Light weight sewing machine
 

I have been looking for a light weight sewing machine that has more than 8 decorative stitches on it so when we travel i can still do my quilting with and use the decorative stitches. Does anyone have information that i can use to look for this special sewing machine. What is everyone using when going to classes..
Thank you
Jean

I have a Janome 3160 that I really like. What price range are you looking at?

The Bernina 300 series machines are lightweight. They seem to be the portable machine of choice for my sew group. Excellent back up machines too.

Baby Lock Ellure Plus - fairly light weight, loads of different stitches, embroidery unit and has loads of bells and whistles.

You might wonder about the embroidery unit and taking it to retreats, etc. When not stitching but visiting, it is nice to be able to get something done in addition to the chatter.

I have a Janome Jem Platinum (about $500) that has tons of stitches, needle up/down, needle threader, plus... It weighs only 12 pounds. Great little machine. I know there are less expensive Jem models too.

I had a very inexpensive Brother CS6000i that is a good machine with 60 different stitches. My niece and nephew own it now, and despite their youthful enthusiasm and experimental tendencies the machine is going strong after being in their "care" for over a year. Periodically they abuse it enough that it errors out and stops but they've discovered if they turn it off for a few hours it'll self-correct when they turn it back on. My sister tells me they've even sewn through cardboard with it. Amazing. For an inexpensive modern plastic machine it's a pretty good workhorse!

My only gripe with it was its size (too small to quilt large quilts) and that it's so light it tends to scoot away unless you have some grippy mat stuff underneath. But other than that it served me well as my primary quilting machine, I quilted an oversized twin in it, no problem, and for piecing it was great. I'd still have it except that I wanted to encourage my niece and nephew to sew.

They sell on Amazon for around $140-150. It comes with an extension table and a quarter-inch foot (and a bunch of other feet), and it has a needle up/down button. The case is the kind that's just a cover, but it is a hard shell and the built-in handle on the machine itself makes it very easy to port around.

I second the idea of the Brother. I have 3 different mechanical Brothers and they are all easy to operate and not fussy about anything.

I have a viking husqvana h100 model. A small machine easy to transport a number of fancy stitches, up down needle plus I got a walking foot and other feet. It cost £200 not sure amount in $ .

I have two of these machines and I love them. Bought the second one when Amazon had an amazing sale for a back up machine. Very portable.

Thank you everyone you have given me ideas and i am going to look at them all thanks for the input.
Jean