hi I have that machine too and was wondering if you found anything about it? I need a belt for mine please let me know one way or another

I have the same machine . DId you find out anything about it? I need a belt for mine

ohhh, I would love to see pictures! That sounds fun!

Hi I am new to this but I have an innovis 4000D with the upgrades I have had it for 3 years and love it. I just wanted to add the FiveStarFonts is a great site. THey have lots of freebies and frequent sales. THey often have free font friday at which time every friday is a free font. I have gotten several alphbets this way. Would love a chat. Jean

Sewnsewr2, Is the Bernina 640 just an embroidery only machine? My wonderful husband is buying me a new Bernina 440QE but I don't want the embroidery option. I have never embrodered but think I would love it but I am leaning toward a machine that only emroiders. I am a true bernian girl but the dealer that I bougt my first bernina from no longer sells them. He has suggested the Janome 350E ($999). He said that Janome is now making the embroidery machines for bernina. I hadn't heard that before so I don't know how true it is. If the 640 is an embroidery only machine could you please tell me how long ago you bought your machine and about how much you paid for it. My local Bernina dealer does not sell the embroidery only machines. They said they can get me one but I really don't want to buy without trying it.
Thanks-GJP424

Sewnsewr2, Is the Bernina 640 just an embroidery only machine? My wonderful husband is buying me a new Bernina 440QE but I don't want the embroidery option. I have never embrodered but think I would love it but I am leaning toward a machine that only emroiders. I am a true bernian girl but the dealer that I bougt my first bernina from no longer sells them. He has suggested the Janome 350E ($999). He said that Janome is now making the embroidery machines for bernina. I hadn't heard that before so I don't know how true it is. If the 640 is an embroidery only machine could you please tell me how long ago you bought your machine and about how much you paid for it. My local Bernina dealer does not sell the embroidery only machines. They said they can get me one but I really don't want to buy without trying it.
Thanks-GJP424

If I were embroidering this rayon I would:

Hoop water soluble stabilizer
Spray the back of the rayon with adhesive spray ( I use KK2000)
Adhere the rayon to the stabilizer
Baste in the hoop (if your machine has this feature)
Stitch out your design using rayon thread
Unhoop your finished project
Carefully cut away (don't tear) the excess stabilizer
Soak your project, change the water, soak again until all of the stabilizer is gone. Lay flat to dry.

Because your fabric is real drapy, choose an open design (nothing dense, avoid designs that have satin stitching if possible) so that you don't lose that drapability.
You can stitch out reversible designs by having bobbins wound with the same thread as the top thread. You'll need to change your bobbin thread each time you change your top thread.
Caution: Some designs stitch out well front and back with this technique but some don't. It all depends on how they were digitized so ALWAYS do a test on scrap fabric first.

If you are going for an elegant look limit the number of colors in your design. Designs (ie. flower/leaves) really look high end when stitched all in one color.
PM me if you have any questions okay? I'm no expert but I have done quite a bit of embroidery. :D :D :D

To answer Craftybear, I have the Husqvarna Designer SE :thumbup: :thumbup:

My 640 is a combo sewing/emb machine. Bernina has a Bernette 340 that is emb only and it sells for about $1,100.

I traded my 340 in for the 640 and got a great deal for my trade in and bernina was having a sale and so was the shop at the time, so I only paid about $3,000 for my 640.

Wow, lots of cool messages on this thread! Thanks everyone!

What are you making on your embroidery machines?

I just finished the table runner for the swap on my emb machine. :-D

If you mean the format for designs it is .sew

Ditto on the Brother Innovis 4000D

I have a Bernina 180E. My husband bought it for me Xmas 1999. I make crib/lap quilts for family members. Baby shower qifts/birthdays/Xmas. Enclosed are pictures of two I just finished. If the pictures make it. They may get lost in cyberspace.

Very nice. Thank you for sharing the pics.

OMG pieces, those are soooo cute!!

Thanks for the pictures. They are wonderful! A couple of weeks ago my wonderful husband bought me the Bernina 440QE with the embroidery attachement. I haven't had the time, working full time, to even open the boxes nor have I had a chance to take the classes that are offered by shop that I bought my machine from. I think I am using my time management as an excuse but I am a little intimidated by it. I really am so excited on learning how to use it. I am a simple quilter (nothing to complex)so I think I am going to fall in love with this option. With 6 granchildren ranging from 1 to 19 I am ready to play with my new toy.

Please keep the pictures coming. It's inspireing.

I have a Babylock Ellageo. It uses floppy disks. When we got a new computer I had to have a floppy drive put in so I could download from the internet. My machine is about six years old and has been used very little due to health reasons. I am hoping to get going with it one of these days. My daughter has a Babylock commercial embroidery machine and she uses it day and night. It is a real dream machine. Mine came with wonderful instructions and I always think if I have a book I can learn anything so I am not intimidated by it and have used it a couple of times with wonderful results.The Ellageo uses PES files and I have a Magic Box that can convert other types of files to PES so I can use them too.

I'm so glad to see that someone else is doing a Jenny Haskins quilt. I am currently making the 4th Simon's Folly quilt, and am just finishing the quilting on Sharman's Vintage Garden. I did do some of the Summer Wine quilt but had some problems with some of the applique not lining up very well. So, plan is to fix the designs someday when time permits. Just too many projects and not enough time.

I too have a Brother Innovis 4000D and love it. I use it for my quilting and embroidery. A great machine. I bought an inexpensive memory stick to download from the computer to my usb port on my machine. I did buy the upgrade to it, I think it makes it a 4500 D or something like that. Now I have not used that yet, but i like the larger hoops, and the contiuous embroidery for pillow cases, sheets, table cloths I think. I am glad this thread is started, I love this quilting forum, but I do embroidery too.

Any opinions on the Brother PE 770? I am seriously looking into getting an embroidery machine. Since I am a novice at this kind of stitching, I figured this would be a good one. I visited a local Sewing Machine shop a couple of weeks ago. And asked the Lady what would be a nice beginner machine. She promptly steered me to a $3000.00 Babylock something. I told her I did mention I was just starting out into the embroidery world. Not to do a hostile takeover.

I have a Bernina Artista 730. I have used the embroidery on the machine lots of times..and find it so easy to use. I made a quilt for my granddaughter Chloe...and at the moment am working on a quilt using Janet Samsons wreaths...that consists of a large center wreath and then 12 smaller ones that will be on other blocks surrounding the large one. Now I have to figure out how to post a picture. I did post of picture of the baby quilt.

Pieces....those quilts are sooooo sweet...bright and cheery for little ones.

Hi, I noticed your post about the Bernina 440 enmbroidery unit. I just purchased the emb unit for my 440 2 months ago. I was really intimidated in the beginning but now I find it quite easy to use. If your dealer offers classes, that is a real help. The biggest issue I find with it is conecting to the computer and keeping enough room to work. There is the occasional blip, when the computer waits a few seconds to send the info to the machine. but then it just goes ahead and does a beautiful job! Let me know if you have any problems, I will try to help you out. Lynne

Here is a couple of very bad pictures, (I do sewing good, embroidery good, photography not so good). Hopefully I will get some help soon to get better pictures.

Hugs, Gail

This is what I have too. I tried it today for the first time & I enjoy it but my bobbin keeps jamming up & I had to stop & clean it spotless before I could continue. Any ideas why it was jamming when I changed colors and only then?

Gail, those pics are gorgeous. What machine do you have? Are those re-hooped? Absolutely beautiful.

Gail,
Those are absolutely beautiful. I can only dream... :|

I have bought alot of embroidery library's designs...probably several hundred and they stitch out beautifully! I watch for their monthly sales that are sometimes 10 designs for $10.00 and then I go to my wish list and buy the designs I have been wanting. Just have to be patient if you don't want to pay $5.99 for that design you want. I so love their designs.

I don't think you can go too wrong with any Brother machine. They are much more user friendly than a lot of other brands. I started with a PE180 which only had a 4x4 stitch field. I outgrew that almost immediately and got a ULT 2003 and then an Innovis 4000D. I have been very satisfied with all of them. Of course, the Innovis has a lot of features that the PE180 didn't have, but as far as stitching goes, that 180 had just as good embroidery stitches. One time when I had all three machines set up, I did a wallhanging that was done in sections. I stitched some on the 180, some on the ULT and some on the Innovis. You couldn't tell the difference in the stitching.

I think the 770 has a 5x7 stitch field and a USB port for transferring designs. Those are the two things I would recommend anyone buying an embroidery machine get. Even though I can do much larger designs, I really prefer using my 5x7. That is my most favorite hoop.

Good luck with whatever you decide to get. Machine embroidery is as addictive as quilting.

I have the Singer Futura CE250. I can use the xxx format is what the machine calls for but when I get designs from embroidery library they don't have the xxx so I get the hus format. I don't change it or worry about having to make it a different format. I use the hus format and it sews out great. I bought my Ce250 from HSN a little over 3 yrs ago and I just love it! I have used it a whole lot for towels, tshirts, baby blankets and you can see my unicorn quilt I will send in with this email. Some of you may have already seen it.

The Singer Futura machines do not use a memory card. You have to have this machine hooked up to your computer and have the design in a folder in your computer. The futura should have a disk with the program to download to your computer. Turn on the computer, hook the usb cord from the embroidery machine to the computer. Open the futura program on your computer and then turn on the sewing machine. In the futura program find the design you have saved in a folder on your computer and it will open in that program and then you can embroidewr the design....after you have put the hoop and fabric set up on the machine. May sound hard but it is not. You can not open up embroidery designs on your computer without a program to view them. Your computer does not normally have any program installed that will be able to view these files. If you have any questions just holler....I will try and help

that sound more like a tension problem when you have white showing on the front.

I have Vista and I download designs all the time. Your computer just has to have a program to view the designs. I use the program that came with my futura machine or you can download the Tajima program and you can view your desings with that program. As long as you can unzip the files and have a program to view the designs I see no reason why Vista can't be used.

Beautiful quilt!! I really need to learn how to use my Innovis 4000D.

Thank you so much. Don't hesitate to jump in and learn to use the embroidery! I was kind of scared at first and just sewed with mine for about 6 months and then I bit the bullit and started embroidering. I just love it and have had soooooo much fun with it. I made the unicorn quilt for my stepdaughter and she cried when she got it. You see what neat gifts you can make from looking at the photos being sent in. I love doing the embroidery in with my quilting. Just have a tough time trying to figure out the quilt designs I can use with the embroidery. How to incorporate it into a quilt design without doing the usual embroidered block and then a square.

I have the same machine and I use it as much as I can. I just order the updated software for it. Didn't get the software that even sews your outfit for ya and then washes the car.. or it should for the money. But my machine came with a nice little program called Editor Lite. But while there are downloads to upgrade it to work with win 7, I still decided to more up to the Editor Plus. And while it was just under $1,000 including tax, it was still a heavy hit. But we know that there is the surge for better sand new soft ware and with in reason, we need to keep up.. if it's something we can get something out of it. I have the med, large and the maga hoop and it's a wonderful challenge to learn something new.

The 4000 is so easy to embroider with. I had mine for about 2 years before I ever sewed with it, all I did was embroidery. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

I'm attaching a couple of pictures of things I've done with mine. It's so much fun to make neat things with it.

Everyone's is so beautiful!

When I grow up I want to embroider just like all of you!