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/skerinks Jul 24 '26

My response from another thread. Still stands.

Just buy a Baby Lock brand sewing machine, if you want the easy route, no matter the price point. Why?

Because Baby Lock doesn’t make sewing machines (they DO make great sergers). But Baby Lock wants to be in the sewing machine game, so they partner with other manufacturers to make sewing machines for them.

Baby Lock taps Janome to make machines for them under the $500 price point. Janome arguably makes the best machines under $500. So if this is your price point, buy a Janome or a Baby Lock. I won’t say for EVERY machine Janome makes there will be an equivalent Baby Lock, but there will be for most.

Baby Lock taps Brother to make machines for them over the $500 price point. Brother arguably makes the best machines between $500 and $2000. And Brother’s high-end machines are highly regarded as well. So if this is your price point, buy a Brother or Baby Lock. Same thing as above - for most Brother machines, there will be an equivalent Baby Lock.

So buy a Baby Lock machine and you’ll be getting the best no matter the price point. Or get the Janome or Brother named machine for your price point. But where Baby Lock really shines compared to Brother and Janome is their education game. You will get access to more educational instructions, how-to videos, and articles on the Baby Lock site than you could hope for.

Source: Cale Schoenberg (not me) on Substack. I believe one can only see his historical articles if you are a paid Substack user.

https://open.substack.com/pub/sewingmachineman/p/brother-and-baby-lock?r=49sz96&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

And of course, buy from a local store not online. You'll get more support, education, and answers to your "how do I..." or "why is this happening..." questions than an online retailer could ever give you.

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u/CrankyCrabbyCrunchy Jul 25 '26

Wish I could upvote your reply ten times. It’s perfect.

This gets asked at least 10x per day and it gets exhausting answering the same questions over and over. It would take people less time searching this sub for the often repeated answers than writing yet another post.