Embroidery Machine?

[Anguschick1]

Anyone have one? I'd like to get one, not spend too much money on it (mostly to embroider current gifts that I'm making for Christmas/Birthdays, etc.)

I'm looking at the White 3300 at Joanne.com, but it's over $500. Is that what I can expect to pay? Need to save my pennies then....

Can you change thread colors on it? I don't see that in the description, but is that something that just about any can do? Also - I'm kind of a sewing dummy, I can sew straight lines, but that's about it, can I figure one of these out?

Thanks!

[Wild Flowers]

Okay, I admit I have a super duper Janome MC 9500. It cost me a little over 2000. I know that is not what you are looking for. I looked a bit at them, but it is for my business so I needed to get something that worked well and forever. If you want to see some pictures of some of the things I did with it you can click on my website and look under products, I have a few pictures there. And this is with no machine embroidery experience. I believe that you change the colors out of all of them. They are kinda like sewing machines, or at least mine is. You Thread them the same way. It is just that they do the embroidery automatically. You press the pattern you want, line it up, thread your thread and start. The cheaper ones are ones that ONLY embroider. Mine embroiders and sews. If you already have a good sewer, jsut get an embroider. I didn't look at the Whites at all, but a good brand that you can get at Walmart is Brother. They have an embroider. I have their serger and according to my sewing machine service person, I put my poor serger through sme industrial size projects, mama cloth, trainig pants and all the wraps I make. So, not that one machine can say all about one brand, but I would fel safe with getting one. He actually told me that he would not sell me a new serger knowing what I was going to do with it. I hope that this helps you a little bit and isn't just a bunch of babbling.

[Anguschick1]

I have a white's serger (Hancock was selling floor stock, dh bought it for me cause he thought I'd need it - this was before I was sewing at all!) and a brother sewing machine. Neither are top of the line (or even mid-line probably) but work just fine for my curtains, halloween costumes and apron projects, yk?

After trying maternity clothes this summer, I'm going to get brave and try some dipes for the new wee bitty, but I figure that even if they aren't very pretty, I could stick them in the embroidery machine and put a flower or animal on them and then draw attention to that rather than any visual defects in my regular sewing!

Thanks for letting me know what you use/think!

[Vanessa]

I have a Babylock Ellure. I love it so far. It is a computerized sewing/embroidery machine. I bought it used on ebay for $930 with Pallette PTS software. Basically, that allows me to download designs from the internet. (Some free, some pay.) I think that you could get one for $700 without the software.

HTH!