Hi PD,
I knew I couldn't stand for hours and use a LA but also wanted to quilt my own tops. My Janome 6600 is adequate for fairly large quilts, but I didn't seem to be able to make it work the way I imagined it should. After lots of research (and talking to Margo!!!) I decided on the HQ16. I never really made FMQ work for me on the Janome, so of course I had to learn the hand/eye/foot coordination of that whole concept.
I have the older HQ sitdown and have really fallen in love with it and what it does for me. It has taken me quite a long time to finally get up my courage to really, really, spend the time on it necessary to have it do for me what it CAN do, however. So I hope by posting this admission, I will encourage those of you just purchasing to 'just get in there and give it the time it takes!'
Here are a few shots of what is happening now in my little corner of the world: not perfect, but I'm not striving for perfection. I just want to learn control. So with that in mind, I'm challenging myself to do really intricate patterns.
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There is a yahoo group for HQ sit down you should check out. That's where you will get ALL of your questions answered and we have some people on there who are very intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the machine!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HQ_Sit_down_Model/
Lynn (hope this helps)