Brother PE800 Embroidery Machine, 138 Built-in Designs, 5" x 7" Hoop Area, Large 3.2" LCD Touchscreen, USB Port, 11 Font Styles

Amazing machine! Super simple to use right out of the box, especially with all the YouTube videos available out there. Some of my favorite online places to download patterns is urbanthreads.com and emblibrary.com and etsy.com . I've only had it 5 days and these are some of the things I've made with it. One of the things I've learned along the way is you must use decent supplies and not skimp and cut corners. I ordered the pack of "new brothread" embroidery thread from Amazon and it works wonderfully and one box of 40 colors is going to last me for awhile. Even with all I've done, these 500m cones barely look used still. You also must use a good backing. I love the tear away backing also by "new brothread". You have to have a spray adhesive and I've learned go lightly with it, don't use too much. Just enough to barely stick it together. And the last thing I've learned is the bobbin thread must be #90. New Brothread also sells a wonderful black and white bobbin thread set and it comes on a teal cone so you can tell it apart from other large cones of thread. Winding your own bobbins is super easy. I've read reviews where people said it didn't work well and all they purchase are pre-wound bobbins. The machine comes with 4 bobbins and so far that seems like enough if you stay on top of winding them. Although you can stop your project at any time and wind and replace bobbins without it messing things up. I found that by using quality supplies, I can walk away from the machine while it's working away on something and most likely there won't be an issue. If you use the wrong stuff, it will malfunction constantly and be very aggravating. It's an incredible machine at an incredible price. The on-board editing is a little limited and could be better, but I've read about computer programs out there that make it better and someday hope to buy that. Also, when you download things to the thumb drive it's hard to tell what is what because it shows up as blobs on the screen. But it does go in order of downloads so if you want your most recent download you just go to the very end pic. I would totally recommend this machine! It's been SO MUCH FUN!!!

This machine is easy to use right out of the box and does an excellent job on virtually every fabric. Others have mentioned tension and thread breakage issues but I have had no issues with tension or thread breaking once I did two very simple things - first and MOST IMPORTANT is adding a simple felt pad to the back end of the thread spindle. This simple thing will save you from the frustration of broken thread. The reason is the thread spool spins faster than the machine can stitch the thread so the thread tangles and wraps itself around the spindle, the tension is off, the thread breaks. The felt pad reduces the spin of the thread spool so the thread pulls off at a controlled rate thereby maintaining the machine tension. So simple, but effective. The other trick is the spool net. This simple 'sock' keeps the thread from jumping off the spool. The felt pad and spool net eliminates virtually EVERY thread tension breakage issue, both these items are inexpensive and can be purchased here on Amazon. Who would have thought it could be that simple! I have used this machine to embroider cotton, wool felt, cotton cording, and vilene (used for lace making) and have had ZERO tension/thread breaking issues. So, back to the machine...easy and intuitive, but it does come with an excellent, easy to read, logical owners manual that will get you embroidering in no time. Lots of preloaded designs, the on board computer screen is large and easy to see, design edits are possible and easy to accomplish. Stitch size is a good 7x5" which is a very reasonable design area recognized by virtually every digitized designer. Accepts a standard USB flash drive, insert the drive into the machine and your designs are viewable on the machine's screen. Can't get much easier! If you are toying with the idea of purchasing an embroidery machine, do it! This machine will not disappoint you.

Purchased this a number of years ago on a black friday sale. I had a pe770 and this has so many upgraded features. The screen is so much easier to read. Best feature is it remembers your stitch location if the power is shut off. Worst feature is it has trouble reading thread level on bobbins. It very rarely gives me a low bobbin warning. I've tried cleaning the sensor and using different brands of bobbins. I just have to pay attention and change it out when low. If you are just getting into embroidery I would highly suggest this machine. It's extremely user friendly and you can do so much with it. As a personal use machine (and light use small business machine) you can't beat the features or the price.

This is a great little machine. Easy to use and perfect for a hobby embroidery enthusiast.

EDIT; 05/11/19 I HAVE LEARNED! So, reading the manual will help greatly in improving the nit picks I had in my review below. You CAN change bobbins in between colors (you have to detach your hoop, and not restart anything, just hit the arrow button then the 'needle' button to move the needle to a safe position before changing things). This is also the standby phase that I was looking for. Bonuses I have found- if a miss-threading occurs (a knot, or the fabric slips while embroidering- happened more than once) you do NOT need to start over, there is a series of buttons- that you wouldn't know actually do this- that rewind or fast forward the stick numbers (in increments of 1, 10, and 100 at a time). Luckily, you don't need to be exact, the machine's cross hairs backtrack with the buttons, so you'll know when you're back where the incident happened. Would still like to mention two nit picks; 1) wish I could get a bigger touch screen, or a means to attach one without loosing the SINGLE usb port, the internal memory of the machine is only 6 to 12 patterns at a time. 2) Even changing the design's multi-colors to a single color won't change timings- if you just want one color on all the phases you still have to progress the machine as if you has multiple colors (even changing them in the machine doesn't change this fact). ALSO, don't use metal bobbins, the machine will tell you when your bobbin needs changing during a pattern, but only on a plastic bobbin. A metal bobbin (I assume) cannot be properly scanned by the machine, so it will continue to embroider without thread in the bobbin, and will eventually stop in a knot. I'm leaving my older review bellow, unaltered. Pe800 owner; bought to assist in embroidery for a baby quilt I'm doing for a best friend. Did my research, with my lifestyle, and the amount of embroidery I plan on doing, this machine was best for my needs. I did buy the extra stabilizers and hoops, which have come in handy (also embroidery scissors have been a GodSend!; would also recommend buying extra bobbins). As someone who has only done this by hand before, some of the manual how-to settings are confusing at first (my first Brother machine), and playing around with the settings takes some getting used to. Nit-pic 1) Didn't know the bobbin couldn't be changed while the pattern was being preformed (try to replace it = starting over), nit pic 2) can't figure out how to move the hoop-bar without telling the machine I'm trying to disconnect the arm, this has lead to me almost bending my needle twice while attempting to tighten the hoop/ re-thread the needle (needs a 'resting/standby space' not directly under the needle). Five Star bonus- it threads the needle itself! Not sure how it does it, but you loop the thread through other parts of the machine and pull a leaver- instant threading! You can still do it yourself, but why would you? (nit Pic 3- the needle must be in a specific spot to work, the leaver will not fully depress if the needle is not where it needs to be). Still a five star machine- it just have to figure it all out I'm sure. PEBKC probably (or PEBEMC).

I am working on my 6th simple embroidery and so far I intensely dislike using this overly fussy machine. The needle threader doesn't want to work consistently, the threading through the bobbin tension discs was unclear. It takes a long time to get the fabric and the stabilizer into the hoops. Snapping the hoop on to the machine and removing it is awkward. Getting the spools of thread arranged into the machine is difficult because the slick thread wants to go everywhere. I'm going to practice some more, but there's a good chance I'm going to return this machine. So far I love the results, but I despise the machine. It's not fun to use. Very frustrating! I think these problems may be inherent in embroidery machines and I'm not going to do this hobby. This machine should have come with an instructional DVD and it does not. I bought a serger from Brother years ago and I loved it, but it came with a basic instructional DVD which was excellent. I'm not a professional, but I have a lot of experience sewing. I'll update this review, but at this time I regret this purchase and plan to return the machine if things don't get better in a hurry. I didn't expect to be somebody who would dislike this machine. Brother is shooting themselves in the foot by not including instructional dvds. Update, 6 weeks later: I have figured out the automatic needle threader finally and I can get it first try about 80 to 90% of the time. I really like the machine now. I can't imagine why they didn't include an instructional DVD. I had to go through several YouTube videos to find anything decent. I raised the review to four stars. I'm quite mechanically inclined and I had some trouble learning this machine at first. I have a feeling that a lot of complaints people have about the machine or products they use with it are really because they're messing up some fussy little details (which should have been covered in a professional instructional DVD!)

I absolutely love this!! Super easy set up, easy to use. This is my first embroidery machine and I love it. Pattern are done quickly. Nicely built.

When I got this machine I was very frustrate at first. For some Reason the bobbins thread was giving me a lot of problems and doesn’t look it was working properly. After a couple of weeks I decided I was done and I was going to return it. Somehow, after the machine was already pack to send it back, I started feeling nostalgic (I kind of developed a bonded with the freaking machine) and I decided to take it back out of the box and try it again for few days before returned I think she learned the lesson because she has been doing AMAZING! We have become literally best friends. I’m doing a lot of projects and I’m very happy with this machine. Even tho I wish the size would be bigger, I definitely think this is a machine I would have for long time (hopefully last long time of course) so far I’m happy.

Amo esta maquina y gracias a ella descubri una nueva pasion.

Me gusta todo de la máquina

Súper practica y no tan pesada

ES UNA MUY BUENA MAQUINA, MI ESPOSA ESTA MUY COMPLACIDA CON LA COMPRA

Compacto y funcional