I have been a machine quilting educator for about 10 years. Sewing Machines have made miraculous advances in technology. You can now purchase machines with hundreds of pre-programmed stitches, some of them even have built-in tensioning, and stitch regulators for free-motion quilting. I am absolutely not discounting the advantages of mother boards, and circuit boards. Sewing machines of today are really little computers.

During my classes, I have started to notice that my students have quite a bit of trouble understanding the software and programming involved with just basic sewing. I said it ladies, “Basic”. Quilters need simple straight stitching and three special quilting feet. That’s it; we are “Low-Maintenance” when it comes to making our special projects. Featherweights have no motherboards or circuit boards to decide they know more than you do. They only do what we ask them. In my opinion, Simple machines are best!