroidery had plenty of tangled messes to learn from without adding the wrong thread for most of the designs to the mix.
I found a great thread sale online from someone closing an embroidery business. It gave me a huge supply of embroidery threads that I was comfortable using up on test pieces.
Cari-in-Oly which of the maderia cotton threads is for embroidery?Do you know, is it equal to a 40 weight rayon or more like the 30 weight cotton made by Sulky?