*lust*

[amethyst73]

A friend of mine has a combo sewing and embroidery machine.

I love embroidered stuff.

Am I completely nuts for even thinking about this?  Yeah, I know it's not this year's model, as it were, but it's still got a heckuva lot.

(I had been thinking about just getting a good sewing/quilting (no, not a quilter, but that's where the fun stitches are) machine.. then I thought about getting a good sewing/quilting with the intent of upgrading to a combo within a year if the dealer's upgrade policy was good.. and now I see this.  Hah, and it even has a free arm, which I thought at first it might not!)

Comments

[onyoukai.livejournal.com]

The Janome MC9500 does have a free arm. What you're seeing in pictures is the machine with the accessory box still attached, but it can be removed.

http://content.janome.com/documents/File/ManualFile/Inst%20book%20MC9500%20%28En%29.pdf
Scroll to page 3-6 to see it in the manual.

The free arm doesn't look very long though, like it's barely the length of the needle plate area. This is fine for just doing hems, but not for some of the really awkward or bulky stuff like I've had to do for costumes.

That machine used to be Janome's near-top-of-the-line, and the top model they allowed to be sold on the Internet. (The company reserved some machines, like the MC10000 and MC11000, for in-store sale only by authorized retailers.)

If you're going to look in the direction of sewing/embroidery combo machines, look at Janome, Baby Lock, Brother, and Viking. Also, Singer makes a line of budget embroidery machines called the Futura series if you want a really intro-level embroidery capability. The Futuras are basically electronic sewing machines with a USB port; you connect the machine to a computer and launch embroidery software on your computer to make it run as an embroidery machine. (You can't run embroidery on a Futura if it's not physically connected via USB to a computer running the embroidery controller software.)

Baby Lock and Brother machines are identical. They're made in the same factories. The only difference is that they have different outer shells, and they have different pre-programmed embroidery designs included on the machines.

Sewing/embroidery combo machines tend to have all the fancy or decorative stitches you see as "quilting" features, plus even more. I've acquired two while I worked for that sewing supplies retailer: the Husqvarna Viking Rose and the Baby Lock Ellegante. I use the Rose for all of my regular sewing and most decorative stitching, and I generally use the Ellegante exclusively for embroidery and satin-stitching.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing that out about the smallish free arm. I don't think I"m likely to do complicated costume construction, but you never know.

Janome was the first brand I was looking at really closely just 'cuz the dealer is the closest of the various brands. :) I'd also started looking at Brother/Baby Lock (my friend has the Ellegante); they both have stores within about a 25-minute drive, so they'll be next on my list to visit.

I'd noticed that the Brother machines are the only ones licensed for Disney embroidery images. (Not that I care that much about Disney.) And that they have a TON of embroidery combo machines, which I should probably look closer at.

The other thing I need to remember for myself is that, a year from now, dealers will have good deals on _this_ year's machines, the same as they have good deals now on _last_ year's machines.

When buying recently so-called retired machines, how fast does it become difficult to get repair parts?

[onyoukai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not a Disney fan either - that's why I'd rather have a Baby Lock. Brother has the Disney license, so most of their included designs are all Disney characters. Baby Lock's designs tend to be flowers or abstract decorative elements that are more usable. (If you've paged through the screen's on your friend's Ellegante, you've probably already seen all the Nancy Zieman designs.)

Yeah, that kind of situation is exactly how I got the Ellegante - I literally was at the right place at the right time. The Ellegante used to be Baby Lock's top of the line combo machine, but while I worked for that retailer, Baby Lock released the Ellisimo as their new top machine. When the Ellisimo came out, there was a surge of Ellegante trade-ins, many of which came from older ladies who took care of their machines and didn't really do much aside from stuff for grandchildren. My boss gave me a crazy cheap price since I was an employee and they liked me. It still wasn't "cheap", but it was the kind of deal I'd NEVER get again so I jumped on it.

So yeah, my best advice on that front is to try and keep up with the retailers and their new model developments. Whenever a new high-end machine comes out, the dealers are bound to get trade-ins (especially because most of them do marketing blitzes to encourage it).

Regarding repair parts:
One part will be used by a large number of machines. Recently-retired machines will generally use the same parts that current machines are using. There might be discrepancies if there are significant alterations to the design (say, a new needle plate style, physical machine dimensions and innards arrangements). With embroidery machines, it may be the computerized elements that are different. For the most part, getting new repair parts shouldn't be a problem. I've had to get repair parts on my Rose and had no issues, and that machine's been retired for 10 years.

[hoshikage.livejournal.com]

Repair of sewing machines doesn't really seem to become difficult - I never had trouble with my Elna anyway, and it certainly hadn't been sold in a very long time by the time I gave it up. Furthermore I regularly saw obviously far older machines than that sitting on the repair counter at the sewing machine dealer whenever I'd bring one of mine in. Unless we're actually talking a machine from before the age of electric appliances (and I doubt you'll be the type for acquiring truly antique machines as a hobby), it'll probably be just fine.

Brother/Babylock are excellent brands for quality and performance; Viking made my first embroidery machine (which, while no longer capable of doing embroidery, I still have it for regular sewing since it still does that like a champ) but their quality has started to slip some in recent years, much to my sorrow. They're still not bad by any means, but Babylock/Brother is better. I know nothing about Janome's embroidery options, but their regular sewing machine that I have fantastic. (Viking and Pfaff, btw, are owned by the same company now and you may get people trying to tell you their machines are equivalent - don't believe them, Pfaff machines suck. :P)

However, Viking still beats Babylock in one big way as far as my needs are concerned - hoops. Viking has more options, hoops that are easier to use (endless hoop is the best thing EVER, especially for test runs) and bigger potential hoop sizes, which means bigger possible embroidery designs - up to almost 14"x14" which no Babylock machine short of the Enterprise (which is really a machine for embroidery businesses, and does NOT do regular sewing) can match. Now, honestly you may not find yourself needing big embroidery options - not everyone does - but it's worth doing some serious thinking about what sort of embroidery you're really most wanting to do. I needed those giant hoops more than once, from my wedding dress to multiple costumes, and the endless hoop for borders again came in handy a LOT.

But whatever machine you buy, if you get one that does embroidery - make sure it has the ability to do custom designs somehow. USB connection to a computer/flashdrive is ideal, funky card readers and other things do become obsolete much more than other parts. You may not think you'll need anything but premade designs when you start, but trust me, it's better to have the choice than not. If nothing else, you might end up wanting to edit some parts of premade designs together - a butterfly from one and a rose from another or something - and being able to do that is a much more advanced (and useful, to me anyway, I did basically EVERYTHING custom and I think I have never once yet used a premade design) functionality. Any machine that can run custom designs well can do premade just fine - but the reverse is not necessarily true.

(I also basically never ended up using any of the "fun" decorative stitches that sometimes make up seemingly the entirety of the price difference between some models - they're not really useful for costume construction - but again, YMMV!)

As a final note, there is a marked difference sometimes in how the stitches will look - when I started running patches it was on my Pfaff, and when I traded it in for the Enterprise and ran the exact same design, the difference in stitch quality was just night and day. The Enterprise's stitches were tighter, cleaner and just looked incredibly professional next to the Pfaff's - and that Pfaff was NOT a low-end machine! If you can get samples of the kind of work your top choices will run, it's very telling sometimes to look at how the embroidery comes out - they're really not all the same, even with the exact same embroidery file.

Aaaand I'll stop now because this is already practically an essay - but if you want to talk embroidery machines sometime I'm happy to chat on the phone and share what I've learned (the hard way, mostly) over the last few years. :)

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

I would love to chat with you, maybe some night this week (this weekend is packed)! (Been wanting to call you anyway, but the bronchitis made that... problematic.)

The editability/creation aspect is one of the big reasons I was really excited by the Janome machine I was pointing to. I don't think I need the funky pen thing that the current top-of-the-line Babylocks have (and omg the top-of-the-line Babylocks are PRICEY). Also, the store that sells the Janomes seems to be the only one that actually posts any _prices_ on their site... (and hey, $2K for what's ordinarily a $3K machine? I need to try it, but for that kind of price deal I may jump.)

It's funny. I'd originally been thinking of the $300 level. Then I saw the (overpriced) Elnas and readjusted to expecting to spend $500-$800. Even though I can afford to spend considerably more than that (around $2K for an embroidery combo, maaaaaaaybe a little more - Dad's trust has been generous, and I've never done anything but throw it into investments), it's a little frightening to all of a sudden be thinking about a price that's 4-5x my previous budget.

But, want a new sewing machine! Want want. Must do research. Must be patient, precious...

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean about the Viking machines being less good in quality; I looked up the Viking/Husqvarna website the other day. FAIL: doesn't list anything but the most current generation of machines on the website. Also, reported prices online are beyond my budget. Also, I'm seeing way too many reports of "it broke almost immediately and I had hell's own time getting service for it (let alone warranty service), their customer service sux." The endless hoop thing looks very cool (yay long borders!), but I'm not willing to put up with a machine that's likely to spend a lot of time in the shop. :(

[onyoukai.livejournal.com]

FYI, Baby Lock/Brother has their own version of the Endless Hoop, it's just called something else. It costs somewhere in the range of $100-200 for the Ellegante, last I checked - though this was a few years ago, so it may be different now. At the time I got mine, no machines lower than the Ellegante could use that hoop. I don't know if that's changed.

Machine quality aside, there is one big advantage to going Brother/Baby Lock over Viking. It's WAY easier to find compatible parts and feet. First, it's easier to find someone who deals in either Brother or Baby Lock, and if you've found one you've found parts for the other. (The only exception is with sergers.) Second, you can even use most Singer or Janome feet on Brother and Baby Lock machines because they all use the same low-shank. The prices on this pool of feet is much lower than Viking tends to be. Hell, ALL parts and accessories for these brands tend to be cheaper than Viking.

Unless this has changed recently, when you buy Viking, you're locked into their unique foot scheme. It's...strange.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I spent some quality time on Babylock's site yesterday - I'm hoping to get to one of the local stores this week. As far as I can tell, they have a "continuous" hoop for the following models:
Ellageo (or Ellageo Plus, not certain)
Ellegante
Unity
Spirit

(though I may not be entirely correct).

The Spirit looks pretty nice, though (from what I've seen online) it's at the veeeerrry tippy-top of my price range. I might go for an Ellageo. Hmm hmm hmm, natter natter natter.

I'd also noticed the foot thing for Viking machines, and that they looked different in form2011111 (thank you for that short addition, Billie Cat!) than the others.

Hmm hmm hmm natter natter natter.