Beginners sewing machine Reviews

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No matter if you're a beginner sewer or an advanced seamstress, shopping for a new machine and deciding which one is right for you can be an overwhelming task. To help, the Good Housekeeping Research Institute evaluated sewing machines for performance, ease of use, and even checked up on the companies' customer service. We've divided our sewing machine reviews into three categories:m beginner sewers, intermediate sewers, and advanced sewers.

What we found: you don't need to spend thousands of dollars to get a good machine. Most sewing machines performed well in our test. The big differences are with ease of use and getting the right tension for a specific fabric. If you're familiar with one brand of sewing machine, you'll most likely be familiar with a different model of the same brand. — most companies stick to similar threading, bobbing winding, and interfaces across all their models.

What GHRI Looked For in Sewing Machines

• Ability to sew a basic stitch on satin, woven cotton, microsuede, upholstery-grade fabric, cotton duck (heavy and light), wool/lycra blend, heavyweight wool, denim, cotton jersey, polyester fleece, cotton corduroy, silk charmeuse, and silk chiffon
• Ability to sew through multiple layers of woven cotton, cotton jersey, and denim
• Ability to sew a quilt swatch
• Ability to sew a bound seam
• Time to set up a buttonhole
• Ease of creating a buttonhole
• Accuracy and quality of buttonholes
• Ease of threading machine
• Time to thread
• Ease of winding bobbin
• Ease of using automatic needle threader (if applicable)
• Ease of changing the needle
• Ease of changing the presser foot
• Comfort of the foot pedal, buttons, and hand wheel
• Ease of changing tension, speed, and stitches
• Sound level
• Thoroughness of instruction manual
• Helpfulness of customer service