Originally Posted by
Geri B
Although proponents of vintage machines have a low regard for the new machines....I will duck as machine parts come flying over my head....my feelings are get a NEW reasonably priced, good rep machine as a traveler or a backup or even the everyday go to machine.....vintage is for those who want to collect.......thought I really wanted a FW until I bought it...NOT!!!! Love my new plastic ones better!!!
You don't have to duck, GeriB! I do everything except appliqué on my vintage singers, but also have two modern Janome machines! I think the advantage of the vintage machines is no plastic gears to break. They are all metal. The advantage to modern machines are all the decorative stitches and most are light weight.
For vintage I would recommend: singer 15-91, 201, 301, or a Featherweight (sorry, GeriB, I love mine).
For modern, I would recommend a Brother or Janome machine. I had a Brother 6000ci that was very good, but the needle always defaulted to the left and I would forget to center it when I had a straight stitch foot on. Broke a lot of needles that way, but otherwise a great little low cost machine! I think the more expensive Brothers default to the center.