My Babylock Audrey is great!! It is the smallest Babylock, only weighs about 8 pounds. I have pieced and quilted up to twin size quilt on it. Has about 20 decorative stitches built in too.

I saw a machine at Costco yesterday when I was walking thru the aisle looking for something. It was a Brother (I think) and noticed that it had a lot of stitches. It was under $200. Didn't look closely at it, just glanced enough as I went by.

I have a Janome 7130 that I use for piecing and regular sewing. It has several decorative stitches but what I love about it is the ability to move the needle over easily and it doesn't pull to the left when piecing like my brother does; everything stays straight as you stitch. It was in the $300 range and so far I'm really happy with it.

I have one of the Brother Project Runway machines which is very light weight. It has the features needed for quilting, the feed dogs can be raise and lower and it came with several attachments. It also has 50 built in stitches and 87 stitch functions. It has the drop in bobbin and the self threading needle function. I have had it for 5+ years and love it. I bought it to take with me in our motor home but I liked it so well it soon became my go to machine for all of quilting/sewing projects. I bought it at Walmart and I paid around $100 for it.

As an FYI, if you purchase a machine from Walmart and after using it , you are not happy with it , you can always return it as long as you do so within the return period stated by their store policy.

Good luck and happy sewing.

My brother SQ-9050 from walmart has quite a bit of stitches and is quite a workhorse. I think it weighs 12lbs

I love my Janome Platinum Gem. It is a real little crackerjack machine.

Pfaff Passport 2.0 - 70 decorative stitches and IDT.

I have the same machine and love it. Great for bringing to classes and travel!

I learned i really miss needle up/down and the ability to move the needle right for a travel machine. I think most of the machines suggested here do have those 2 features and most have many more. Let us know what you choose!

http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/janome-s...escription-tab This is the favourite of many of my class mates, good little machine for classes and even better price. The selection of stitches is adequate and one of my class managed to sew through 7 layers of fabric, albeit slowly :)

Unfortunately for me I have to have one with all the gizmos so I splurged out on this one http://www.nuttsewingshop.co.uk/Janome-TXL607.aspx lovely machine but not cheap!