Originally Posted by justwannaquilt
Neither I bought (or rather my husband bought me as a "surprise") the Brother 1500, which as MadQuilter said is the same machine as the Pfaff GrandQuilter just different badges. It is not as cheap as the Janome, but not as expensive as the Juki. It comes with the thread cutter and the needle down button like the Juki. You can drop the feed dogs and it has the even feed pin. The Janome can not drop the feed dogs you have to use a darning plate to FMQ. The Brother also comes with the knee lifter and the extension table like the Juki, the Janome doesn't and I don't think you can even buy the table for it anymore. Unless you get a full size table to set it in. Good luck in choosing!
I have the Brother 1500 too. It's great. Easy to maintain and clean. I had one problem that I thought the machine was done for. It froze up and wouldn't move. I took the bottom off and looked to see if the belt had broken and saw a glass head straight pin lodged by a gear not letting the shaft turn. I removed the pin and the machine worked great. The only way a pin could have fallen into the body of the machine was the space by the reverse lever. There is no other open space. Odd but it happened probably while I was FMQ and maybe a stray pin got on the quilt and was pushed next to the space and fell in.