So, in a stroke of luck, my wife has been really eager to learn how to sew the last few months. Her cousin has shown off some of her handy work, and now Vicki is really dying to find a way to learn. I have been hunting down local instructors, and have most of that settled out, but it has become obvious that our little $75 Brother WalMart special isn't worth servicing.

That means that she's going to need a new thread injector, and, well, I'm sure as heck not going to argue with that!

You folks are the only people I know who would know the needle from the foot pedal on a sewing machine, so I have to ask here. Ignoring (or at least minimizing) the focus on hammock making, what new models should I be looking at, or avoiding? My budget looks to be in the $200 range. I saw a Singer Heavy Duty model for $170 at Joanne's this week, and that definitely caught my eye, but Amazon has some good deals going on a couple different Brother models with all sorts of whiz-bang bells and whistles.

She has expressed interest in fashion type sewing primarily. Simple clothes and the like. Maybe some quilting down the line, if that will factor into selecting the machine.

So, horror stories, or love stories. Lemme have them so I can figure out what to get!