Now that I do not know Monica. someone will b able to tell us though I'm sure *

I have used my Janome, which is about 20 years old, to sew everything from delicate fabrics to heavy denim and never had a problem.With 2 sons and one tom boy, there were always jeans to either mend or sew.I have also mended the fire uniforms for our CFS(Country Fire Service)volunteers with it.And I am still using it to quilt big quilts. Never a hitch.

A bernina record or bernina 830 if you can find one second hand somewhere.. It is a great workhorse, I still have mine and will not part with it, it can handle so much more than my new janome, although the janome does embroider ;)

I went to Nashville one time to visit one of the sewing machine place. They had this Baby Lock machine and I don't know the model that can sew very very thick material. I will call them to find out the brand and model for you today.

I love my Pfaff..I've only had 2 of them in the 30 some yrs I've been sewing. Check with your school home economics dept. for a possible good used machine:)

I use my good old JC Penney cast iron 40 year old machine for heavy stuff, it's a workhorse. I keep the electronic machines for "good", hee hee hee. Yes, school home ec departments, or perhaps if you have dealers near you who fix machines, get an older one, a mechanical one. We have dealers here who sell older machines cheaply because they take them on trade & recondition them. Good luck!! Marji

I have a Brother Innov-is 4000D, love this machine. Just made my DD a very large tote bag out of heavy suede type upholstery fabric and lined it with a heavy weave upholstery fabric. For the top of the bag I just folded both fabrics over and top stitched. I had 4 layers of upholstery fabric to sew through, also at the handles I had 8 layers of fabric. It never even hesitated on all that thickness, just use the proper needle size and do not try to sew tooooo fast. I took it very slow because I was top stitching the bag and wanted the stitches to be straight and the proper distance from the top. (I was sewing very close to the top edge). It is great to find a machine that does everything that I want it to do. It even threads itself and has a large embroidery capability. Good luck and here is a *4U and all. Sue

I have several brands but a trick to sew denim is to put a peice of fabric folded several times under the back of the presser foot will help get over the thick seams . Also there is a tool called a jean a m gig that serves the same purpose ( Nancy's Notions sells them.) Hope this helps A flower for you

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thesewingoutlet.com/sewing_machines/images/brother-pq1500s-large.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thesewingoutlet.com/sewing_machines/brother-pq1500s.html&h=217&w=300&sz=7&hl=en&start=8&um=1&usg=__AHr6tOTNTiJQ3sMJm8LX-KO4k74=&tbnid=yhTb7p_LuCY3FM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBrother%2B1500%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN<br />This is the machine Brother PQ 1500S Sewing that I saw a while ago and the dealer showed to me that I thought it was better than the Singer.<br />http://www.sewvacdirect.com/jukitl98q.html<br />He also showed me the above machine. I noticed all the alteration shops in town use Juki and they told me that this machine can handle denim very well, but it costs more than Juki