Machine embroidery is a fun hobby, one that can even make you some extra cash if you’re looking to start a home business.
But…before you drop big bucks on an embroidery machine, ask yourself these important questions:
What are you going to embroider?
Embroidery machines essentially come in two types: flat-bed and free-arm. A flat-bed machine is very affordable, and it’ll work great on items that are, well, flat. Truthfully, you can buy the cheapest embroidery machine on the market and still do great custom embroidery on t-shirts.
But, some other items can be near impossible to embroider on a flat-bed machine. If you want to customize hats for instance, you’ll need a free-arm machine AND a specialized accessory called a cap driver. Neither of which is cheap.
If you can afford a free-arm though, your possibilities for customization are nearly endless. Anything that fits under the needle, including hats, shoes, backpacks, socks, sleeves, and stuffed animals can be embroidered on with these machines.
How big are your designs going to be?
In general, the bigger the sewing field – the more expensive the machine is. When you buy a machine, the sewing field introduces a hard limit to how large your embroidery designs can be, so choose wisely! I wouldn’t recommend buying anything under a 5″ x 7″, but if you want to save yourself the hassle of upgrading later, buy the biggest that you can afford.
Do you need a single or a multi-needle machine?
The more affordable machines are all single needle. This means that you can only embroider with one color thread at a time. Once the machine is finished with that color, it will stop and prompt you to manually switch out the thread cone to the next color.
For personal use, this is fine. But, if you plan to use the machine for a home business the process can become time consuming. A multi-needle machine will allow you to load multiple thread colors at once which the machine will automatically utilize.
However, much like free-arm machines, multi-needle machines are also very expensive. Especially if you want a machine which combines both of those features. In this case, you can expect to pay somewhere in the ballpark of $10,000 and up for the machine.
Have you budgeted for software?
While pretty much every modern embroidery machine will allow you to upload your own designs, you can’t just upload a JPEG and call it a day. Embroidery machines require their own specialized design files which must be created in a digitizing program, and while you’d think that paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a machine would entitle you to some free software – you’d be wrong.
You’ll be hard pressed to find any embroidery machine that comes with digitizing software included. But, the truth is, you’re probably better off without it. Digitizing for embroidery is not easy. It takes a lot of work to get good at it, and honestly, in almost every case it’s easier and cheaper to just hire someone to create your custom embroidery design files for you.
Okay! Now that we’ve got that out of the way… these are the machines I’d recommend you take a look at. Each of these machines offers excellent bang for your buck and I’ve highlighted the relevant features I talked about above to make choosing the right one easier.
Brother PE900 – $899
The Brother PE900 is definitely the best value available when it comes to embroidery machines. It offers a generous 5″x7″ embroidery field,