Lin says she has loved her Bernina, although it's about 16 years old (she keeps reminding me). It's an Artista 180, and (thanks to her incessant reminders) we know there are new versions "very similar but bettter" in the line. It does lots of fancy embroidery (requiring an "embroidery module" that was included in our original purchase, but might be an extra cost add on), under program control, and is fine for putting pieces and patches together for quilts.

Other machines, in most makers' lines, include sergers, most of which can use multiple threads and mostly used on knits, and "Quilting Machines" with long beds (up to 6 or 8 ft is fairly common) so you can roll an entire quilt through them without wadding it up, and sew programmed patterns to hold the layers together.

My observation from the sidelines is that relatively few people buy quilting machines (due to both cost and space) but there are nearly always some who have one in any place who will do the actual "quilting" for you for a nominal fee if you really need one of the big machines.

(The situation is similar to private pilots, nearly all of whom at least attempt to get Instructor certification, because by the time they've paid for getting their license the only way they can afford to fly is by conning others into paying them for lessons, so that the others can get ready to work on an Instructor ticket, so they can con ...)

Lin does the quilting (asembling the layers) on small (crib size and somewhat larger) pieces on her Bernina. She probably could stuff a full size quilt through it to quilt the layers together, but did "hire out" a couple, one full size and the other a little smaller, that were to be raffled for a Library benefit, and the costs were fairly reasonable. Her justification was that the quilting machine could make the quilting stitches more uniform (she's probably right, although of course I'd never say that) and a rather tight schedule for getting them hung in the library.

Nearly all the machine makers' better quality machines feature "computer controlled" stitches, with the various zigzags and such built in, and with nearly all you can get add-on modules for "stitched designs" ie. embroidery. Many of them advertise themselves as "programmable," which I would interpret as meaning you can create your own desings and load your program into the machine. For most of these, the abilitiy to "roll and load" your own designs requires additional "modules" that can be fairly expensive, so most people just purchase "design cards" with prebuilt programs.

In no particular order, Singer, Bernina, Pfaff, Janome, and several others, based on the published information, all make roughly comparable machines. My "cranky engineer" observation doesn't find a whole lot of difference in the basic capabilities of them, but the details are very important since the machine you choose can facilitate what you want to do or can obstruct your creativity by insisting you should "do something else it would rather do."

A very important factor in selecting a machine, in her (our) experience, is that you really do need a local (or at least easily accessible) dealer who can (and is willing to) give advice and perform the few regular maintenance duties that the machines all will need. It wouldn't be completely out of line to suggest that choosing a good dealer is about as important as deciding which machine suits you best.

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On the supplemental question of sewing "heavy stuff" a search for "leather sewing machines" would get you several choices (TechSew or Toyota would be a couple of makers) but these will be "industrial machines" and might sink your boat if you try to take them on board.

I'd expect that most of the sewing for things described would be simple "straight line" stitching, so the most basic of "single stitch" - or "fewest stitches you can find" would be fairly satisfactory. If you could put a motor on one of the old treadle Singers it should be fine for what you want, although the length of thread you can load in those little bobbins might be a bit limiting for sails. (Some of them did have motors, but they're really hard to find in working order.) Any zigzag stitching you'd want would probably be a wider zig than you can get on any of the fancier machines in a built-in stitch. At best you'd be able to zig and then zag a seam, with or without a zigzag stitch, to build a bigger zigzag anyway.

Nearly all of the simpler "home use" machines, if they're more or less "full sized," should be able to sew a couple or three layers of good denim (not just the synthetic ultralight crap), which should be sufficient. Nearly all places that sell machines have demonstrators set up, so if you take a couple of scraps of what you intend to sew in with you you should be able to tell if one's got the poop (mostly the motor torque) to handle what you want. (You might want to tell them what you want to try out before you break their demo machine? It could happen but I wouldn't expect it. They also might want to suggest a different needle than what would be on the machine, for your "special" material.)

If that kind of stuff is the only thing you use it for, you might wear it out a little faster; but you can afford to wear out four or five of the simple ones for the price of one of the kind they'd prefer to sell you.

Lin said she'd be happy to provide an answer, but she was deep into searching for her great great great grandfather's neice's brother in-law's stepson's, grandson's mother in Luniburgh Dumylvania, or something like that. Maybe later.

John