i have also been sewing for many many years. there are too many things i have never heard of before joining this board. i purchased an old sewing machine in the 70s. my husband bought me a new machine in 1981. i used it until he bought me another new one in 2000. it was some "new fangled" computerized machine!!! i didn't use it for months. i knew he spent waaaay too much on something that i probably didn't need anyway. so i looked at it and didn't want to learn a whole new machine. then i noticed it had a needle down feature, which i heard about on the simply quilts show, and i thought, awesome - now that was worth learning a whole new machine. anyway, my point is that i just don't go out and make new purchases when what i already have works just fine! so, i too, do not realize what it out there because i am not looking. i'm sure there are "better" machines out there, but mine works just fine. oh, by the way, about 2 weeks ago he brought home a brochure about some new machine he wanted to buy for me. i said, NO, i do not want another machine! he was disapponted, so i told him to buy it for himself and take up sewing!!! he declined.

congrads on your new machine, did you know janomi makes parts for most brands of machines. so i guess you could say most of us are sewing with janomi.

I had not heard of Janome either when I went to replace my old Singer. I went to a dealer and tried out lots of brands and liked the Janome the best. That was about 14 years ago and I still love that machine!

Janome makes Kenmore machines. Janome's are very user friendly machines.