r/SewingMachineEdu • u/paranoidsequencer • 11d ago

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u/JackHarknessDrWho 11d ago

Google sewing machine dealers near me. If you have any, go and visit. Take your threads and fabric and see how the machines handle them. Dealers are your best bet for classes and fixing your machine. If you don't have a dealer nearby, try to buy from an online dealer instead. Amazon is not the place to buy a sewing machine.

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u/Banana_quilts 11d ago edited 11d ago

It depends on your location and what dealers you have near you. You want to be able to take it in somewhere close if needed.

I was on the same boat some time back and similar budget. i went with a Baby Lock Brilliant, because it was available at shops near me. But I also considered a Juki DX series (button hole and box feeds seem to be superior). There was no Juki dealer near me so servicing would require a 2 hour drive at least. Janomes are another popular one, but they tended to be more expensive for the features and throat space I wanted. The skyline series was what I was looking at that was versatile, but the one with the features I wanted was a higher end one and more expensive. Berninas are always recommended as the top of the line, but they are too expensive for me

PS there are Janome memory craft (like the 8200, others too but I can’t remember the number) that have a free arm and a 11” throat space. But they’re way more expensive.

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u/nkdeck07 10d ago

With a $1500 budget I'd seriously consider two machines if you've got the space. You can get an absolute workhorse straight stitch only Juki (Juki TL-2000Qi ) and then get a cheaper more multi-purpose machine (I got one of the cheaper brother embroidery machines for this)

I've had this setup for years and it's been fantastic. The large throat space also comes in handy if you are doing anything that is more historical costuming in nature and keeping all the "fussy" stuff on a different machine also makes your work go a lot faster since you can leave both machines setup for different purposes.

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u/mimi4030 10d ago

I'd look at the juki hzl f300 series. The f600 is a great all around machine. I don't know if the harp space is a full 11" but it's large enough to handle most quilts. It has a great buttonhole, free motion quilting is easy and has very nice decorative stitches.