Don't get me wrong: my Viking Daisy has served me well since I bought her in 2007, but the machine just wasn't cutting it for finishing quilts. I couldn't get the walking foot to work correctly, and there was no hope at all for free motion quilting.
This year, my wonderful Husband Zane suggested spending a portion of our tax return towards a new machine. I was thrilled!
Little did I realize how much shopping for a new machine is like shopping for a car. 0_o
Because most of the sewing I do is related to quilts, I knew the following features were important to me: needle down, walking foot, free motion quilting (feed dogs down)
I also knew, from reading others' blogs, that the top names for quilting seem to be Bernina and Janome.
I looked around online a bit, which was frustrating because there are SO MANY MACHINES. Also, there tend not to be any prices published, which makes it really difficult to determine what may or may not fit into your budget.
The first machine I tried was a Bernina 350PE. Honestly, I wasn't that impressed. The salesperson kept touting how many stitches it is capable of, and how many alphabets it has (I don't care about alphabets!). Don't get me wrong, the machine sewed beautifully. The stitches were even, and the speed controls were nice.
What wasn't nice? The price! This was a used machine, and it was selling for 1200! That was a few hundred dollars more than I wanted to spend, and I didn't even think the machine was all that amazing. Not to mention, the throat was actually smaller than on my basic Viking.
So, back to the drawing board (aka Google) I went. I stumbled on a forum discussing machines at the same level or better than the Bernina 350PE. A few people in the thread suggested the Janome 3160 QDC.
Curious, I headed to another local shop on Tuesday to try one out. I was immediately impressed by how simple it is to use, as well as the fact that it *doesn't* have an overwhelming amount of stitches. The throat is the same size as my Viking, and the machine came with all the feet I wanted.
In addition, it has the needle down function, AND IT TIES KNOTS!!!! Can you tell I'm excited about this?
So, without much convincing from the sales guy, I decided this was the machine for me. To make the deal even sweeter, they had a used machine that was in seemingly perfect shape, for a very, very reasonable price.
I haven't taken a picture of my machine, but here's a stock photo. I'm in love!!
Until next time,
~Kristen
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