Embroidery machines are a wonderful tool for adding a creative touch to all sorts of projects. From gifts to fabrics to home décor and more, we’ll take help you choose the best embroidery sewing machine for taking your home embroidery business to the next level.
What is an Embroidery Machine?
The purpose of an embroidery sewing machine is clear, but many options are available, making it hard to choose the right one for you.
Some sewing machines will offer embroidery stitching among their standard stitch options. And while this is a neat feature, these machines often lack the specialized functionality you’d want from a dedicated embroidery machine.
An embroidery machine can be pre-programmed to create automatic embroidery stitch patterns. Typically, they’ll be pre-loaded with patterns and allow you to download custom patterns. The machines use a hooping technique to hold the fabric tight as the programmed designs are embroidered into the fabric. These are the machines we’ll mainly cover in this article.
OUR TOP 3 RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Brother PE800
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2. Brother PE550D
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3. Janome Horizon Memory 9850
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Product Reviews
Best Overall – Brother PE800 Embroidery Machine
Product Overview
One of the most popular embroidery machines on the market, the Brother PE800 embroidery machine is a fantastic choice for your home embroidery business. Custom designs are easy with the PE800, even if you’ve never used an embroidery machine before.
It all starts with the LCD touchscreen. The touchscreen lets you preview from 138 pre-loaded decorative stitch designs. You can also use the screen to customize these designs (change colors, size, etc.) and add text from 11 built-in fonts. And if that’s not enough, all you have to do is simply insert a USB to load a custom embroidery design. Once you’re happy with the design, the LCD screen walks you through the whole process, including how and when to change threads. The automatic needle-threader makes this much easier.
There’s a big 5” x 7” embroidery hoop, which you’ll find adequate for most intricate designs. For a bigger embroidery pattern, you’ll have to re-adjust the hoop (or buy a bigger hoop), but that’s pretty typical of a home-embroidery machine.
The stitching process is fast and efficient. As long as you make sure the fabric is taut in the hoop, this Brother embroidery machine creates intricate designs that look just like the preview image!
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Bottom Line
This machine gets top pick in our embroidery machine review because of its laser focus on useability. The LCD interface makes it easy to create, edit, and upload designs, and it walks you through the entire embroidery process. Suitable for beginners to advanced designers, this is a great choice for your home business.
BEST BUDGET – Brother PE550D Embroidery Machine
Product Overview
Brother has an entire lineup of embroidery machines, and this is their budget offering. But if embroidery is just a small part of your business, then a simple machine might do the trick.
Think of this machine like the one featured above, but with a little less functionality. But it’s still got Brother’s handy LCD touchscreen, which still makes it a good choice. Use the touchscreen to pick from 125 built-in computerized embroidery designs (including 45 licensed Disney designs) and nine built-in fonts. You can use the touchscreen to edit and modify existing designs or upload your own via USB. Like the PE800 above, this machine also walks you through the entire embroidery process, including when to switch thread with the auto needle threader.
Perhaps the biggest drawback compared to more premium machines is that the embroidery hoop is only 4” x 4”. This does limit the potential designs on offer, but it really depends on how much space you require from the embroidery field. At the low price point, it may be more than enough for you.
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Bottom Line
If you want a basic embroidery machine that’s extremely easy to use, this one is for you. It’s so easy to upload, edit, and create designs, and the machine walks you through the entire process. Just be sure that 4” x 4” is enough embroidery space for your creations.
Best Sewing + Embroidery Machine – Janome Horizon Memory 9850 Embroidery Machine
Product Overview
Here’s a premium pick from a trusted brand in sewing and embroidery – Janome. The Janome 9850 is an impressive machine, as long as you can get past the price tag! Also, note that this machine doubles as a high-quality sewing machine, but we’ll focus on the embroidery features here.
So, what’s so special about the 9850 compared to your average home-embroidery machine? It’s a mixture of design capabilities, functionality, and embroidery detail.
The computerized embroidery machine is loaded with 175 built-in designs, with a few different fonts to choose from. The LCD color touchscreen is very capable, and you can use it to manipulate and edit your designs for your embroidery project to your liking. Of course, you can upload custom designs as well.
The embroidery process is quick and seamless, with the touchscreen helping you through the process. You can customize the level of detail with 1, 10, and 100 stitch traveling options. The machine also includes two embroidery hoops for smaller or larger designs (measuring 140 x 140mm and 170 x 200mm).
The embroidery features are comparable to the Brother PE800 above, but the machine separates itself with its sewing capability. This machine is the right choice for anyone who wants a combination sewing/embroidery machine, as Janome is a trusted name in both. If you don’t need the sewing capabilities, then skip this option.
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Bottom Line
Whether or not you need this machine depends on whether or not you also require a sewing machine. It’s a high-quality combination machine, but you have to be sure it meets your needs.
Best Multi-Needle Machine – Janome 001MB7
Product Overview
This unique multi needle embroidery machine straddles the line between home and industrial embroidery machines. Janome bills it as the world’s first home-use seven-needle embroidery machine. While we can’t verify that claim, we can say that this is a great choice if you have more advanced embroidery needs. But be sure that’s what you need because the price tag is steep.
As you can probably tell from the picture, you can load multiple spools of thread onto this machine at once, allowing the machine to automatically switch between different colors while embroidering, eliminating the need for you to switch them yourself. You can load up the colors you need, and the machine does all the work. This technology is generally reserved for industrial embroidery equipment, but Janome brings it right into your home.
There are also capable design/editing tools built into the 001MB7. There’s a big 5.7” color LCD screen for you to edit, manipulate and create custom embroideries. The editing options are more in-depth than what you’d find in just about any home-embroidery machine. Simply upload your design via USB in .jef+, .jef, or .dst format. There are also 50 built-in designs and ten fonts to choose from.
The machine can work up to 800 stitches per minute. Combined with the multi-needle technology, it embroiders much faster than your standard home-embroidery machine. There’s also programmable thread trimming, and the machine has auto-return post thread break.
If your home business requires heavy embroidery, it might be worth the significant investment.
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Bottom Line
A home business can require an embroidery machine for a multitude of reasons. If your embroidery needs are more extensive, and you can see where this machine’s efficiency would pay off, then it’s the right choice for you.
Buyer’s Guide
As you can see from our product reviews, you’re spoiled with choice when it comes to the best home embroidery machine. But too much choice often becomes overwhelming. In this section, we’ll give you the top factors to consider in choosing a tool for machine embroidery:
What Do You Need to Embroider?
It seems obvious enough, but you’d be surprised how often people don’t properly consider this. The right embroidery machine is the one that can create what you need to create within the embroidery area. The machine you need will seriously differ depending on whether you need to create basic, simple embroideries or larger, more detailed embroideries. Before you purchase an embroidery machine, sit down and consider exactly the type of designs you want to create – including size, level of detail, and level of customization. Then, consider the following factors to pick the best machine available.
Design Features
The design features are a true make-or-break that separates quality home embroidery machines from the rest of the pack. We based our list around products that have detailed & intuitive design features built into the machine itself. After selecting or uploading a design, a quality machine lets you customize colors, sizes, fonts, shapes, and more.
Note that making the actual design itself is best done on a computer with dedicated software, but these built-in design features are ideal for really pinning down the final product.
Many home embroidery machines also come with pre-loaded custom designs and fonts. These are a great way to get the hang of the machine before you start uploading your own designs.
Instructions
Once the design is good to go, you’ll want a machine that walks you through the entire process. This approach is useful for beginners up to advanced embroiderers because sometimes it’s not so obvious why the machine has stopped working. Each machine on our list displays step-by-step instructions on its LCD screen while the embroidery is being done, and we wouldn’t recommend a machine that doesn’t.
Speed & Stability
Even though the embroidery process is mostly automatic, you still want it to be reliable and precise. Each of the machines we picked above offers precise embroidery, but some are quite a bit faster than others. Check out the maximum stitches per minute to get an idea of how quickly the machine embroiders (700+ is fast). But don’t forget that multicolored embroideries tend to take quite a bit longer because the threads need to switching more often.
Automatic-Threading vs. Multi-Needle
You’ll only have to think about this if you are serious about your home-embroidery setup. Simply put, a multi-needle embroidery machine is far more efficient. The automatic thread-switching is a real game-changer, and it’s no wonder that it’s the go-to choice for professional/industrial embroidery. That said, multi-needle embroidery machines are much more expensive (we’re talking thousands more). The Janome multi-needle machine featured above is just about your only choice for a home setup, and beyond that, you have to look into industrial machinery.
And if you can’t justify the massive price jump, then the other machines on our list are still very serviceable!
Conclusion
Thanks for checking out our list of the best embroidery machine for your home business. Whether you’re running a business, customizing artwork, or just having fun, any of these machines is a great choice. Use our guide to decide which is the best choice for you!
