How To Buy The Best Sewing Machine
Sewing machines have come a long way since Elias Howe invented the first one 150 years ago. Today’s smart machines do everything but tummy tucks. (And someone’s probably working on that.)
High-Tech Sewing
Today’s machines sport computer microchips for a panoply of stitches and enough features to spin Howe’s bobbin. Some can even be linked to a PC to create elaborate, professional-quality embroidery. Even the most economical electronic models make dressmaker buttonholes automatically and maintain constant sewing speeds through bulky fabrics.
Built-In Basics
Whether you’re a quilter, embroiderer or tailor, you can buy a machine as seamlessly fitted to your needs as a dress form. At a minimum, you should expect easy knee- or foot-controlled, jamproof sewing, easily filled and changed needles and bobbins, even feeding of varied fabrics, a variety of even, easily adjusted stitches, and built-in buttonholing. Electronic foot controls are handy if you quilt or sew thick fabrics.
Buying Tips
Know how you’ll use it. How will you really use your new machine? Don’t pay for 400-stitch capability if you’re a reluctant beginner. But don’t shortchange yourself either. If you think that this is just the beginning for you, buy more machine than you can use now and grow into it.
Use it in the store. Take your own fabrics (silk to denim) and thread, sit down right there in the store, and sew on every machine you’re considering until you understand which models do what and can compare them stitch for stitch.
Where you buy is important. More than with any other piece of equipment, dealers do make a difference. They’re your teachers, your tech support, your solace in times of trouble. A great machine from a rotten dealer almost never gives the satisfaction it should.
Price isn’t paramount. You’re better off buying an entry-level (or even used) high-quality machine from a first-class dealer than a fancier “special school model” or other discounted machine from someone who doesn’t offer classes and can’t service the machine.
Ask around on the Web. Before you even get to the dealer, you can join newsgroups and chat rooms, such as Sewing World and The Sewing Thread, to get a better feel for every make and model of machine that home crafters, quilters, embroiderers and tailors use and which they like best.
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