How do I Choose a Home Sewing Machine?

Try Phaff 130, Sailrite Yachtsman, Reads Sailmaker, or look for used Ultrafeeds for my best recommendations. Or if you could find a used Sailrite Sailmaker at a bargain price that would be fantastic. Good luck hunting.

I don't do very much what I'd call domestic sewing. Of some of those projects -- cuffing jeans and making book packs and tote bags -- I've used my industrial machine. The only other domestic projects have been letting out the waist of dress pants, and I've used my wife's home sewing machine, a Janome purchased from Costco. She not infrequently prefers to use the industrial machine for some of her projects, but prefers her machine for light fabrics and for making button-holes, etc.

We selected a somewhat more expensive Janome with the relatively fewer basic built-in features versus a cheaper machine with a huge number of feature she'd never use.

In any case, unless you really know what you're buying, I'd avoid most machines made in China -- there are exceptions of course -- and favor machines made in Japan or Bernina which apparently still makes some machines in Switzerland but mostly in Thailand.

As for suggestions, a less targeted forum than Sailrite might be more productive, and you might want to be a bit more specific about objectives. I follow two forums more oriented to domestic sewing:

http://artisanssquare.com/sg/index.php

http://www.thesewingforum.co.uk/search.php?searchid=1649747&photoplog_searchinfo=1

Home sewing machines often list a huge number of stitches. I'd be more interested in usability -- space under the foot, space under the arm, flat-bed and pedestal capability ....