I have an older Singer that was built in 1955 and I love it. It is great for piecing because the needle hole is small and I don't have to worry about my fabric getting chewed up. It is a straight stitch only and the stitches are so smooth and even. I own 2 other sewing machines and I prefer my older one for quilt piecing.

The Original Poster asked about Mechanical Sewing Machines. After reading this post about the Brother cs6000i, I pulled it up on Amazon.com. Right off the bat, it says "computerized".

I will tell you that the old machines are workhorses. My DD's whole childhood all of their clothes were made on a second hand industrial machine I bought at an auction when Montgomery Wards closed their factory. All it did was forward and back, and zig zag. My niece is still using it. Don't be too quick to discount purchasing an old workhorse.

I agree with an old Singer. I have a 201, 222, and a 301. They are well engineered. The 301 is the fastest of all three. It is not as quiet as the others but it will fly. Oil them and they will last you forever.

Does it have that famous "slant Singer whine" to it? There's a fix for that. One of my 301s is so quiet I wouldn't know it was running if I wasn't operating it myself.

Cari

Vintage machines are great to have but no new features on them. When you see a nice one buy it. For a new machine you will love the straight stitch Brother 1500, has knee lift, auto thread cutting, needle threader, pin feed, and all you have to do is oil it every so often. Large throat area for machine quilting too. Comes with all the feet and extension table as standard not extra cost.

I just saw Alex Anderson introduce/sponsor a new mechanical machine (available in 3 levels from very basic to more advanced). Sorry I didn't pay attention to the make and model. It was on one of her youtube sessions (What Alex did before she became a quilter)

That would be the Eversewn machines I mentioned earlier. Some are mechanical, some are computerized.

Cari

Eversewn Sparrow machines are designed by Phillipp Ueltschi from Bernina.