*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

[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.