When I first learned to embroider, I used a needle and embroidery floss. I learned to do counted cross stitch and to follow the pattern printed on a piece of fabric.
If you walk into a needlepoint area of a craft store now, most of what you see is counted cross stitch. You won’t find many patterns calling for a satin stitch or French knot. If you want something more detailed than you can get with a counted cross stitch kit, you are severely limited to what you can find for patterns.
When embroidery machines came out, at first they were too expensive for a hobbyist to own. Businesses had them and would sell either pre-embroidered items or they would embroider items to order. With the cost of the machines going down, now you can buy an embroidery machine for home use. Though chances are, you’ll want to sell the results of your work. With these machines, you are only limited by your imagination. You can get results similar to what you would buy in the store, ‘Grandma shirts’ with your children’s or grandchildren’s names, an afghan with flowers or other design and your wedding date, or the date of your child’s birth. Or maybe...