It's time for a sewing machine upgrade

For Christmas 2009, my husband surprised me with a Brother sewing machine. He didn't know if I would actually use it (ha!) and I didn't know what to look for in a sewing machine, but the gift was perfect! I dabbled in sewing for the first two years, but more recently I have become more "serious" about garment sewing and my current machine isn't cutting it. My biggest complaint is with the stitches, they are inconsistent regardless of how much I mess with the tension, change and rethread the thread, or change the needle. Well, there are more issues than that, but that one is the most annoying!

On Saturday my friend Krista and I are going to look at machines and hopefully test a few out. I wanted to see if any of you have any tips for me or have a machine that you love and can't recommend highly enough. Thinking about finding the perfect machine when there are so many out there is kind of overwhelming!