gail-r

[quote=stitchinwitch]Ok, thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. There is 2 machines that I would recommend.

1. Ellegante or Ellegante 2. The reason I think you would be happy with this machine: It has a top embroidery speed of 1000 stitches per minute, with that said I have mention, none of the embroidery machines will actually stitch every design at the top speed. It will stitch the tiny straight stitches at the top speed, satin stitches will take longer. So, if you have a design that has 20,000 stitches it may take much longer than 20 minutes to sew. But it will be much faster that a machine that has a top speed of 600 SPM. For some of the beautiful embroidered quilts you will want a fast machine. I'm currently making the Sharman's Vintage quilt and each block takes about 8 to 10 hours of embroidery and there is 20 blocks in the quilt. This machine comes with 4 hoops, 2"x2", 4"x4", 5"x7" and 7"x11". I find that these hoop sizes work great, the large hoop can help you reduce the number of hoopings on a block if you can combine some of the designs. But at the same time you have the flexabilty to use a smaller hoop for some designs with will save $'s using a smaller amount of stablizer. This machine has a huge stitch compacity and will handle designs that large stitch count. Some of the smaller machines have a 25,000 stitch limit so you can only do designs that have less that 25,000 stitches or you have to split the design up into 2 (or more) designs using your software. I regularly do designs that are over 75,000 stitches. It automacticly cuts jump stitches and has an accurate bobbin empty notifcation. It does have some nice designs built in, one of the differences between the BL machines and Brother is the built in designs, BL comes with Nancy Zieman designs and Brother has Disney. Of course you can buy designs for both. The mode that is preferable to transfer designs to this machine is by a USB stick, sometimes called a thumb drive or removable disk. You put the stick in your computer copy or save the design to your stick, remove the stick from your computer and insert it directly into the machine. These sticks are getting larger so the smaller sticks (meaning with less storage compacity) work great and are getting very inexpensive. Ellegante has a good varity of deco stitches and a smooth operation. It is also upgradable, some upgrades are free some are rather expensive. One of the down sides of this machine may come in doing free motion quilting, It has a drop in bobbin and adjusting bobbin tension is not recommended, however I have done it. So this makes doing 2 thread color quilting more difficult getting the tensions right so that you don't get little pokie-dots on your quilt. The other drawback may be in doing walking foot quilting on very heavy or on very thick quilts, you can adjust the presser foot pressure and the amount of lift but it is more limited that quilting models. Don't be afraid to buy a used machine from a good dealer, usually if they sold the machine originally they can give you a repair history and service history. At the bottom of the LCD screen is a icon that looks like a peice of paper, when you press it you will get several pages where you can make many adjustments, but you will always know what the factory settings because they have those numbers in white with a blaci background. So you don't have to be a fraid that you won't get the machine back to where it was set. Also, if you buy used from a private seller, and they tell you they have not had the machine serviced, you can look on page 3 (I think, may be pg 4) it will show you how many embroidery stitches have been sewn on the machine. probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million stitches on my elle. Service techs will usually reset this when they do general servicing, you can also write this number down before taking to be repaired and see how many stitches they actually put on your machine. Often times they will put a little sail boat design under your needle, so if the design has a few thousand stitches you will be able to see that your new stitch count. With the new Ellisimo machine out, the price has dropped on new Ellegante machines around $3500 on sale and I have seen many used under $2500.

The second machine would be the Ellageo, has slower stitch speed, uses floppy cards to transfer designs, largest hoop is 6"x10". If your dealer has a new one he may be will to make you a great deal. Used is usually around $1500. I'm not sure if it cuts jump stitches, maybe someone on the board can tell us that.

Both machines have a colored lcd screen, the B&W screens can make it difficult to know which part of the design is sewing which in turn makes it more difficult to change thread colors to your own choices instead of using the recommended colors.

You could put either machine on a table, if you want to convert your table to a quilting table just use the foam insulation boards to bring your table surface up to the bed level (Home depot has them in various thicknesses and already cut to 2'x4') then cover with the thick clear vinyl and your quilts will move easily on your table.

I know this is starting to look like a novel but wanted to give as much info as possible. I agree with you about getting the most out of your investment when you are older, I'm 64 and my dealer really wanted me to upgrade to the Ellisimo which sells for 8k and I like the machines I have and thought I could make a lot of quilts for 8 thousand dollars. Hope this very long post gives the info you are looking for to make the right decision for you.