My wife is looking at purchasing the Brother PE400 machine from Amazon Prime. She is a beginner and asked me to “take a look at it.” Her goal is to be able to personalize (embroider names) on things like backpacks, jackets, uniforms, etc… I have no experience with this area but I can see it is limited to a 4" x 4" embroidery area and has a few embroidery fonts installed. The digitizer software would have to be purchased at about $300 for the entry level and reviews are mixed regarding the application.
Can anyone provide some guidance on how she should proceed and if this would be a good fit? Thanks!
Has your wife used the embroidery machine at DMS? She can get her embroidery legs under her at DMS and there are up coming embroidery classes. If there was one must have feature for ME when it comes to embroidery machines it is the ability to accept the Mighty Hoop. This will bump you up to the real / embroidery only machines, but these hoops solve the most annoying part of embroidery to me, HOOPING. Also, a 4 inch embroidery area is so small that you will out grow it almost instantly. 7 inch embroidery area is as small as I would every suggest.
Embroidery Software is also a mine field. Only go with a package that you can get training on. By training I mean some one you can talk to. This is because embroidery has a steep learning curve and often the issues are not in the machine, but in the digitizing.
Lastly, I warn you now that some women view embroidery like some men view wood working. It can be a hobby of buying tools and supplies for projects that you never feel bad for not working on. So be-careful of making suggestions as they may not be accepted no matter the merit. Worst case they may get you up shits creek as you could be viewed as second guessing. That being said, there are some great barely used options for used embroidery machines because of this. That is how I managed to buy a $5k machine with $400 worth of thread and accessories for $900.
I bought a Brother machine to start as well several years ago and wanted it to put names on camp chair backs and bags and put my kennel logo on a few shirts and jackets and paw prints down the leg of sweat pants - that kind of stuff. I bought digitized art by the piece for my logos and a the fonts I needed because in the end, digitizing software at the time was $$$ and not very user friendly though I hear that’s changed some and even the custom stuff is pretty reasonably priced. I could do max 8" on my machine and was annoyed having to reposition the hoop because quite a bit of the stuff I doing was way bigger than that and I had to piecemeal it together. If all she wants to do is left chests on shirts, 4" is fine…but 4" will probably drive her crazy if she wants to do a jacket back. It doesn’t take long at all to want to do the bigger stuff.
If she wants to get her feet wet on the DMS machine, I’d hold off buying until the fall. There is a big textiles show in Fort Worth this fall and all the laser and embroidery folks will be there and they usually offer great deals and show prices. http://www.issshows.com/fort-worth/about-the-show.shtml Several embroidery machine vendors also exhibit at the State Fair each year.
Thanks for the input. I think the DMS embroidery class would be great but unless the class was on a Saturday evening or on Sunday she would not be able to attend. That woman just works too much. I’ll pass along the advice.
+Nick - Should I just google used embroidery machines to look for deals or is there a dedicated web resource I should consult?
+Bitta - I was thinking 4" would be outgrown rather quickly as well. I read that you could move the hoop to do larger areas but that it was difficult to get it lined up perfectly. I’ll have to see if she wants to attend the ISS Show.