Good Morning from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada where winter has hit us with a vengeance. Our weather went from NO snow on January 4 to a couple inches over the weekend and temperatures that were around 0 Celsius to -24 now - 8:45am Monday, January 8th. That is a shock to one's system. However, I'm not complaining as winter is almost ½ over and we've had a lovely fall and winter up until now.

Back to my topic of sewing/embroidery machines. I am a "Janome Girl" through and through for over 40 years and in that time I've purchase 24 machines or which I still have 7 in my sewing room - and 5 of them on tables, one on the floor, and my "go to class machine" in a travel case. That isn't all, I also have 2 CoverPro 2000's in boxes to be sold, as I got the CP3000 and it sits in my sewing space. My pride and joy (or should be joy) is the newest embroidery/sewing combination machine the Janome Continental M17 (CM17).

The CM17 is an absolutely wonderful sewing machine and for a few months embroidery machine, but embroidery these days - not so much. I can't get a decent embroidery consistently MOST of the time. It starts out working fine, but a few minutes into the design, it loses its path and move either 1 or 2 mm off the design track. As I am the only person in Saskatoon that has purchased this machine, I have NO ONE that I can confer with except my dealer and her staff and of course the store's machine is working perfectly. There is another dealer just a bit over an hour away, but again, they have no issues with their machine and don't really want to deal with my complaints as I choose to purchase locally mostly because it is a 20 minute drive for help versus over an hour to the other. Both are friends and good people, so this was a very hard decision for me to make at the time of purchase. The more distant dealer also comes from my home town and her husband went to school with my brothers and I knew this family well as they owned the cafe in my little town and all the kids hung out there after school most every day.

What I'd like to know from any of you, is if any of you have owned the CM17? I don't expect that anyone but Janome can solve this problem, but if we share what we know, we can learn more - after all we are the ones doing the ACTUAL sewing of real things. I find that dealers mostly want to "show off" the bells and whistles that these incredibly expensive machines can do besides sewing a straight line - they want to show "how you can quilt your quilt", but don't really make one that would fit a big bed - that's on us as we will DO IT or at least give it a try. We then will share our experiences with others and that is how the learning really goes with these sorts of things. You know how "teachers - teach" but the "student's - do".

Now I don't want to put anyone off of this brand - I still believe it is the best. I think that "my number" just came up to get that "OFF" machine this time. I will still remain a loyal Janome Girl no matter what happens with my Marie (CM17) even if the worst case scenario plays out and I have to trade her in for a new Marie. I'm hoping that Janome will "stand behind" their product and do the right thing.

Cheryl - Saskatoon