Janome Memory Craft 6600 Professional Review

If you are serious about garment sewing, crazy for quilting, a hard-core heavy fabric sewist, or you want to make delicate heirloom baby clothes - this machine will do it all.  Janome scored bigtime when they designed this machine - as evidenced by selling the same machine for the last five years without modifying it.

Wth a maximum speed of 1000 stitches per minute (on a straight stitch) means you'll power through long straight seams.  (The average home sewing machine stitches 600 spm.)  With adjustable speed you can slow it down for detail work - or teaching folks how to sew without scaring the heck out of them.

Janome added a feature to this machine called the Accu-Feed system - essentially a built-in walking foot that feeds both the top and bottom layer of fabric through the machine at the same rate, eliminating seam puckering on even the most slippery fabrics.

It also handles different threads with ease - including specialty decorative threads that are often more delicate.  If you like to do decorative sewing or quilt with specialty threads, you'll love the 6600.

But the best feature, in my opinion, is the HUGE throat area.  If you're a quilter - or repairing your boat cover - that extra space is like GOLD.

Be forewarned - the price of a professional-quality machine with metal gears is weight - this machine is not intended to be portable and weighs in at 27 pounds.

It comes new out of the box nicely outfitted with presser feet and accessories (including a LARGE acrylic extension table), and I look forward to sewing on mine for many years to come.  Next project - roman shades for my computer 'lair'!