I have a Brother 1500 which does streight stitchs only and is really a workhorse machihe both for piecing and FMQ. I also have a Singer machine that will do fancy stitches if I want to. I sometimes use it attaching binding using a fancy stitch. That said since it does not manually adjust the presser foot tension so I will get puckering. The brothers has a manually presser foot adjustment. Ladies on this board love their machine and each has a special preference. Choose a machine that is in your price range and go for it! I test drove mine at LQS and the bought it from Amazon.