Originally Posted by Marysewfun
Originally Posted by retired2pa
I would think it depends on how much you want (or can) spend on a machine. This is a great web for sewing machine reviews. They are written by the machines owners, not a magazine or anything.
http://sewing.patternreview.com/
Also something to consider. How much embroidery do you think you'll actually do? The reason I'm asking is, I have an embroidery/sewing machine combo. I've had it for 7 years and I love it, BUT I've found that changing it back and forth from embroidery mode to sewing machine mode can be a pain, so I've bought another sewing machine and leave my embroidery unit on my combo machine all the time. I very seldom actually just sew with it. What I'm saying is...it's a lot of money to buy the combo and only use part of it. You might want to consider 2 machines instead of one, big expensive machine. Just MHO :)
Me, too - I bought separate machines for 2 reasons - one was if part of the machine went down (say embroidery), I didn't want to be without a sewing machine; if I wanted to upgrade, concentrating on one or the other was easier - AND as expressed - the tear down in moving from the sewing machine to embroidery mechanism and back. It probably depends on what you are used to. :-)
Marysewfun
But that's what's nice about having the old vintage machines which most of us have. We can use them for the quilting, straight sewing while the embroidery machine is doing its work. I can't disagree with you guys, because I have 4 embroidery machines. I started with the Designer I, upgraded to the SE and kept the D1, then went to the Topaz 30, and then to the Diamond, and kept all the old ones. I never embroider on the D1 or the SE because they don't have the large hoops but use them for my other work. I like the features of the Vikings with the built-in needle threader, auto presser foot drop and raise when sewing, built in thread cutter and many others. The newer ones also have the large throat great for quilting. They also can lower the feed dogs for FMQ. I have only had Singers before the Vikings. Would never have a new Singer again. And I don't know about any of the other machines because there are any other dealers around here.