*Update*

Thanks so much for all the information everyone. Just thought I'd let anyone who might've been curious know that I ended up going with the brother6000i as my first machine.

1) It was less than $200, which is really cheap for what you get. I figured since I'm teaching myself, I rather bust a $170 machine than a thousand dollar one.

2) It has a start/stop button & a speed control lever right on the front, forget the pedal. Score.

3) It does 50+ stitches & a rack of buttonholes. More than I know what to do with really.

Overall, great beginner machine. Mine'll truck on through 6 layers of fleece & some batting with little complaint (There are definitely better ways to do that.. hah, oops). Depending on it's mood it'll do some thicker stuff but I don't want to hurt it as its been so nice to me so far.

One day I'll lay down the $ for a more advanced machine but this is all I'll need for a little while.

Thanks again everyone! When I'm in the market for another one I'm printing your suggestions and going on a hunt for the best. Like I said though, so far so good.

No prob! Always glad to help out 
Hope it suits its new purpose well.

pajama pants maybe?

Hmm.. only thing I can think of is a coin purse. Sew up the bottom, put a zipper on the top.. done. Who doesn't need another tiny pouch?

Meh, I really want in but it could take "a week or more" to hook up the internet at the new place.  To be safe I think I'm going to have to skip this round. Course if it gets hooked up in two days I'll just hope sign-ups haven't closed yet. I'll be lurking either way..

Fidelio would be wisted into next week.. if I had a wist. I need to get my hands on some watch guts! Your pendants are awesome, nice job.

I'll probably be getting mine off of the internet, or I might glue two or three layers of cereal box cardboard together and make my own, I haven't quite decided yet. I've never done that before so it could be a total disaster. Maybe I'll try a small one and let you know if it's worth the effort?

Yup, it's true. I signed up around 2 am, being on the east coast means I'm from the future. I can't wait for this swap! If I get 7 partners I could send them each a square chunk of 4, which could either be one big piece or four normal ones. Hopefully that's not too much. If it is, I'm not (terribly) stubborn and could definitely get a smaller puzzle. Sometimes I get a bit over ambitious, I wouldn't want to stress anyone. I'll try to save that for my own endeavors. 

Even though this thread is just about five years old, I'm still going to voice my upsettiness. I just got a bag of zipper samples and made a bracelet about a week ago. I'm bummed!

As a wise old beetle once said, "There's nothing you can do that can't be done". And it has been! Hah, oh well. I can't see any of the pictures so I'll just hope mine looks a bit different.

Good, good. It wouldn't have been the end of the world, I have quite a few things that just need to be documented but at the moment my digital camera doesn't cooperate with the computer that I have access to, so it'd be all cellphone pictures.

I already have a theme idea, I'm excited. Hopefully I can get in on this for sure.

Oh, one more thing.. Is it limited to a maximum of two pieces per person? I'm looking at a bigger puzzle (28 pieces) and I want to make sure my partners wouldn't resent me, as well as not having to do the majority of it myself. I guess it depends on how many partners there are in a group. Then that brings me to wondering if I could sign up for two groups and send half of the pieces to group 1 and the other half to group 2?

I always have to make things harder than they should be..