sewing machine reviews so far

Enjoy testing as many quilting machines as you can - take notes on pro's and con's of each one before deciding. I like my brother 1500 for free motioning large items - I used it first to quilt the Navan- Vars anniversary quilt and had the machine set up on the dining room table with an extra ironing board next to it to hold the extra weight and volume of quilt plus Winston (QI). I haven't had any problems with surface area or space under the needle area. I have found that quilting gloves have helped me to keep traction on my projects and my favourite pair has proven to be those by Fons&Porter ($2.34). jennellh

Nothing sews like a Bernina. And if we can get me past my prejudice, I've been watching this discussion and was wondering if cute QIs such as Winston were part of the load in shifting a quilt around. The S C Johnson company used to make a wonderful wax for keeping appliances shiny clean and slick as glass. (That was back when refrigerators were white and got a daily sticky coat of KoolAid dribbles). I haven't seen Jubiliee in a while but I'm betting there's something that would be both harmless and effective. Polly

Maybe you remember it from when your Mom let you clean your sticky fingerprints off of the refrigerator yourself. You may be old if you remember that it was called the 'icebox'. Polly (and an additional 10 points if you can remember the ice man coming by in a horse drawn cart).

That's what I like about you, Pat -- you're so sympathetic! ;) But no, I did remove the slider from the quilt. It's now in a landfill somewhere. :S

Oh This the machine I was looking at in my latest quilting mag I bought - it sounds perfect for me. I want one. Do you know what the price of them are? I couldn't find it on line anywhere.

Sharon (N.B.)

If it's not too rude, may I ask the price range for the Babylock Quest? It's one I've read about.

Sunny

It is expensive, but I love my Bernina 440. It has the stitch regulator that does a nice job. Just quilted a piece with it and no lllooooooooong stitches and no shrt ones either. It is spendy, but worth it, IMHO.

Happy quilting!

as far as the Janome 6600 went, the dealer DID raise the foot as high as it would go, and she also taped a teflon sheet to the bed - though it helped a bit, it was still a lot more difficult to push the quilt through than I want. I currently have a small model Bernina which I love and is very easy to free motion with, but it's not big enough for bed sized quilts which is where I'm headed, since I'm accumulating far too many quilt tops than I can keep up with hand quilting.

The baby lock quest looks great, as does the brother 1500 - I'll definitely check those out at the show.

Musicmaker

At least you got to try all the "fixes" so you don't have to wonder if something would make it better. That's good. Now you can focus on other machines with features you like better. Good luck.

While you are test-driving everything, do see if there's a Viking Emerald available for checking out. We talked about them recently here but I don't know if there were any conclusions. Not, of course, that conclusions would matter, you'll want to find the perfect fit for you. Polly

I used to Jubilee appliances too...even remember when it wasn't in a spray can ! I wonder if Pledge would work...I can remember my dd once 'waxed' her car with Pledge !!..Looked great too. Pledge sure can be slippery if accidentally sprayed on a floor so maybe it would work on a SM...but not sure if it would yellow in the long run. Mary/vt

Snipped: > How about just paste wax? Or maybe that silicone stuff that the guy in

The S C Johnson company

Great!...I get those 10 extra points...!!! Although my neighbors had the ice boxes ( and so did my gm ) we had and electric fridge. When we moved from one end of the street #98 something to #2 something I never saw the ice man again !!...I missed him as we would get slivers of ice off the wagon...To think that I was drinking CT River water now is scarey to me !! Mary /VT

Snipped: . You may be old if you

Around $1700. Gen

I have no idea of Canadian prices. They're around $1700 here. I got mine for $1600---the show price Gen

I got a teflon slider at the Vermont Quilt Festival a while back (the woman who came up with the idea won best of show that year with an amazing MQ wholecloth quilt done using a slider. But I digress...). Anyhow, I love mine - I just wish it were a bit bigger. So I have been checking out the baking sheet idea...except that the only teflon sheets that I could find in a kitchen shop were not "slippery" enough. Instead of being completely smooth they had a bit of texture on them. Better for keeping the cookies on the cookie sheet, I guess. If anyone has actually found a good cooking sheet that they use for sewing I'd love to hear more details.

Allison in Montreal (who is MQ'ing up a storm now that I have figured out how to use a heavier weight thread in my machine without skipping stitches or breaking threads!)

Pati C. wrote:

I got (or will get) mine for $1,500....plus I got the Xscape included in the deal too. I see that one advertised for $299 on sale, or $599 regular price. I'm thinking I got a great deal!!