Thanks all for helping with my machine choice. Buying the top levels of any major brand, is a wise tho pricey move for the serious costumer (or textile person). I just opted for the Bernina 550 and now have a my old Viking 1+ as my backup machine. One specializes in machine quilting (great for smallish areas) and the latter specializes in embroidery. Both are made in Europe, rather than China where cheap is the watch-word. I chose based on reliability & features not present in my other machine.
The Viking wouldn't have been replaced if not for the fact that some of the wavemounted connectors on the motherboard and video controller had vibrated loose over the 15 yrs of moderately heavy use & developed shorts. My electrical-engr husband debugged & resoldered them saving me $600+ in repairs. (The repair shop guy was going to replace the boards, rather than do the inexpensive repair.) For those with gobs more money & lots of space, I've just gotten started with the full size CNC controlled HandiStitcher quilting machine at TechShop (www.techshop.ws) which can handle quilts as wide as 120". Wow, what fun! I'm hoping for a few quilted petticoats in my future. Happy machine shopping to the rest of you, --cin Cynthia Barnes cinbar...@gmail.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
