Sunshine, I'd really try the Brother at WalMart. Get one that does 100-250 stitches. They even have one that both embroiders and sews that is a Brother. See if you even like to sew at first. Why spend thousands of dollars to find out you need 85 training classes just to understand the machine's basic works? First, find out if you like sewing with a half-way decent machine that won't break the bank.
When you start out, keep tabs of your expenditures. What does it cost to make a $50 dress for summer casual wear, to do mending, to put on a button, or to monogram a pocket and then sew it back on? What are you going to do if you make a mistake and the monogram is at a 15 degree angle you hate? *sigh*
I'd really go slow to start. Even if all you do is sew your quilt squares together or hem your red tablecloth with a neatly-sewn hem. Some machines even have a basting stitch, especially if you get one with 200 stitches. 90% of them will have a basting stitch, so you can firm up your hem, take it quickly out if it's wrong, and when everything is correct, you can sew even a straight stitch hem that looks nice, because if you get the one with the needle-down function, the fabric will stay in place while you straighten the fabric out so it will sew right.
I can't emphasize too much how nice it is to have a little experience before you dive into a thousands-of-dollars purchase. Give yourself 3 months with this assessment: (1) How many times did I use the machine? (2) Did I go through the instruction manual and do a sample of each stitch and learn to use the buttonholer, button attachment foot, zipper foot, overedge foot, rolled hem foot, etc. Was it too hard? (3) Is the machine safe (didn't sew a finger up, etc.) (4) How easy was the machine to thread after 7 days? 14 days? a month? two months? (5) Is there any attachment I am not comfortable using after 90 days? (6) Did the manufacturer include or have a way to purchase a how-to video/cd or did I find one on YouTube?
Please, go slow. You may learn some things about yourself you don't know yet.
My favorite people to deal with as a dealer was medical professional women. Man oh man, were they ever clued in to doing exactly what the manual taught or the instructor did. What a bright bunch! And one school librarian was the same way.
You might talk to a dealer and ask if he or she has a trade-up program, where you have 6 months to a year trade-up to a better model. That way, you have a trained professional who can show you things he learned at the dealer's convention nobody else would know, including the manual, which only lightly touches all the machine capabilities. I didn't know too many of my other Pfaff dealers well, but I gave a year's option. One lady was a widow, and she enjoyed the option through 5 move-ups, until she was truly enjoying a very sophisticated machine, because every time she did, the sticker or price she paid came off the price of the next new machine she got. That way, she didn't get clobbered with thousands of dollars when she moved up to the top of the line machine. I didn't make a nickel, but I've never been so happy that a customer who didn't have an instant cash payment to plunk down on a top of the line got so well trained. She really appreciated the build-skill approach.
The worst things that happened would happen when somebody would want to have the ability to do everything, but didn't have the patience to learn basic tasks in order to be able to use the machine in as versatile a way as possible.
I'm just throwing ideas out, Sunshine. You know yourself best. I do notice you are a very adventurous person and put your whole heart into whatever you think is best. You might be like the 5 top users who were so thrilled to have a Pfaff they wanted to do everything it would do, because they had a comparison base of a 2-ton monstrosity that made noise boucoup, sewed worse after repairs than before, and was the stuff of hair-tearing experiences. For that reason they loved the quiet Pfaffs, and once I showed them how trust the machine to do the work of sewing and not to do damage the machine by trying to force it to do something like machine horrible habituated them into doing by nonperformance, they had real fun. They loved the built-in walking foot with perfect reverse stitching, and Pfaff was 20 years ahead of everyone else in that field. I haven't assessed any other machines as to that much capability, but I know I love the Bernina and Brother machines I've sat in front of. I'm not worried about threading because in my factory experience in the 60s, I was competent on at least 5 different types of machines after 3 months, because I kept asking if I could fill in for anyone in a different part of the factory in which there was a demand for production. I spent one day on an overlock machine one day when the process ahead of me had no zippers to sew one day. It was fun.
