I purchased this machine because I wanted to learn to do machine embroidery and didn't want to spend a fortune. I think it is an excellent value. It seems very solid and sewed beautifully with no adjustments straight out of the box. There are sensors in the thread path that are very sensitive and incorrectly report broken thread quite often. As soon as I got the hang of flossing the thread into the sensors this became less of a problem. There are several yahoo groups dedicated to machine embroidery and the nice people there were of great assistance to me as I got started.
Folks like me who are new to machine embroidery should understand that the sewing machine must be physically attached to a computer while you are embroidering. The soft ware running the computer sends the information to the sewing machine one color at a time so don't think that you can download the design and then sew it out later. You are going to need a computer to run the embroidery feature of this machine. I'm using an old computer that was discarded at my office because it was too slow to run large office programs over a network. I took all the other software off and it runs the Future software just fine. If you are going to need to acquire a computer to run your embroidery machine you should consider that cost along with the price of the Futura.
Thread is the paint of embroidery and since it is different than regular thread you are also going to have to make an investment in thread to get started. The price of a spool can vary greatly but if you buy a bunch at one time it can be pricy so think about this to when deciding to make the plunge into machine embroidery.
The difference between the Futura 250 and the Futura 350 is the software. If you plan to create your own embroidery designs you should know that only the basic software comes with the 250 but you can purchase the full software separately. Making clip art into machine embroidery is much more difficult than I first thought and to run the Futura software the sewing machine must be connected to the computer even if you are just working on the design and not doing the actual sewing. There are other software packages that do not have this requirement. You could use them to make the art into embroidery files but you will still need to be connected to your Futura to stitch them out.
I am extremely happy with this product and would recommend it to other people like me who just want to have some fun and spice up their craft and sewing projects. If you are looking to do embroidery professionally then purchase a higher priced and faster machine.
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