Buying an Affordable Craft Sewing Machine

Lately I have been exploring other crafts, especially sewing and decorating t-shirts. Hand-stitching a crochet item onto a T-shirt can be time consuming. As a result, I have been looking at sewing machines. I have no previous experience with them.

I am naturally (or unnaturally) analytical when it comes to spending money. With larger expenses, I rely on spreadsheets to help me make decisions. One column down is a list of sewing machines I’m considering. At the top are the features I’m looking for. This includes everything from the price to the weight of the sewing machine (will you be transporting it to class?) and from the automatic threader to whether it can handle heavier fabrics. An article I read said that there are about 248 models from about nine well-known manufacturers. No wonder my head is spinning.

I started with Sewing Machine Ratings.com and focused on machines with ratings above 90. I also listed how many people rated the machine. That exercise showed me that most crafters don’t like to spend a lot of money on sewing machines, so the brands with the most reviews are the cheapest models, i.e. Brother and Singer. The highest quality and most expensive machines, i.e. Janome and Juki, had a maximum of 30 reviews/comments. The last two brands are considered medium in terms of overall quality and are often only available through dealers. The purchase price through a dealer often includes classes and a place to go to trade in or get other equipment or fixtures for the machines.

For those of you who are staunch supporters of American-made items, good luck with that. While everyone agrees that the Viking, Elna, and Bernina are superior machines, they also agree that they are expensive and limit their versatility. Doing more means investing in more expensive “feet” or devices that come standard on popular, less expensive machines. You can buy better quality needles and threads to help performance from lower rated brands.

Another helpful site asks: Is one brand of sewing machine better than another? Erin of Erinsayssew.com makes a valid point when she says there’s a trade-off between precision stitching and offering plenty of features at an affordable price. Another valid point that I found in my research is that if you are a craftsman involved in many different trades, can you justify the expense of a high-end machine based on its usage time? In other words, your sewing machine may be collecting dust, while you’re knitting instead of sewing. These are just a few things to keep in mind.