I bought a used Bernina machine for $50 and used it for a year and a half. Struggled with it grabbing silnylon, lots of tension issues, etc, but I made it work and finished my projects. Then I got a "new" Janome machine. Nothing too fancy, was like $300 on Amazon. Holy COW!! This thing grabs every fabric I throw at it from canvas to Membrane10. Never adjusting any tension, just sew and go. So, what am I getting at? A lot of these new modern machine "just work" and if you're like me and got tired of the struggle, it might just be worth it to upgrade. Just IMHO, YMMV and all that.