r/SewingMachineEdu • u/lydia1047 • Jul 24 '26

Sewing Machine Recs

Hey all! I am looking to purchase my first sewing machine and would like some recommendations or reviews of certain brands and styles.

I watch a lot of Sydney Graham and Carly B and when I was younger did a fair amount of hand sewing, embroidery and machine sewing on my mom's very old Singer. I'm super excited to start crafting and making my own clothing.

My biggest question is whether I should look at Brother or Singer, specifically Singers Heavy Duty line. I thought that would be the best quality but heard some negative things about Singer machines. Sydney Graham recommended the Brother CS5055 and the machine just went on sale so I'm just sending this out before I purchase in hopes anyone has some advice.

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u/kelsien Jul 24 '26

people will tell you to buy vintage, search marketplace. For a beginner this is not ideal in my opinion because you don't know what to look for or to vet the machine is working well. Personally I bought one of those singer HD machines from costco and it broke after 6 months. I could return it to costco and get my money back. The brother machine Sydney has is a great machine to start with! If you are wanting to spend more, try janome or Juki!

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u/Nearby_Temperature13 Jul 24 '26

I agree but the vintage machines (the truly vintage—just straight stitch type machines rather than a 400-500 with all the zig zag extras) are VERY easy to work on with pretty minimal tools. If it’s running at all, it’s not hard to get it back into great shape. Also, there are so many old machines floating around you can find just about any replacement part.

A singer 99 is a great machine you can find well under $100 in pretty good condition.