I so agree with Judi. I love my Juki (paid $600 for a lightly used one, $1100 new) and it was about one third of the price I paid for my Janome 6500 which has given me so many problems over the years (it should have been painted yellow). Now I know that there are many quilters who love Janomes but you get a lot more machine for your $ if you buy a Juki. It's heavy, powerful, fast, has an extra long stitch and two automatic thread cutters, needle up and down and a large bobbin capacity. It just sews with no bunching, munching fabric at the start, hesitating at thicker layers and veering off at seam intersections as my Janome was so good at doing. Go and try before you buy.

Make a list of the features you want your machine to have, then go shopping. I would want to test drive first. if you buy a refurbished machine, ask about warranty's, or if they guarantee their work and for how long.

My Viking Sapphire has a 10 in throat space.
In needle down mode when you stop sewing the foot pops up just enough so you can move the fabric for turning etc.
Great for applique.
Has a drop in bobbin.
Great machine for quilting.

I am a Bernina girl. I learned to sew on my mother's Singer Featherweight that she purchased in 1935. After her death I gave it to my nieces whom she had also taught to sew on it. I managed to find another Featherweight in mint condition at a yard sale for just $20. The few times I have needed to take a machine somewhere I took it. The Bernina has spoiled me for anything else. I worked for a shop that does custom dressmaking and alterations for about a year. They were also a Bernina dealer. After using their machines daily I was hooked. The optional needle down capacity as well as the wealth of stitches and needle positions are something I use almost daily. I now own a Bernina Artista 185 table model and a Bernina 220, which is an inexpensive portable model. I use it for times when I need to take my machine to another part of the house or outside of my home. Both machines have the knee lift which I can not live without. I person watching me sew without the knee lift would think I was having a spasm as my right knee assumes that the lift is there. I also have a high end Bernina serger and their first Embroidery machine. All of my machines have gotten used at least several times a week. I make at least 21 Linus quilts a month. At least half of them are created using the serger and the table set up Artista. The rest of my Linus quilts are fleece finished with a crocheted edge.

What is your budget, what features do you want in a new machine, this might help us a little more because we can all suggest nice machines but if they are out of your budget it is a waste of time. All brands have nice machines. I am a brother girl myself but I don't know what brother you had or what you didn't like about it because I have had all level brothers and had no problems with any from basic mechanical, to basic computerized, to lower level TOL, to higher TOL, and I can tell you what I like about each machine. I do think the lower level machines because they don't do as much have a more clean straight stitch, and they are nice for piecing, but my big baby the dreamweaver does it all and does it all very well. I used a NX-2000 recently which was similar to my babylock espire, and found I missed the features of my dreamweaver, but I also love my SQ-9050 as it pieces very nicely, and I have done clothes, and bags on it even when I had my espire I still sewed on my SQ-9050 quite a bit.

I don't have a juki, but have seen them in action and really like them as well, for me I would probably stitck with brother, babylock, or juki. I have eyed the pfaff and janome but have never owned ones. the accufeed/IDT interest me, although the pfaffs seem to have more complications, haven't seen any problems with the janomes in reviews of them. I personally didn't care for bernina, didn't care for the stitching of it or the feed system. Also it was missing many features for as expensive as they were trying to sell it for, their lower models seem to have less bugs than their TOL models I saw a lot of complications in the reviews, not sure if they have worked them out yet.

I've owned several brother machines and didn't like them..they just seem to be made cheap or the one's that I have used seemed that way.. they were very loud and didn't sew smoothly and I just didn't care for them. Of course there are probably newer and more expensive models of brother out there now that are better..

:sew:About 10 years ago I bought a Husqvarna Interlude 445. I paid about $1000.00 for it with the presser feet that I was going to need. Where I made my mistake was I bought a machine with too many bells and whistles on it. Quilting was my main interest and I could have done well with just a straight stitch machine. Be sure when you buy you know what you want to do with it because it can make such a difference in money. If I new then what I know now I would have stayed with my Singer Featherweight 221 that my mother left me.:wave:

I use an older Bernina to piece and Brother 1500 to machine quilt. No problems at all in the years I have had these machines.

Love my Pfaff. This is my second one that I have owned. Also sewedon one in High School and that's when I fell in love with Pfaff.