Wow! You all are great!
Thank you all for your warm welcome!
Feline Fanatic, yes, I live at the endof the earth so to speak. I live in Southern New England but in avery, very small town. Basically it's the end of the earth, or atleast you can see it from here. Just to grocery shop is 20 min andthat's just one store. The rest are 30min. Unfortunately there justaren't many stores around here that are selling sewing machinesanymore. So sad. The closest three are over an hour from me andthe closes Juki dealer that has machines in stock to try is out onCape Cod...3 hrs from me. There is one about an hour away, he is anauthorized dealer but he only carries the larger industrial machinesin stock. He can get any Juki that I want but he doesn't have any ofthe domestic ones in stock to play around with.
One of the dealers an hour form me doeshave Berninas and Janomes. Hmmmm.....
Paper Princess, you are sooo right, Ido need a back up. I kind of have one, but it too needs someservice. It's a Brother Innovis 80...more for garments thanquilting. The ¼ inch foot is not that reliable. You are correctthough that a good solid old machine is the way to go. I'll have tocheck out Craigslist and Ebay. Buyer beware on those sites butsometimes it can work out. I never buy from anyone with a bad ratingon Ebay and with Craigslist, if the price is really good then a smallrepair price might not be a bad way to go.
Prism99...I am an Amazon Prime member!Yay! Hmmm...I wonder if the 7700 would be just as good? I'll haveto see if there is any difference between the two. You raise anexcellent point that items can be returned. Not a bad way to try. The “local” (ie: nearest) dealer who can get me these Jukimachines doesn't want them returned unless there is something wrongwith them. Like I said above, he doesn't have them in stock and hetold me that if he orders them and I return them, basically he'sstuck with them because his market is industrial and not home sewers. I do not know if that is true or not. I thought the distributor hadto take them back. Maybe he just loses money on it. ??
I will have to give this some thought. I will post what I'm looking for seperately so you all don't gocross-eyed reading forever...