Jackie D

I have a Bernina, it came with a walking foot and BSR, it makes quilting so much easier. I love it!!

janell2009

I have had a janome for 5 years and love it... It is very quite and smooth... the others I have sewn on were just not as smooth... the hard part is you don't know what you don't know.. I think the best is to buy it local if you can so if you do need work it is local. That being said I did buy my machine local but I get more info off the internet than I do my local shop as they just don't look for other things since they just sell janome...

quiltcarrie1

I recommend the babylock espire - or whatever the current name is... there is so much you can do with it, lots of stictches, comes with the walking foot and the table. A great deal for less than $2k

chaskaquilter

My personal preference is a seperate sewing embroidery machine. That way I can be quilting and embroidering at the same time. I have Janome in both. Love em.

Arleners

I have recently purchased a Brother - Laura Ashley Edition and I absolutely LOVE it. It has hundreds of stitches, you can even customize your own stitches. It has 360 degree sewing. It cuts the thread. Needle up/down. A built in manual. It sews circles.

Grandma sews

I will second that!!!! Love my Berninas.

drdolly

Test drive and look to see what features they have and which is What you want it to do. I have an Elna and a Baby Lock, love them both plus a featherweight for the camper.

bevster

I have Bernina 440QE - and the one thing I can't understand why Bernina calls it a QE Quilters Edition as it doesn't even have an automatic thread cutter. Also, the bed is very small to use when machine quilting your quilt. I paid more than $2k for it and it does not have the embroidery attachment. It needs to be serviced one a year and that is expensive. If I was to purchase a machine again I would get another machine with "built-in" thread cutter; built in embroidery with large screen
USB port to download additional designs; long arm bed at least 11 inches, and a drop-in bobbin. This is only my opinion, however, I am sure other Bernina 440QE users agree with my statement regarding the automatic thread cutter and bed base.

JoantheQuilter

I am so surprised that Brother is not mentioned more often as being top of the line! I have a Nouvelle 1500S which is a professional grade sewing machine. Huge throat space for quilting. It is a quilting machine, sews forward and backward, but it is my workhorse. Then I have a Brother 400 that has all the embroidery stitches that I need for any decorative stitching I might do. Love the Brother! $2000 would easily buy either machine.

Jamiestitcher62

My choice would be a Janome 7700. I think you can get them on sale pretty reasonable now. The 6600 is awesome, but it is a heavy machine with no free-arm. The 7700 is so far superior to the 6600 it's not even funny. I have the 11000SE too, however I find I don't even use the embroidery at all so the machine sits there while I pound away on my 7700.

Babylock is nice too, but you can save money by buying the Brother version of any of the Babylocks that have a sister made by Brother.

According to my local sewing machine shop, the Berninas are awesome machines, are outragious in price and are in the shop more than any other machine, but people like the name and when you mention the name Bernina, you get ooohs and aaahhs every time.