How the heck do you research sewing machines?

I just bought one for $199 at Walmart. I don't even know what brand it is. I made a half-hearted attempt to make a dress and now I just break it our for my scrapbook pages now and then.

Try Craigslist. I've seen some new machines there. I'm always looking for a Featherweight 222, the holy grail in my opinion. I'll never find one I could afford.

I narrowed my brand to a brother and followed the review ratings in my price range on amazon. I bought the cs6000i model as it had strong reviews and was a bit more than a basic machine. I've used it for fabric and paper stitching and I'm pleased with the machine.

Good luck!

Here is a recent thread about mini sewing machines. I ended up getting a little mint green Janome from Bed Bath and Beyond. It's cute, but really basic. It will work for crafting and mending for now.

I am in the market for a high-end machine, but decided to wait a bit after the initial sticker shock (thus the $79 mini purchase.) You can click on my user name to see the thread and advice I got from the Peas about that.

I have a 50s era Singer that needs a motor repair, and a cheap Costco Brother than finally bit the dust a few months ago. It served me well, but I never really liked it, and wish I had spent a little more money years ago on a better machine.

What I did was I narrowed it down to the brand I wanted from several that have long standing good reputations (Bernina and Janome were the two I was looking at, I've been seeing forever and I wanted a higher end machine) and then Googled the heck out of them and read a ton of reviews to see which ones people liked. Since a Bernina similar to the one I have that is dying would set me back more than $1000, I crossed that off of my list. Then I started comparing models of Janome machines to find the one that had the most features I wanted/needed for the money.

I think it's actually easier to comparison shop the higher end machines because there are less of them. There are SO many cheapie sewing machines out there that a person could get very quickly bogged down trying to sort through them all. The things I would personally look for would be a good warranty, the availability to have it serviced locally (sewing machines work best when they are well maintained), and options to add different presser feet down the road if you decide you want to start sewing more.

Like others have mentioned too, if you kind of know what you're looking for you can score a sweet deal on Craigslist or maybe even the online Goodwill site that someone posted about in a different thread. My sister bought a VERY nice Janome similar to the one I bought last year (a little older but it had very few "miles" on it) from an older lady that couldn't use it anymore. She got the machine, a whole bunch of different feet and accessories plus a nice solid wooden sewing table with it, all for $600! The table alone would have cost about $400 so it was a crazy good deal. 

They might be able to do maintenance on it, I would call and ask. Personally, I would go there and see what they have. Many times places that fix sewing machines have nice used ones to sell. Usually they give them a complete tune up and give you something of a warranty on them as well. It would be worth the drive to check it out, IMHO. When I was sewing a lot, I would take my machine in to be cleaned and oiled every 12-18 months or so which kept it in great shape for a long time. It's amazing how much dust and crud gets trapped inside there!

If I could still get replacement parts for my old Bernina I would still be sewing with it. It's roughly 40 years old now and I can't replace some of the key components so I had to get something newer.

Any current machine should have a foot pedal.  Make sure you change the needles between sewing on paper and sewing on fabric.  If you are really only doing super simple sewing stuff a basic Brother should be more than enough.  The nice thing about getting one from Costco is that if anything goes wrong it is easy to return. 


Costco has this brother for $89.99

Or this Janome for $124.99

Or this one for $129.99

I would suggest the Brother or Bernia or Janome line. Forget Singer they have gone down hill. Quality is not the same. If you go to Amazon you can select a price range and then filter manuf and from there I would pick 4 stars and above..you should get plenty of helpful reviews from that point to narrow it down.

I bought a Brother and was restarting some sewing projects not realizing how much I would get back into after being absent for years and foolish me wishes I had spent more $ for an even better model, mine works great just some quirks I wish I could do without.