How to Chose a Home Embroidery Machine

There are a bewildering number of different home embroidery machines on the market, each having its own special features. Before purchasing a machine, you'll need to take some time to consider what you want to do with it, and which features are most important to you. This article explains the most important factors to consider when choosing a home embroidery machine.

Combination Sewing And Embroidery Or Embroidery Only Machine

Some machines can only embroider. They cannot sew standard sewing machine stitches. They can embellish, but not mend, or sew garments. This type of machine is perfect if you already have a sewing machine and want an additional machine for embroidery, or if you don't sew but want to embroider ready-made items, crafts, or garments.

Combination machines can both sew and embroider. It's a regular computerized sewing machine with all the features and stitches for constructing garments, quilts, or other projects. Plus it can embellish. Some have separate embroidery units that you attach when you want to embroider, while others have built-in embroidery functions. A combination machine is for you if you want a sewing machine too, if you want to upgrade your old sewing machine, or if your space is limited and you want both functions in one compact machine.

Ease Of Use

How easy is it to use? That's the number one question I get asked by people looking to buy an embroidery machine.

Look first at the buttons and control screen. How do you select designs, fonts, borders? What's the process for stitching out a design? How easy is it to import additional designs? Do the menus and sequences make sense to you? Can you find the functions?

What kind of information or help does the machine give you and are the messages in English or geek-anguage?

In addition, some machines have features such as automatic threading or thread cutting that make your life easier.

Maximum Embroidery Field Size

The embroidery field or frame size is the largest area that the machine can stitch in. It can't stitch outside this area even if the hoop is larger. Therefore, this is the largest design that you can stitch at one time. Most designs are available for the standard 4x4 inch size, but some require a 5x7 or even larger field.

You need to think about the types of things you want to embellish. And remember that embroidery can be addicting, and your creative ideas will expand as you get into it. Many people say they wish they had a larger size, but of course that comes with a higher price tag.

Downloading Additional Designs

Sooner or later, you'll want to stitch designs that aren't built-in to your machine. There's a wealth of designs available both for free download and to purchase. But you need a way to get them into the machine for stitching.

Many older and low-end machines are limited to reading special embroidery cards or even floppy disks. This is the most difficult option, but could work for you if you don't have access to a computer.

In addition to a card slot, newer machines have a USB port for easily importing additional designs. There are two types: One allows you to connect the machine to your computer for transferring designs. The other type of USB port (which is my favorite method) accepts a thumb or flash drive. You copy the designs to the thumb drive with your computer and then stick the drive in the embroidery machine for stitching.

Budget and Value for Money

Home embroidery machines cost anywhere from less than 500 dollars to many thousands of dollars. The high-end machines perform more functions, are faster and/or heavier duty. But you may not need or want all of these functions - some will be more important to you than others. It's always a tradeoff. Often you can get some of the advanced capabilities without spending a fortune by using embroidery software that runs on your computer to create and edit the designs.

And nowadays, some of the more affordable machines offer a surprising range of features for the money.

You'll need to set a realistic budget, remembering to include money for supplies such as thread and stabilizer to get started. Whether you'll need to buy software right away depends on your machine, and what you want to do with it.

As with any major purchase, you want to choose the best machine for you, and get the best value for your money. If you're in the market for a high-end machine costing thousands of dollars, you should find a reliable dealer that offers good training and support, and test-drive all the machines.

If you want a more affordable home embroidery machine that offers a lot of value for the money, check out the Brother SE400 which is a 4x4 inch, combination sewing and embroidery machine or the Brother PE770 which is a 5x7 inch, embroidery-only machine.