I have more success on the mechanical machine.

When my 1969 White (mechanical) died, I replaced it with a Janome (computerized). I never had 1 complaint about my White, but now having 9" throat, needle up/down, auto thread cutter, and speed adjustment to name a few features, I have to say my sewing life is better.

My move for piecing was from a singer 301 to a bernina 640 and yes my sewing improved. Specifically the ease there is something to be said for thread cutters and for the needle up down and oh please don't forget being able to position the needle. Makes scant 1/4" sooooooo easy.

when I got my new Brother with push button speed I was able to FMQ much better with the stability of the speed. I love it!

You know what changed my quilting, the number of feed dogs. I went from a wonderful cam Kenmore with only 2 feed dogs to a computer Kenmore with 4. I've had my new K for over 10 years now and she's still my favorite. I only wish for a auto needle down position. I do have older mechanical machines with 4 feeds and they work just as perfect as my K. I wish I had known this little tidbit when I was selecting my older K. I do envy my gf her new Janome with the adaptor in the feed dog area to go from single hold throat for straight stitching to a wider multi-stitch throad plate, all by selecting her stitch.

I can't tell you all how helpful your comments have been! Obviously I'm considering a new machine and had just about talked myself out of it. I love my old Kenmore. My husband bought it for me. I was thinking I just needed to keep at it and learn to better use what I already have, but after reading your comments I really think a more up-to-date machine would be a great benefit. Now to decide which one! Thanks for all your comments....but please bear with me. More questions to come, I'm sure!

HI--noticed your Tree quilt. A neat idea to just use one. It looks like the Piecemaker tree quilt. Have you done the rest?
I did the whole "calendar" and it hangs on our living room and so enjoy it. Couldn't help but notice yours. Quilter in AZ

Well for me I was having a real hard time with stright 1/4 seams on both my Babylock and Elna. Then joing here and reading about the vintage machines I ran across one a 15-91 cheap and now I can stitch a stright consistant 1/4 in seam with it. My peiceing is getting better as I keep going. Feed dogs are closer together and my material feeds in stright as with my other ones it feeds in cockeyed and I have to keep a death grip on it. So I am happy with my 63 year old machine, and use my Babylock for embroidery and fancy stitching, and my elna is just a nice little backup machine

Hind sight I would have bought a used long arm and then pieced on a vintage machine like a Singer 301 or 401. I would have skipped the embrodery machine all together. I do like and quilt on my Janome 6500 but a long arm machine on a frame would have been nicer. I do miss the automatic thread cutter and sewing foot knee lifter when not using the janome 6500.

There was an instant and dramatic improvement in my piecing when I went from an old Montgomery Wards machine to a new Pfaff 2030. You couldn't sew a straight quarter inch seam on the Wards machine, you had to sort of sew at an angle. Even the quarter inch foot didn't help on that machine. It always made a groaning sound with the quarter inch foot on it.

I can't free motion on the Pfaff but I can straight line quilt on it with no problems because of the built in walking foot.