Thank you all of you for your funny, commiserating, and wise comments and for the great stories you shared. I had quite a few laughs and am still smiling at the things you all wrote.
I've spent hours reading through the board about sewing machines. It is helping me form what i'd like to do in my mind. There are so many plusses to a good vintage sewing machine and i am someone who loves and appreciates connections to the past. I know I would love a vintage machine. But on the other hand... the allure of a new model with fancy stitch capabilities is a draw too. So many of you said things about the importance of having a back up machine, which I sure realized when mine died in mid project.
So I am thinking...why not both? Vintage & New?
We have sewing machine shop in the area that is offering me a deal on a Baby Lock Tempo floor model for half price and cleaned and tuned with the full warranty. It has many of the handy dandy quilting features i was hoping for... such as needle up/down, drop feeds, quilting feet, speed control, the option of starting and stopping with a push button, see through bobbin case (I hate running out of thread in the middle of a continuous line.) Not to mention fancy pants stitching. So I'm going to go for it.
But on the vintage side, I'd really like your advice. I'd like to find an electric machine in perfect working order and good condition, maybe from the 1950's. Jacquie mentioned how she likes the Singer 301 long bed. And Miriam recommended the Singer 403 with disks. (Thanks for those recommendations!) I started looking for those on eBay and did indeed find some good ones. Of course it depends on condition and whether or not I will need to be taking it to a dealer when it arrives... but I'm not sure what a reasonable price range is.
I was wondering: Do any more of you have opinions on your favorite vintage machines that you would like to share? And do only some vintage machines have the capacity for free motion quilting? (I'm just learning to do that.) On a vintage machine, is it merely a matter of being able to drop the feed dogs?
I'd appreciate any insights you might have!