Sewing machine recommendations
 

Hello everyone!

I am new to this board and relatively new to quilting. I have completed one quilt and am working on two others and just love it. I currently am using an older Brother machine but am considering an upgrade. Any suggestions on favorite brands and why would be appreciated?

Thanks!

Kathy

I have a babylock crescendo bought last April. My husband and the store owner talked me into it. I have not bonded with it yet though I love the lighting, 11 1/4 inch harp and pivot feature. Spent way too much money for it.

I love my Singer featherweights and my new Jenome 6600!

I have a Janome, Pfaff, and Viking/Husqvarna. I've never tried a Bernina or Babylock. I like my Janome Gem Platinum because of it's size, it's perfect for travel. I like my Pfaff because of the IDT system. I like my Husqvarna because of the auto scissors and the presser foot that is activated with my foot control (which is wonderful when doing piecework). I would like to suggest that you keep using your current machine for a couple of reasons. One - to be sure that you will indeed keep sewing. These machines are not cheap. Two - make a couple more quilts to see what features you think you would like in a machine. You may find that you really don't like free motion quilting, in which case you wouldn't benefit from a longer harp. Or, you my find that you really do like FMQ and choosing a machine with a larger harp would be very beneficial. Do you like piecework? Then you would probably like a machine with the auto scissors feature. When you are ready to buy be sure that you educate yourself about the different machines and what they can do. A great resource for sewing machine reviews is Patternreview.com. Before you buy take them all for a test drive. Another suggestion is buying a good used machine. You can save a lot of money on a slightly used machine with all the bells and whistles over the cost of buying new. And use this forum, it's a great help. Good luck to you.

A longer harp doesn't just facilitate free motion quilting. It is needed to do straight line quilting or stitch in the ditch quilting on larger quilts too.

I love Bernina Have four of them all do wonderful things would never change ,
they have great technical training and always been there for me to answer any questions .
Cathy

janome! no fuss no muss no mess such an easy machine so silent hands down i love it! ~till i can afford a baby lock that is :)

Upgrade to another Brother. I have 3 of them right now, and am very happy with them. Their manuals are really well written; I couldn't ask for more in terms of that. You can spend as much or as little as you want on a Brother machine. The more you spend the more feature rich they are.

Good luck in your hunt.

I love brothers, I love brothers, and I love babylocks made by brother. I have had 4 brothers, and a babylock made by brother and have loved all of them. My new fave is my dreamweaver, also know as unity for babylock. What do I love about it, the lighting(super bright), the harp space which awesome, the laser (great for straight sewing, doing HST, lining up decorative stitches), the muvit foot(differential feed, handles thicknesses like a dream, handles hard to sew fabrics, what doesn't it do), the penpal(aids in needle position, laser position, stitch width, stop position which I sue for binding), the ease of use(really feature rich, but did I need classes to use it no, why the manual is well written and everything is intuitive and even explained for some processes on the actual machine itself), quality high(really heavy metal machine, for being new technology I have had no problems with it as some other brands that come out with machines and work out the bugs after they release their highly expensive models, accessories cheap and affordable compared to other brands, reliable, really none of my machines have even given me any problems and I have had 3 low end machines gave one away, all still run, one is over 20 years old. I have sewn on other brands and even after sewing on a bernina it increased my appreciation for my brother and my babylock

I liked the idea about sewing a few more quilts to determine what is important to you in a sewing machine. I absolutely love the needle down position with my Juki. My Pfaff would sometimes do needle down, sometimes not. However, on the Pfaff, I LOVE being able to use the stop/start button for FMQ and being able to tap the foot pedal to make it stop. On my Babylock you have to unplug the foot pedal to use the stop/start button. I would suggest looking at how easy it is to clean the machine. For example, if you want to get in there after making fleece quilts or something, how hard is it to get the bobbin case out. How much trouble is it to take the needle plate cover off (or whatever it's called). Research can be a lot of fun, but try to find someone knowledgeable to work with you, someone that's not just trying to upsell you. Good luck!