Brother VR Embroidery/Free motion Machine

The Brother VR embroidery and free-motion machine has a single needle embroidery function with 305 built in designs and 20 built-in fonts to choose from. But unlike many other machines of this size the Brother VR is also a free-motion sewing machine which will work without the need for an embroidery hoop, however, hooped up as an embroidery machine it will still produce large areas of stipple stitch embroidery perfectly professionally and neatly.

The VR had it's debut at the festival of Quilts at Birmingham's NEC and has been showcased ever since. If you have been lucky enough to see this machine perform then you will fully appreciate how good this machine really is.

The VR comes with 6 embroidery hoops in total:

• 200 x 200mm
• 100 x 100mm
• 70 x 41mm (‘S’ Frame)
• 50 x 50mm (‘S’ Frame)
• 44 x 38mm (‘S’ Frame)
• 33 x 75mm (‘S’ Frame)

‘S’ frames are used to embroider tiny obscure areas, the free arm on the VR is super thin and long so embroidering directly on to a pocket or sleeve is a breeze. The other hoops are are used for regular embroidery up to 8" square.

There are a fair few handy innovations in the VR machine:

Thread Colour Sorting - If you have duplicated designs and flipped and rotated them to create a symmetric surround, instead of changing colour threads per section of design the colour sorter will group colours together, so all the greens will be done, then all the reds and then all the blues etc. As an example of this a rather complicated design was duplicated three times and the designs were placed in each corner of the embroidery area. Without colour sorting, there were 48 colour changes and am embroidery time of 118 minutes. With colour sorting it was reduced to 12 colour changes and time was reduced to 48 minutes.

Multiple Line Text - I think speaks for its self, you can now program and embroider multiple lines of text in one session, this is easier than the previous method where you have to do a line at a time. Better text editing, now individual letters in a word can be edited, re-sized, coloured or moved. 

LED Pointer - For precise positioning the LED pointer is excellent it will show you exactly where your design will be and now it laser pointer is a lot brighter than some previous models, a vast improvement on this very useful feature. Once set for free-motion the LED pointer makes free-motion work more accurate.

Projects? - Super fast for single coloured embroidery such as bridal decoration, or multi coloured embroidery where the machine will trim threads between colour changes. You can embroidery nearly anything by adding the specialist accessories. The VR can also take the Cap frame for embroidering the front of Baseball caps with an embroidery area of 100 x 132mm. You can also use a 180 x 100mm Snap release Border Frame for continuous embroidery and lace. The narrow cylinder frame can also be used, perfect for keeping contours intact when embroidering say, sleeves for example. The 45 x 24mm clamp frame can be used for applying personalized embroidery to shoes and football boots.

This domestic machine will take your home sewing to the next level and unlike the PR range which has a limited 12 months commercial warranty the new VR comes with a full standard use 3 years manufacturer’s warranty.

Free-motion embroidery with superb speed control - For the quilters among us. The VR is much more than a top-class embroidery machine, it is also a Free motion machine which is fantastic, it looks and feels very different to all of the other long arm free motion machines. Sometimes the long arm Free motion machine can be too industrial and rather intimidating. The Brother VR is fun, exciting, compact and very safe. To convert from embroidery mode to free motion, simply attach the table and the needle guard.

When hand stippling you need good speed control of the machine needle, and the VR wont let you down. The electronic foot control will precisely control the speed of the machine for you. But a new function helps even more. Using the colour touch screen, you can set foot control maximum and minimum speeds to your own preference, you can program this with two needle speed setting to stitch as slowly as 70 stitched per minute (SPM) and as fast as 1000 SPM and anywhere in between. Motion control and regularity can easily be perfected with little practice.

In the past or when using other machines, sewing free-motion using the foot control only gave speed options from zero SPM to the machines max speed..! After a small amount of testing, I personally found my setting of 70 SPM to 240 SPM absolutely perfect for me, it made the Brother VR super controllable when i was stippling, and i can honestly say I have not found anything else as controllable as this machine while stippling. 

The Brother VR includes the free-motion bobbin case, clear view needle guard and wide table to accommodate your quilt, and a free motion grip to firmly hold and gently control the movement of you project over the table.

TOP TIP: Don't forget to claim your starter pack including, threads and stabilizer by registering your new PR680w with Brother UK.