Okay I have been given approval for buying a new machine (cheek, as if I need to ask!) but cannot decide what to do. At the moment my arrangements are
An old F&R straight stitch which is heavy duty and is great for heavy jobs.
A little cheap Brother bought in a panic for a wedding dress alteration about 15 years ago with a fabulous stitch, lightweight and hardly used.
A Bernina 180 Artista sewing and embroidery machine, probably about 25 years old with the embroidery unit which works great as an embroidery machine but there is something wrong with the feed dogs and I have a short stitch even on the longest setting and it glides all over the place when I try a straight line. Plus the software is no longer available to download embroidery images.
A Brother Overlocker
A Coverpro coverstitch machine
A Huskystar embellisher (hardly out of its box)
I have a budget of around £500/£600 for something new. I don't know whether I should/could buy something that would do the job of the first 3. This would get me something that is far better than the little Brother but is only 10% of the cost of replacing the Artista with today's equivalent.
I have a specialist "Bernina Doctor" living nearby. Should I let him have the Bernina to correct the feed dog problem and risk using a large part of my budget if it cannot be done. And then there is the possibility of the motherboard just giving up at any time because of its age.
I don't usually have a problem spending money
I would really appreciation your views on this because I am in a quandary.