I have a Singer Futura CE100. Sewing and embroidery. I love the machine. It is super easy to learn but I feel that it will keep me for many many years. It has lots of stitch functions, super easy to thread and the bobbin is no problem! The embroidery is very good. I'm sure it's not like other higher class machines but I've never used anything but this so I really like it. It does what I want and more. The only problem I've had with it was when I was installing the embroidery program on my computer I had to go to the Singer site and download a patch for Windows, not a big deal. Also, it's been back to the shop (local dealer/repair) twice trying to get to bobbin winder to stop "screaming" turns out it just needed some lubrication down inside the fly wheel.
I ended up paying $800 for it October 2006, shortly after I bought mine, the price went down considerably. Go figure...
Anyway, I'm very happy with my Futie. There are several Yahoo Groups for help and ideas with the Futura. Very helpful!