New Bernina Series 8 Sewing/Embroidery machines

On another forum earlier today somebody posted some pictures from the Kansas City roll out of the new Bernina series 8 machines. I checked them out and the machine is "Large" to say the least. It has a very big screen on the front of it and a truly big hoop for embroidery. I think she said it had air needle threading and bobbin thread status read out, along with other bells and whistles to numerous to mention. It does notlook like any other Bernina that i have seen, and represents a new style direction for Bernina. I went back, to the blog spot to get the url so I could post it here for all to see, but Bernina had clamped down on the blogger and told her to take the pictures down until after monday. She unfortunately complied before I could post the url, so it will remain a mystery until monday. Oh yes, the price is $10,000. Sorry about that. I don't think I will rush down to the bank just yet.

John

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John
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$10,000. Unbelievable.

Karen in WI

John wrote:

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Karen

So the cat's out of the bag.....the bank bag. Actually with their top of the lines at 7000+....the 10,000 doesn't suprise me at all. Just wondering how much more stuff is needed to make it seaworthy. Probably another grand or two. Wow.

Reply to
KJ

Close your eyes, John, take a deep breath and try to remember - Did it have a nice long width at the arc? I'm hoping that it does and will tempt lots of Bernina owners to trade up. I'd like to have a Bernina that stitches without using the foot control. It would be great if the rich folks would want to shed their Bernina 440QE or 730 for new bells and whistles. It could happen. Polly

"Karen" $10,000. Unbelievable.

Reply to
Polly Esther

You are devious Polly! Yes...I bet some of those flush 730 owners will want to trade up. Where does the line start?

Reply to
KJ

It appears to have a VERY Large harp. In excess of 11 inches. The hoop on the embroidery unit was equally Large, also. This is not a machine to replace your featherweight to take to quilting classes, unless you also get the accessory pick up truck to haul it around with. It has some strange indentation on the right hand side of the front of the tower to the right of the screen, which I couldn't figure out. That and the expected cordless foot control are another breakthrough. Sort of like the cordless mouse on a computer, I guess. There was a long laundry list of features, that I can not remember. I should have copied the page down before I left the blog site, but I had to do something else and figured I would get it when I came back and low and behold, the whole thing was taken down with a note from the blogger, that Bernina pressured her to take it down until monday. Sorry that I could not give you all the sneak peak, but on monday the Bernina website should give you all you need to know about what you can not afford.

John

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John

I just had a discussion with an 'oldster' about the difference of want and/or need. Big difference that many folks seem to have no understanding of. I bet Bernina will offer some kind of snazzy (read that as expensive) financing to help folks that can't afford a pricey machine that really is a 'want', not a 'need'.

I have been to visit some older relatives recently that have not been very good at financial planning for their future and are not in too great a financial way now. I guess the idea of a having to have the most and newest 'toys' will have a lot of folks going hungry in their retirement years. After my visit I came home with less wants and re-evaluated needs. Watching all the houses going into foreclosure here has me in a dither too. Folks are just not very good at spending money in general these days. It is really sad.

Taria, sorry to be on a $$$ soap box.

Reply to
Taria

I don't know why, but the whole "big secret" thing just irritates me. It's so 1950's, (an era few of you probably remember!) a time when the new cars always came out in the fall, and for a month or so beforehand, the ads would show the new model under a sheet because it was going to be a big surprise.

I'm no way in the market for a new machine, especially a Bernina. As much as I love my thirteen year old 1090s, with its narrow feeddogs so excellent for piecing, I'm just not paying Bernina prices anymore. All this childish game-playing, only letting the "cool kids" get a peek until Monday, certainly isn't going to tempt me to change my mind.

Grumpily,

Iris

Reply to
I.E.Z.

Thank you, John, for the sneak peek. I'm more likely to try taxidermy than I am machine embroidery - it simply does not call to me. Our daughters do some lovely machine embroidery and I am content to just be the cheerleader. And, Kathyl, the Viking dealers are worth watching too. Maybe some of the big money folks will trade their Berninas in for the new Viking ? is it called the Diamond? Polly

"KJ" So the cat's out of the bag.....the bank bag. Actually with their top of

Reply to
Polly Esther

On Jul 17, 6:21=A0pm, Taria wrote:

I can just see into the future now. In very short order we are going to have the sewing machine mortgage meltdown and sewing machine forclosure scare of 2010. After the companies realize that they can not sell as many as they had projected, at $10,000, they will engage in "Creative Financing" schemes. People will become even more overextended and when they go into bankruptcy proceedings, because the sewing machines are an asset that will be seized to pay off the debt on the mortgage. Then the sewing machine companies will go into receivership because people who bought the machines could not, or would not, keep up their payments on machines they no longer possessed. This will precipitate what will become known as the stitch in the last ditch meltdown, and people will be trading barely used Berninas and other formally top of the line sewing machines, for a few gallons of gasoline to hit the road for a better life down south in Mexico. Oh the humanity! What is to become of the human race. The only people who will be known to survive this calamity are the Amish who never financed anything but paid cash for everything they bought. They will introduce what will become known as the "Yoder Years", where people will wear black clothing which is sewn on treadle sewing machines, which will then be the top of the line machines and a status symbol of unimagined proportions. This will start a new phase of the human experiment called "living within your means". What results from this curious experiment is to hard to predict, but hope springs eternal in mankind's heart.

John ( I can see clearly now.)

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John

Yes, the new Viking is the Diamond and it's REALLY BIG! You should see the case that goes with it to haul the machine and the embroidery unit. I think you could put a fairly good sized body in it!

Donna in SW Idaho

Reply to
Donna in Idaho

Well, no, Iris, that's not the way it went. The big sales plan was to offer everybody an opportunity to sign up for an early look at their grand production. I suspect that signing up would get a person on every mailing list and email list from here to the North Pole. I declined. My block sender list is really loaded already. And you just go right ahead and be grumpy when the notion strikes you. It's probably heaps cheaper than ulcers or smashing windows. Polly

"I.E.Z." I don't know why, but the whole "big secret" thing just irritates me. It's

Reply to
Polly Esther

I'd say you're a very creative writer....but perhaps you don't have to be all that creative to dream up that scenario! It made me smile though. :-)

Reply to
KJ

I thought I signed up for the preview. Hummm did I miss it? Or is that what's supposed to take place on Monday?

Reply to
KJ

Our daughter's driver's side window quit working one summer. She was quite skilled at going by the drive-up window at McDonald's backwards. Now who in the world would do a thing like that? Polly

"KJ" -- < who doesn't need a mega machine right now...but I would like

Reply to
Polly Esther

Too funny! I was going to the ATM today and realized it would be a lot easier to park and just go in the darned bank. I guess maybe it's good for me to have a bad window.....more walking and less fast food!

Reply to
KJ

There was a wonderful movie a couple of years ago that was set on an Indian reservation in the one of plains states, In which two of the characters were Indian girls who drove around in an old car with a transmission which only had reverse gear, so they had to drive backwards wherever they went. It was a particularly funny part in the otherwise rather bleak movie. I wish I could remember the name of the movie, but your story brought it back from the depths of my memory bank.

John

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John

lol, sounds like you have been to so cal lately! YOu are pretty funny John. I just was hoping for a quality mechanical stretch Bernina. Think it will ever happen? Taria

Reply to
Taria

I think the same dynamic has afflicted the sewing machine co's that has got a grip on the automobile co's. They make more profit on the large fancy items in their product line, than they do on the basic machines, so they focus their efforts on the higher end stuff. I think Janome has a good mix of basic and fancy machines, so they offer a number of models at the lower price levels. The exchange rate of the Swiss currency vrs the American dollar is killing some of the sales dynamic from this side of the pond, also. And aside from the quilters, nobody much sews any more. There are a few fashion mavens who sew clothes, but the era of a sewing machine in every house, that is regularly used to make new clothes in a thing of the past. That is not a healthy business model to concentrate your efforts on lower priced machine manufacturing. What with Wal-Mart offering off-shore clothes for sale for less than the cost of fabric to make them here, it is a challenging environment for machine manufacturing, to say the least.

John

Reply to
John

Polly:

I'm with you! On second thought, I am not. I am not likely to try the machine embroidery, but taxidermy is not on my radar screen either. I wonder why Bernina is packaging this model as a dual machine. Some people may be interested in the larger SM but do not want the embroidery portion. I wonder if Bernina will sell the SM without that unit. When I bought my Pfilomina Pfaff, it was pretty advanced and had the embroidery unit. I told the dealer that I did not care for that, and was able to purchase the SM sans embroidery. That was a big cost savings for me. Pfilomina and I are still having fun quilting in Virginia! PAT

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Pat in Virginia

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