I just spent hours on my new Janome, which was a Christmas present but which I hadn't used as I was a bit intimidated by it. But I shouldn't have been, it is really straight forward despite all the functions. It is the most wonderful machine out of all the ones I have ever used, even the ones provided at my quilting class years ago. The stitches look great and even, it is fairly quiet, love the speed control and the needle up/down function and you can see whether the bobbin is getting low because there is a clear cover. Don't want to go to bed because I love this machine so much!
Admittedly I have never used a Bernina, but for me the Janome was money very well spent considering it is not a high-end machine.

I've sat down this weekend and did nothing but think about these machines. I was talking with DH and we both liked the 6600, but I really wasn't impressed with the monagramming on it. It seemed sort of basic and I don't know if I'm correct on this or not, but you can't resize the lettering. Does anybody know if this is true or not? A lot of info went in this weekend and I don't know if I'm remembering correctly or not?

I tried to resize the letters and couldn't. If there is a way I couldn't figure it out. That doesn't mean there isn't as I didn't spend that much time on it.

That feature was a disappointment to me also on the new 6600 I bought - No, the letters cannot be resized. "one size fits all" :(

The 6600 isn't an embroidery machine. So, you If you're looking to do embroidery and larger monagramming you need to focus on a machine that has embroidery and embroidery editing capabiilities.

That's what I'm afraid of!! :lol: :lol:

Thanks for your replies everyone. I really wanted to love the local sewing machine shop, especially as it seems like everyone else does, but a few more visits pretty much confirmed that the guy was not listening to me and was just really pushy with Janome, which raises an eyebrow for me. He also tried to tell me that glowing reviews online (for other brands he didn't carry) were placed there by online dealers, and of course that really didn't sit well with me at all.

I've since decided against getting a vintage machine and have pretty much narrowed it down to the Juki HZL-F400. It seems to have a really large throat/work area, easy bobbin winding and loading, thread cutter ON the pedal, knee lever, needle up/down, 150 stitches (that's about 130 more then I need!), adjustable pressure for the foot, box feed and on and on ..

Can you tell I'm excited about it!? :)

I'll need to drive farther to get it, but I'm really excited to give it a test run and see if it lives up to my expectations. It's more money then i planned on, but I don't want to regret my decision in a year so I'm going as big as I can. It will be a while until it's mine but I'll be sure to give an update once I've made a purchase!

Oh and yes, I would love to have a larger throat space. I still can't find the exact dimensions but the machin I'm looking at is labelled as a wide-throat so I'll cross my fingers that it's true.

I'm actually hoping to find the same exact thing! Super large work area, perfect stitch quality and more then just a single straight stitch. And of course a few extra nice features wouldn't hurt. ;)

Jared, MQX (Machine Quilting Expo) is coming up the weekend of April 16th in Providence, which shouldn't be that far for you. Maybe you can get a "show" price on the machine you're looking for if you can wait another month. www.mqx.com