salami1952

I love to quilt so when I by a new machine should I buy
a Embroidery or Quilt machine? I just don't know which would be best for all my sewing needs. Is there more space on a quilt machine. Please help

Cherylsea

I think your question is too general ... "all my sewing needs"? Do you also sew clothing, do you embroider? If money isn't too much of an object you might want to look at a Viking Diamond or Ruby - they have quite a large area in the "throat" and have large embroidery areas. Best thing is to find a reputable dealer in your area and test drive their machines

the casual quilter

My suggestion is that you visit several sewing machine shops if that is possible and have the staff at each shop show you how their machines operate and what the machine can offer you. The expense of either machine setup certainly warrants some research. Some machines can do regular sewing, quilting, and embroidery and some machines can do only quilting and sewing and others only embroidery. So much depends on the type and maker of machine. Also, the quilting skills and embroidery skills - while they both relate to fabric and thread - are very different. And if you haven't done much machine embroidery, you won't know if you like it until you can see the process. If it isn't possible to visit individual sewing machine shops, I suggest you do a little on-line research and maybe watch some YouTube tutorials. That might help .

morelcabin

My feeling is that as long as you have about 9" of throat space quilting is doable. So if the embroidery machine has a big enough throat, then why not...because you never know where the future will take you so you may as well get a machine that will do more than one thing.

MadQuilter

When you say "quilt machine" do you mean a home sewing machine with a larger throat or a midarm quilting machine?

When I was in the market, I was contemplating getting a machine with an embroidery unit but decided against it. I do not like to "babysit" the machine while it is doing the embroidery thing. So I got a Babylock Espire (now Symphonie) which has a nice large throat opening for quilting and all the features I need for piecing. The only thing I wish it had was the built-in walking foot.

I cannot justify getting a shortarm let along a longarm. One of these days.......

My recommendation: Make a list of features that you need/want and then go test drive machines with those features in mind.

Annaquilts

Quilt! Do not make the same mistake I did and buy an expensive embrodery machine if you are more of a quilter. I never used my embrodery machine except for piecing. DH gave me a Janome 6500 just two yrs later and I gave the embrodery machine, a janome too, to DD who only uses it for piecing too. An embrodery machine is a bit pricey to only use to piece on. They also seem to devaluate quickly.

bamamama

Alot of the newer machines will do both. I have a Brother quattro and its does beautiful embroidery, has a high/deep arm for quilting. Its an awesome machine and very user friendly. For some reason, I still like my old singer straight stitch for piecing quilts though.

Go to the sewing machine dealer and check out the available options and get the best you can reasonably afford. Good Luck!

morelcabin

I have the Brother 400D ans find it quilts beautifully and has the added bonus of embroidery for those baby quils, purses and handbags...and the added bonus of actual quilting patterns built in. I haven't tried that yet but I want to when i do a quilt that will suit the feathers

deedum

I love my janome memory craft, I use it for quilting and embrodiery!

jemma

i suggest two machines mid range embroidery and use only for embroidery--then your work horse biggestwork area you can afford ability to drop feed dogs needle down---you can see quite a few mid range emmbroidery machines second hand [be carefull]people upgrade them----i can sit piecing on one supervising the other[colour change] at least i would if i can get off this board!!!!!!!