The "Which Embroidery Machine Should I Buy?" Thread

[diannab]

I am biased because I love Singer. I am getting ready to purchase my serger! After that I plan on purchasing the Singer Quantum Futura.... You can use ANY type of embroidery software with it.... and you CAN DIGITIZE ANY IMAGE that you may run across on the net or any clip art or personal artwork........ I have heard that with a lil' photoshopping you can digitize a child's face!!!!!!!!!!!! EEEEEKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am such a cornball! But I love those capabilities. I know it is more than the 1000.00 you were planning on but it is so worth it!

[babygoinplaces]

I am biased because I love Singer. I am getting ready to purchase my serger! After that I plan on purchasing the Singer Quantum Futura.... You can use ANY type of embroidery software with it.... and you CAN DIGITIZE ANY IMAGE that you may run across on the net or any clip art or personal artwork........ I have heard that with a lil' photoshopping you can digitize a child's face!!!!!!!!!!!! EEEEEKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am such a cornball! But I love those capabilities. I know it is more than the 1000.00 you were planning on but it is so worth it!

Yes, that is all true except whomever told you that the Singer can use any format and can digitize .jgp images and such may not have told you that in order to do that, you have to purchase extra software.  It isn't standard with the machine.

To the OP--
I LOVE my Janome 300E.  I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.  I also bought Digitizer 10000 for $800 so that I can translate other formats into .jef files for my machine and also create embroiderable images from clip art and the like. 

The Janome has 3 fonts built in and a small variety of monogram layouts, such as an octagon with 2 or 3 letters in it or the letters surrounded by laurel leaves.  It also has some cute built in designs.  I have not used too many of the built in ones, but they will get you started.

I hear good things about Embird and it is much cheaper than Digitizer 10000 that I got, but I do like using Digitizer and have no complaints whatsoever with it.

My best advice to you is to evaluate the shop where you will purchase the machine.  How helpful will they be if you have a problem?  How knowledgable do they seem to be?  Are they pretty easy to get to?

I have a friend who has to travel 90 miles to get hers serviced.  That's a big deal when you talk about 2 round trips just for a cleaning or adjustment.

[diannab]

I forgot to mention- He told me that typically you did have to purchase the software seperately,,, but they were having a special. He is going to email the next time the special hits and let me put it on layaway. He knows that my purchase has to be post christmas! Thanks for catching that!

[Kaos]

Wow. Can I just say I love you guys. There is such a wealth of knowledge on this site it's incredible!

Do you guys know of any way to do embroidered patches on a machine and which machine does it best? My dad want some for his work...

If this is asked somewhere else, sorry!

[paroper]

I back them with two layers of extra heavy stabilizer hooped VERY tight.  OESD recommends stabilizer plus a heavy water soluble (Badgemaster would work well).

I use twill or suede cloth.  The best way is to do an outside shape plus whatever you want inside.  My hoop is self-splitting so I just fill it up with badges and then cut them out when I am through.  If you do it my way you can cut very close to the edge and then use a fray check type product on the edges.

The other way is to use the heavy plus water soluble stabilzer and treat it as an applique.  That means that you hoop your water soluble stabilizer only and then use a spray adhesive to attach your heavy stabilizer and your patch fabric.  Then, you do an outside sew around and trim off everything on the outside of the sew down.  You trim heavy stabilzier and all leaving only the badgemaster to hold the design.  Then you stitch your design.  The outside frame then finishes the outside of the badge so that when you finsh you can dampen the outside edge or wash the badge and the badgemaster will be gone.  This makes a very clean finish.  You still need a couple of strong layers of heavy stabilizer to support the badge though or it is just limp when you finish.

[Kaos]

You are awesome paroper! And this can be done on any embroidery machine? Like the ones yo uguys were talking about earlier in this post?

[paroper]

The problem may not be in the machine.  You'll probably need some sort of software.  You may be able to buy the applique shapes (I have some) but you'll want to do the lettering and or designs as custom or some combination.  Many manchines will allow you to do some lettering within the machine (depends upon the machine) but many others so not have lettering or will not allow you to combine much lettering and most all machines have limits on how many designs can be applied.  Some machines that do not have their own fonts treat each letter as a design and it is not that uncommon to have a machine that will not allow merging of any designs (mixing of designs).  Software will allow you to scale and mix designs, lettering, depending on the software may have its own lettering...there are all degrees of machines and all degrees of software.  A machine that will not allow a lot of editing of designs will still allow software to send the design to the machine...as long as the software "speaks its language".  Each brand of machine has its own format so you have to be sure that the software you have will convert/allow your machine's format. 

Sorry this is wordy...don't know how to answer this simply.  THere are a lot of variables in machines/software.

[Kaos]

Paroper...I'll tell my dad to order from a professional...soun ds like it'll just give me a headache. I was hoping I could wrangle him into buying the machine for me though... 

[kd]

I use my mom's Viking Scandinavia.  I think it works great.  It doesn't allow you to digitize your designs though.  She picked up the least expensive model and then bought the lettering card afterwords and she probably should have just gone with the next best model, which came with it.  It comes with sample designs that you can rotate and flip and only use part of and while I'm not a machine embroidery goddess, I haven't had a big need for any other cards, although they do have some ultra awesome ones.  I have Scandinavia too and adore it, but it's not an embroidery machine, it's the funky stitches (technical term model.

[skizzlemonsterrawr]

i am looking to purchase my first embroidery machine and i dont need anything special that does 4231358421534351868 43168 stitches a minute or anything crazy insane like that.  but i just need something i can do fonts and minor pictures on.

the problem is i still cant find any that are under about 600 dollars.  and i really need one that is under two or three seeing as it is my parents buying and they dont understand. i thought it wouldnt be that hard to find one that cheap cause the projects i want to do are so small but obviously it is a problem. 

so basically i was wondering if any of you amazing people knew of any brand or store or online shop or well i guess anything about this shit cause i am clueless.

much love
skittle