I go to retreats and teach at retreats on a regular basis. Some retreats are dedicated to machine embroidery and some are dedicated to quilting. This is a bit of a dilemma for me as I am a quilter and embroidery enthusiast. My embroidery often shows up on my quilts. So which machine do I take to my retreats?
My favorite Janome machine is the Horizon MC 15000 Quiltmaker. That is because it does absolutely everything for me — quilt, sew, embroider all in one machine. But for retreats, it is maybe too heavy to carry and has to be transported with many parts (arm, hoops, etc.) in order to use all the features. So, when I have a retreat that is dedicated to quilting only, I tend to do my embroidery at home and take my embroidered blocks with me to the quilt retreat.
My great debate now is which Janome sewing machine to use for quilting. There are two machines that would serve you well when wanting to transport a machine with as many functions as possible to use while away from home. The two machines I recommend to people are the Horizon MC 9400QCP and the newest Horizon MC 6700P machines.
Both of these sewing machines have a large open throat area for quilting. The Horizon MC 6700P has a flat bed with an extension table available for smooth feeding of a quilt. The Horizon MC9400QCP also has a large throat opening and extension table, but it also can be converted to a free arm machine for those times you want to stitch in small circular enclosed objects. Both machines have a wide variety of stitch selections with decorative stitches 9mm wide. I do indeed use decorative stitches when quilting so these are great machines to work with.
The choice is yours as to which machine you would use. Often I recommend the Horizon MC 9400QCP to people who tell me they do more garment construction than quilting. For quilters I recommend the Horizon MC 6700P with its large flat bed for ultra smooth feeding of the quilt through the machine.
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