The Sewing Place
Machine Talk => Sewing Machines => Topic started by: Surest1tch on August 07, 2020, 18:05:10 PM
-
I've just come into £500 I didn't expect and believe it or not I don't really know what to do with it soooo after seeing some of the fabulous things you do with them my thoughts are going to an embroidery machine, something I said I'd never buy
-
I can only answer for Husqvarna Viking, but here goes.
1. Mine has a usb drive that downloads stuff from my laptop and gets taken to the machine and plugged into it.
2. Not unless you want to make your own designs (I don't) and then it's more of a discipline in its own right rather than graphics - as far as I can tell!
3. Not a new Husqvarna, no.
-
I don't digitize designs, there are so many available to buy online.
I'm sorry to say, I don't know that £500 will get you one of any brand. The Brother Innovis V3 I have (and a few others on here) cost - where's the tiny font - around £2000
-
Mine would be £1600 new, but I got a phenomenal bargain from the dealer, who had one that a customer had unboxed and returned because she wanted a bigger one - I paid £800.
-
@Surest1tch if you can stop your money burning a hole in your pocket hang fire until someone is upgrading on here. You'll either get one that has been seldom used or one that has been enjoyed and well looked after. That'll give you time to save a fiver a week for the
kitty P&P too. :)
-
As we're all sewing nuts here, I think you can be reassured that anyone who is selling a machine (or anything) is going to be honest and will have cared for their machines. So @wrenkins offers good advice.
Also, check out the 'ex display' and clearance bargains from the likes of GUR, Sewing Machines Direct, Frank Nutt and the other trusted retailers.
-
I would check out a dealer as they sometimes have second hand ones. Of course, at the moment everything is different. Minimum for a new one would be around £900. Every so often dealers are allowed to sell off demo models and a deal can be had there. Please don’t buy from eBay etc. You will get ripped off. I’ve seen it so many times with these machines. Always found it sad when someone came to the shop for a repair on one of these 'bargains' from eBay only to be told it wasn’t worth it or was beyond help.
Have a look online at different makes and models. Decide if you want a dedicated embroidery machine or an embroidery/sewing machine. What size embroideries will you want to do? Older machines have smaller embroidery areas/ hoops. All companies make embroidery machines and they are all excellent. I’ve used all sorts.
Machines these days use USB sticks to transfer designs from a computer to a machine. If you see one that uses cards , leave it alone, it’s pretty ancient!
Digitising isn’t necessary and is a skill that has to be learnt. There are so many designs out there it’s not worth bothering with unless it’s an area you are keen to explore. Personally I prefer to sew. I quite like customising and editing designs but that’s as far as I go. And I really don’t want to spend vast amounts of money on software for digitising. There is lots to learn to start out with.
If you can get a demo at a dealers so much the better. They can show you the basics to start with and point out the difference between all the machines.
-
You won’t need to learn graphics.
My machine has a collection of built in designs. Others can be bought from sites like Emblibrary or Sweetpea. Download to your computer, transfer to usb, plug usb into embroidery machine and away you go.
I bought the digitising package and am playing with it. Not sure I’m up to making fancy designs yet, but I can put a circle atop a triangle and add a couple of rectangle legs. ;)
I bought a windows computer to facilitate my design pack, as although they do a Mac version, it wasn’t fully compatible. (So the man said).
Good luck with finding a machine. Look forward to seeing what you get.
-
Ooohhhh How Exciting ... Tho' I must add you will need to add to that windfall to achieve your machine.
Well your £500 would have got you a machine 10 months ago when I sold the original Elvis to justify part fund Elvistoo as that was the price I asked for .. and got without a smidge of hesitation from the buyer. It was tho' quite old and had the card reader BUT also a USB port! I priced it to sell and Whoosh off it went!
WHAT do you want to embroider???? Labels, cute motifs on clothes, in the hoop projects?
Whilst Fajita and I both bought the superest duperset V3 which has an ability to embroider up to 200 x 300 designs (or 8" x 12" in real money ) the hoop size I use the most is 7" x 5" .... unless Im embroidering multiple designs at once, labels, Needle cases etc ....(Oh Yes, Access All Accessories Swappers ... Your needlecases were triplets!!!)
To that end I would say the Brother 800e (£1300 new)i s a good machine to look at with an embroidery area of 160mm x 260mm which is 6" x 10" (I think)
I know this is way over your budget (at the moment) but the dealers very often have part exchanged machines that can be good value as they will (should have) been serviced and come with a guarantee
Dont be tempted to go for one that only embroiders 4" x 4" ... you will want a bigger area than that!
It took me ages to understand that if you have a machine with that embroidery area, you couldnt just stick a bigger hoop on it and embroider bigger!!
The maximum area your machine can embroider is the maximum area it will ever embroider!!
Keep us up to date with what you decide to do... which machine you go for .... Its a learning curve but you dont need to learn anything more complicated than how to download a bought design, thread your machine up and press some buttons!!!
-
I absolutely agree with @Iminei about the embroidery area. Mine goes up to 150mm x 240mm, and although I do sometimes wish it was bigger, it is usually absolutely fine. Much smaller would drive me round the bend though.
-
I know this is way, way out of your price range but Franklins have an ex-demo Brother V3 for sale.https://www.franklinsgroup.com/product/brother-v3-3/
Might be of interest to someone else.
-
Looking at Franklins, they have had a Brother F440e display model for sale at £799 (now sold), so it is worth looking around.
-
I love this forum. Nobody ever talks you out of anything except maybe de-stashing.
Here's one! Here's one! I'll drive you up for it. Let me help you carry your purse... :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
-
Thanks everyone <3. It looks like I'm going to have to sit on the money for a little while. I had to buy a new cooker today, the flame on the one I've got keeps going out and they can't get parts to repair it apparently because the company has gone out of business and there are no parts
-
How wonderful that you can buy yourself a goodie!
As to your questions;
1) Check the features of the machines you are looking at; many have a USB port. If so, you transfer designs onto a USB stick and then just plug into the machine.
2) The machine will have some images pre-loaded into it. But if you want to combine images, or do a lot of lettering, it’s a good idea to get some kind of software.
3) You can buy software made to digitize graphics into embroidery machine formats, but you don’t have to. You can just buy digital images, from any of a number of sites.
-
How exciting. I still regret that I didn't buy Morgan's embroidery machine with digitising software and loads of extras in the end - I came so very close. Nevertheless, it was the right decision at the time although if I'd known covid-19 would come along and give me all the hours I knew I wouldn't have to experiment as much as I wanted... it'd be on it now. No point in regret - just enjoy it @Surest1tch
-
@Surest1tch
This (https://thesewingplace.org.uk/index.php/topic,10840.msg193621.html#new)may be one to consider .....