Monday, November 30, 2009

Sewing Machine Advice

For Christmas this year, I am getting a new sewing machine. The one I use currently is not a great machine, but it was a free hand me down. The tension has always been wacky, and it won't sew any type of delicate fabric (sheers, lace, decroative costume fabrics, etc, without the feed EATING it!). It gives me headaches. I get into a sewing mood, and put up with it for some time, then fizzle out on it, because I get so fed up with it!

So, where was I? Yes, a new sewing machine. My budget is $150 (with a tiny bit of budge room), and while I would love to shop anywhere, $100 of that is coming from Walmart in the form of a Christmas gift card, soo.... I need some advice from the sewers out there.

There are probably 6-7 machines on Walmart.com that range from $70-160. They all have great reviews, with a small handful of not-so-great reviews. Here are the specific machines I am looking at:

Brother 60 Stitch CS-6000i This machine is $160. This has almost a 5 star average rating. It has 404 user reviews, 299 of which are 5 star, and 77 are 4 star. However, it has the highest 1 star reviews at 17, but given how many reviews there are, the average is lower for 1 star ratings than with other machines. There are 6 3 stars and 5 2 stars, as well.

Brother 50 Stitch Project Runway Edition This machine is $140. This machine has 115 reviews. 101 are split between 4 & 5 star ratings, with 3 3 star ratings, 3 2 star ratings, and 8 1 star ratings. In all, it has almost a 4 and a half star rating average.

Brother 35 Stitch XL3750 This machine is $140 as well. This machine has just 20 total reviews, resulting in just a shade over 4 out of 5 stars average. There are 11 5 star reviews, 5 4 star reviews, 2 3 star reviews, and 1 each of a 2 and 1 star review. In looking at the numbers, I'm going to cross this one off the list myself.

After just now looking at the other, cheaper models, I noticed that most had 20 or less stitch types, and I would like to have more options than that. My current machine boasts all of 13, 3 of which are button hole stitches the machine won't actually do. Heck, out of the 13, the machine can only handle 4. I would love to have lots of stitches available, but in having just recounted just how few my machine actually does, perhaps a 20 or 25 stitch machine isn't so bad? ;)

Here are some more machines.

Singer Simple 23-Stitch Machine 2263 This one is $90. This has only 26 total reviews, giving it just a shade over 4 stars in average. 12 are 5 star ratings, 11 are 4 stars. There are 2 2 star ratings, and 1 1 star rating.

Brother 25 Stitch Free Arm Machine, XL-2600i This machine is also $90. 80 reviews, giving it an average of 4.3 stars out of 5. 46 are 5 star reviews, 26 are 4 star reviews. Only 8 reviews total make up the 3, 2, and 1 star reviews.

All 5 machines have good reviews for the most part.In an ideal world, I would go with a $600 Singer, and get a Serger as well. But, this is hardly an ideal world. It's my frugal world.

I'm hoping someone out there has used one of these machines, and can give me some advice. Being that the money is mostly in gift cards, it really limits just what I can do for a machine. We don't have a lot of extra money to put into a sewing machine right now, but I do want one, so I can try to tackle more things.

Please, leave a comment and help me out! I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts, even if they have not used any of the above machines!

2 comments:

Turtles In Northern Florida said...

I wish I could give you some feedback on those. The only thing I can say is go to your local repair shop with that list. They would be able to give you a list of the ones that see the most.

I also just bought my youngest the janome mini from hancocks for $40. So far its really doing great and she isnt easy on it.

Expressions by Heather said...

That is a really good idea, I'll have to call them tomorrow! Thanks Turtles :)