terriamn

My sister is thinking about buying the Janome Skylark S9 and asked my opinion. One of my machines is a Janome that I love but have never heard of the skylark series. Any opinions or advice for her

QuiltnNan

here is a review of it https://www.sewinginsight.com/janome...ine-s9-review/
i have a jonome, but not this nice... i got it to take to class... mine works well

Jingle

Throat is not big enough to make quilting very easy.

Paperpgma

This machine gets great reviews. Some questions .. is she wanting to only quilt with it or do some embroidery as well? It has an 8 1/2 inch harp so up to a twin size quilt is very doable. Of course larger quilts could be done if she’s willing to really scrunch them up. If she’s not sure about embroidery, then for that money I’d look at a 8200 or 8900 with an 11 inch harp. If she isn’t sure about doing the quilting herself but wants the embroidery options .. I’d suggest getting the skyline 5 for piecing and general sewing AND the embroidery only Janome 500. Lots of options depending on her budget, wants, needs and room in her sewing area. The skyline 9 is a really nice machine if she wants both sewing and embroidery.

terriamn

She won’t be quilting with her machine, the majority of her work is tops for donations to the missions. I was very surprised she was even interested in embroidery so not sure what that is about.

mkc

It's the Skyline series, not Skylark

The S9 looks like a revamp of the Janome 9900 - very similar specs, but Acufeed on the S9. I am seeing the 9900 on clearance for about $2K around here.

I have the Elna twin (Expressive 860) to the 9900. It sews beautifully, but I would not want to quilt larger quilts on it. Piece, yes - love it for that, but the throat isn't large enough for a bed-size quilt.

I only have the machine because I got a "smokin'" deal on it ($1400 - literally "smokin'" - I bought it at Marden's in Maine when they picked up all of Pocono Sew and Vac's inventory after the fire a few years back) and use it as my travel machine (I currently have a 7700 as my home machine)

The only issue I've had with mine was bobbin tension, but that's to be expected since it was never dealer-tested before I bought it. I adjusted the bobbin case myself. It does stitch beautifully - better than my 7700 and the piecing foot and stitch are perfect right out of the gate for a scant 1/4" seam.

Michelle

Rose_P

Just a comment about machine embroidery: I had no idea I wanted an embroidery machine until I got one, sort of out-of-the-blue. It immediately became a sort of obsession. The thing that surprised me the most is that there are embroidery designs especially for quilting, and I don't mean just embroidering pretty things on the fabric before piecing, but actual quilting. I have done 3 quilts and several smaller projects wholly or partly by this method. After a couple of months with a relatively low-end embroidery machine that had a 5" X 7" hoop, I "had to" go out and buy one that would accommodate a wider hoop.

Your sister may take to it as I have, but if she's still working and/or caring for a family, she may not have enough time to really get into it. I found there's a learning curve and an inherent set of frustrations any time I try to do anything in a hurry. She also needs to be prepared for the extra expenses of embroidery thread and needles that go beyond what we usually use with sewing machines. It looks as if this Janome machine has a hoop that's a little wider than my first embroidery machine (a Brother PE770), but it's still not wide enough to do an 8" square quilt block. So depending on what she hopes to do with it, that would be a consideration. You can re-hoop and do 4 small designs in a larger quilt block, but that's 4 times as much work, and lining them up might be challenging.