gail-r

Forgot to say, yes Espire is a great machine and great investment. If your dealer is offering "20" free classes, yes yes and yes, take advantage of every class. Most dealers only offer 2 or 3, you must have a very customer oriented dealer. Don't let such a great dealer go unrewarded, tell all of your sewing buddy's about them. If you would be kind enough to pm the name and location of your dealer, I would love to recommend them also.

stitchinwitch

[quote=gail-r]Hey Stitchinwitch, love your board name!! This is something I get asked a lot so please don't think that I am being rude when I reply with several questions, k?

Thank you,not at all and K!

1. Is this going to be your only multi stitch machine? no, I have a designer 1, Janome 5000. and several older Singers.
2. What types of embroidery do you want to do, tee's, quilts, jeans? Mainly quilts.
3. What size hoop/hoops do you want? Larger than a 5 x 7
4. How often do you think you will be embroidering? Do you plan on doing commercial embroidery? Embroidering daily for personal use.
5. how often do you think you will be doing other sewing with this machine? Depends - I have several others for that.
6. Which embroidery software do you use or plan on using? I have 4D Extra
7. Are you planning on doing free motion quilting with this machine, - SURE!!if so are you planning on putting it into a cabinet or on a table? It makes no never mind! Cabinets can be very expensive and there are some table arrangements that can be very cheap and actually be more junctional, convenient and quilter friendly than the most expensive cabinet. Just won't be fancy and pretty. Which brings another question, where will you have it setup? Sewing room or in an area where everyone who comes to your door will see your machine and (if your like me) mess? I have a sewing room to keep my messes to myself - or TRY to!
8. What is your price expectaions and are you thinking of buying new or used? Price? looking for options. Would LOVE to have the Bernina 8500 but will not be able to really get my $$ worth since I AM a senior! New preferably.

Hope this isn't being too nosey - nope!

Thank you for narrowing it down!

Eagle Hawk

gail-r:.... Sew and Vac in Upland, CA is the name of my dealer. The name of the fabric store I am devoted to is Fabric Patch in Montclair, CA. They sell Janome and everyone who has bought from them love them, but I just had my heart set on a Baby Lock. Sew and Vac is just a few blocks from my home so, except for lugging the machine in and out of my truck, it will be easy to get there. The classes are also offered every Monday morning and evening. I will let you know more about them after I take a few if you would like. They told me they have projects to do to use the machine. Sounds good if they aren't too involved since I already have so many projects going, but by actually applying things to a project it will be easier to remember how to use the different things on the machine. So far I have tried everything but putting in a zipper and buttonholes this weekend that I am aware of..although there are several feet I have not yet used, so there has to be tons of things I have yet to learn. I used every decorative stitch on a scrape quilt and it was a lot of fun and really pretty. I find using the lettering is soooo much easier to deal with and use than the Viking. I am falling in love!!

Boscobd

Please tell me more about your Baby Lock on the quilting frame (picture if possible). I'm curious as to what it looks like, how much room it takes and what the advantages are. I have not explored quilting frame options, but am greatly interested in hearing from those that have... Thanx.

gail-r

[quote=stitchinwitch]Ok, thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. There is 2 machines that I would recommend.

1. Ellegante or Ellegante 2. The reason I think you would be happy with this machine: It has a top embroidery speed of 1000 stitches per minute, with that said I have mention, none of the embroidery machines will actually stitch every design at the top speed. It will stitch the tiny straight stitches at the top speed, satin stitches will take longer. So, if you have a design that has 20,000 stitches it may take much longer than 20 minutes to sew. But it will be much faster that a machine that has a top speed of 600 SPM. For some of the beautiful embroidered quilts you will want a fast machine. I'm currently making the Sharman's Vintage quilt and each block takes about 8 to 10 hours of embroidery and there is 20 blocks in the quilt. This machine comes with 4 hoops, 2"x2", 4"x4", 5"x7" and 7"x11". I find that these hoop sizes work great, the large hoop can help you reduce the number of hoopings on a block if you can combine some of the designs. But at the same time you have the flexabilty to use a smaller hoop for some designs with will save $'s using a smaller amount of stablizer. This machine has a huge stitch compacity and will handle designs that large stitch count. Some of the smaller machines have a 25,000 stitch limit so you can only do designs that have less that 25,000 stitches or you have to split the design up into 2 (or more) designs using your software. I regularly do designs that are over 75,000 stitches. It automacticly cuts jump stitches and has an accurate bobbin empty notifcation. It does have some nice designs built in, one of the differences between the BL machines and Brother is the built in designs, BL comes with Nancy Zieman designs and Brother has Disney. Of course you can buy designs for both. The mode that is preferable to transfer designs to this machine is by a USB stick, sometimes called a thumb drive or removable disk. You put the stick in your computer copy or save the design to your stick, remove the stick from your computer and insert it directly into the machine. These sticks are getting larger so the smaller sticks (meaning with less storage compacity) work great and are getting very inexpensive. Ellegante has a good varity of deco stitches and a smooth operation. It is also upgradable, some upgrades are free some are rather expensive. One of the down sides of this machine may come in doing free motion quilting, It has a drop in bobbin and adjusting bobbin tension is not recommended, however I have done it. So this makes doing 2 thread color quilting more difficult getting the tensions right so that you don't get little pokie-dots on your quilt. The other drawback may be in doing walking foot quilting on very heavy or on very thick quilts, you can adjust the presser foot pressure and the amount of lift but it is more limited that quilting models. Don't be afraid to buy a used machine from a good dealer, usually if they sold the machine originally they can give you a repair history and service history. At the bottom of the LCD screen is a icon that looks like a peice of paper, when you press it you will get several pages where you can make many adjustments, but you will always know what the factory settings because they have those numbers in white with a blaci background. So you don't have to be a fraid that you won't get the machine back to where it was set. Also, if you buy used from a private seller, and they tell you they have not had the machine serviced, you can look on page 3 (I think, may be pg 4) it will show you how many embroidery stitches have been sewn on the machine. probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million stitches on my elle. Service techs will usually reset this when they do general servicing, you can also write this number down before taking to be repaired and see how many stitches they actually put on your machine. Often times they will put a little sail boat design under your needle, so if the design has a few thousand stitches you will be able to see that your new stitch count. With the new Ellisimo machine out, the price has dropped on new Ellegante machines around $3500 on sale and I have seen many used under $2500.

The second machine would be the Ellageo, has slower stitch speed, uses floppy cards to transfer designs, largest hoop is 6"x10". If your dealer has a new one he may be will to make you a great deal. Used is usually around $1500. I'm not sure if it cuts jump stitches, maybe someone on the board can tell us that.

Both machines have a colored lcd screen, the B&W screens can make it difficult to know which part of the design is sewing which in turn makes it more difficult to change thread colors to your own choices instead of using the recommended colors.

You could put either machine on a table, if you want to convert your table to a quilting table just use the foam insulation boards to bring your table surface up to the bed level (Home depot has them in various thicknesses and already cut to 2'x4') then cover with the thick clear vinyl and your quilts will move easily on your table.

I know this is starting to look like a novel but wanted to give as much info as possible. I agree with you about getting the most out of your investment when you are older, I'm 64 and my dealer really wanted me to upgrade to the Ellisimo which sells for 8k and I like the machines I have and thought I could make a lot of quilts for 8 thousand dollars. Hope this very long post gives the info you are looking for to make the right decision for you.

MadQuilter

I am in the market for a Babylock also and found a dealer up the hill who is more reputable than the smarmie one in town. She had quoted me $1299 for the BL Quest Plus and I have a $100 off coupon in conjunction with the local quilt show. The lowest quote I got was $1,100 from a dealer about 45 minutes away but the one I like doesn't price match. What's a girl to do?

What would you do?

stitchinwitch

Thank you gail-r - I just received a postcard in the mail saying that the Babylock dealer is having a sale! They are an hour away and hopefully I will be able to check it out. You have given me alot of info and when I go in I need to request a test drive! Thanks so much for taking the time to research this!

gail-r

I would buy the $1100 machine and save yourself $99.00. But I would let your favorite dealer know that it is only $99.00 difference and you would really prefer to buy from them but you also have to get the best price you can on the machine. On a new machine you will get the same BabyLock factory warranty, the same machine, the same accessories, where is your incentive to buy the same machine for more money. I love to support my favorite dealers and quilt stores, but on a limited fixed income and with todays economy I can't pay someone an extra $100 just because I like them better.

MadQuilter

Good point. I spoke with a quilting gal at work who works in that neck of the woods. She made a face when I mentioned the dealer and told me that the last time she took her machine to be serviced, they didn't do a good job. For example, the light bulb was not working when she took it in - and it wasn't working after the service even though she had noted that as an item to be done.

carolaug

I am debating on a baby lock machine....does it quilt queen size quilts easily?