WHY??

I used to believe that having all those bells and whistles was not for me. But, last year I "upgraded" to a low end Janome - yep for what I had before, this was an upgrade. There was a major difference in the way it sewed, powered through thicker items and seam allowances, and lining up points. THEN I upgraded to the big boy - the Bernina 830 - WOW my points and seam match up, bang bang bang on the money. I don't have to resew and resew to match. The seams come out great and I have loads of room to sew my larger quilts - I Free Motion them. The needle up or down is a great feature and the speed control that allows me to sew real slow if I want is a must. Best of all though, is the cut feature. Sewing along on a large quilt and needing to cut the bobbin thread is a pain when you are in the middle of the quilt, now I just a button and it is cut for me.

The truth is, you get what you pay for. I paid big bucks and got a great sewing machine.

You need a walking foot regardless of what type of machine you use. You cannot quilt multiple layers evenly without one.

It doesn't really matter what the brand of machine is or how expensive it is as long as you have one you can do anything. I had a Janome for many years and I made a zillion quilts on that thing. I paid less than $400 for it 23 years ago. I recently upgraded to a Bernina 440QE and I love it. It does feed through much much better, but even so, without a walking foot, I'd be in trouble.

Heather

I agree with Heather - great quilting doesn't require you to spend $13,000 on a machine.

Right I'm not going to spend thousands, I can have this machine sew a quilt together just as a 2 or 4 thousand dollar machine. I guess I just have to keep my quilts small unless there is a way to quilt it together by pieces.

I have the Singer 500 and work my larger quilts in pieces. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to quilt the way I want. I do the center or main quilt pattern then quilt it using straight line patterns. Then I do each border separately..quilt them.. then piece the quilted parts together.. Often I will have a Header piece and it is always added first. Seldom will I just finish off with binding. **remember to leave a good inch unsewn where you are joining your sections. ** A walking foot is a MUST..