I have and love my Janome- I did test drive quite a few different machines before I bought. A couple of imoprtant things for me was: Being able to drop the feed dog- stitch regulator- having an start/stop button- Needle up/down feature all the fancy stitches I don't use those too much But the cost is a bit more than some of the other machines but I love it and it was worth it to me. Just go and test drive as many differnet ones as possible. Take a 3 layer patch or 2 with you and try-try-try. then buy