caspharm

I love my Janome 8900QCP. I bought it for three main reasons: the large harp (11"), it's ability to got through a 1/4" thick piece of leather, and cost.

I like to make large quilts and it is easier to fit the quilt through the larger opening when piecing. I may even try to quilt some smaller projects on it. I have a Innova for quilting, but it would be fun to try to finish a smaller piece I have from an earlier Trapunto class on my Janome, now that I have a larger harp.

Gail B

I just bought an Elna 720 which has an 11" throat. Haven't taken it out of the box yet as we are finally able to leave for Arizona so that will wait until we get down there.

hray

I really like my Brother VQ3000; it's sewing/quilting only, not embroidery. For embroidery I bought a separate, $600 machine that meets all my needs.

The VQ3000 has an 11" throat and seems plenty to FMQ all I've wanted so far up to full (double) bed size.

To avoid crawling on the floor to pin-baste, I was looking at frames at QuiltWeek in Albuquerque recently. Many people seem to use the Brother 1500 straight-stitch machine to FMQ on these, but with only a 9" throat, it gives only 4-5" usable space with larger quilts (or so I've read in my research.) That didn't excite me into wanting to buy a $2K setup for so little space!

I did look at the Block RockIt, a mid-arm that had a show price, including a Grace frame, of just over $3K. Great fun! Super machine! But when I realized that diagonals or side border work would be difficult to impossible, I decided I'm back to my VQ3000. I bought some folding tables to use for basting, as described in Leah Day's FMQ class on Craftsy. That saved me over $3K!

Hallie in NM

hairquilt

Love my Sweet Sixteen! So easy for beginner to learn on. I have to sit for back problems so works great for that!