craftgrrl | Embroidery sewing machines (Reply)

This will be mine. Used, refurbished, put a down payment on it yesterday, being sold to me for $499 + tax. Which is about $150 less than the best pre-shipping price on eBay. My grandmother spends so much at the local sewing machine shop that anyone who is related to her, a friend of hers, or a friend of a relative gets a discount. I have no complaints about this policy.

My grandmother has one of these, but I'm pretty sure she's never used it to embroider yet. (The built in decorative stitches and the automatic buttonholer rock, though.) I know that the cards with designs are expensive, but there are supposed to be cheap internet sites for them? And there are various devices to load your own embroidery designs, and some sort of thing so that it takes all formats not just brand specific ones? Anyone know anything about this? I'm hoping to know what kind of accessories I should shoot for by the time I've paid off the thing and brought it home.