I've had 2 Pfaffs over the past 40 years (they last forever) and love the IDT. Now using a Janome for garment sewing, any decorative stitch. My Juki 98TL is my straight stitch machine for free motion, heavy duty, beautiful stitch machine. I had a Brother $100 from Walmart, gave it to my sister for her crafts (sewing thru paper with out thread). It was plastic, sloppy, not even good for a kid's first machine. I bought my 7 year old grand daughter a Janome platinum. Knee lift, large throat space, thread cutter, needle up/down are all important to me. I may look into the Juki machine that has decorative stitches that came out this year, but I'm really content with owning the Juki 98 and the Janome 4900.