In the end I bought a Janome 1600p
I’m really pleased with it – it seems to do everything I want. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t come with the darning foot (for stippling) or the even feed foot, but I will buy those in the next week or two.
The quilt in the picture I have been working on for some time (off and on). I stopped the last time because quilting on my MC9000 was just a bit too hard. In the past couple of days I have made huge progress. I’m using an invisible thread to do my quilting and it kept breaking – very annoying. I worked out that the bit coming off the reel was threaded under cotton still on the reel – I had to cut it off and waste a bit, but now it’s working brilliantly.
On a completely different note – my fabric arrived from equilter! How quick was that? And it’s lovely, exactly what I expected, which is a good thing given that I ordered it over the internet.