What is your budget, what features do you want in a new machine, this might help us a little more because we can all suggest nice machines but if they are out of your budget it is a waste of time. All brands have nice machines. I am a brother girl myself but I don't know what brother you had or what you didn't like about it because I have had all level brothers and had no problems with any from basic mechanical, to basic computerized, to lower level TOL, to higher TOL, and I can tell you what I like about each machine. I do think the lower level machines because they don't do as much have a more clean straight stitch, and they are nice for piecing, but my big baby the dreamweaver does it all and does it all very well. I used a NX-2000 recently which was similar to my babylock espire, and found I missed the features of my dreamweaver, but I also love my SQ-9050 as it pieces very nicely, and I have done clothes, and bags on it even when I had my espire I still sewed on my SQ-9050 quite a bit.