Best Sewing

What is the best sewing machine for a design student?

I am an apparel design student and want to get a machine for home. At school we have industrial machines that we use. What kind of machine would be best for me at home? Price doesn’t matter I want something that’s going to be useful to me for a long time.

If you’re used to industrials, most home machines will be horribly slow, and you’ll also find you can’t use many of the binders and other attachments you’re used to, it won’t have a knee lift for the presser foot, and it won’t have a thread cutter (though the last two are creeping into some home machine lines).

You might want to look at the portable “commercial” or “semi-industrials” put out by companies like Juki or Toyota or Bernina — they are fast, though not as fast as a true industrial, have their own motors so they don’t need stands and oil baths, will take standard industrial feet (which are dirt cheap compared to home sewing machine feet). Prices I’ve seen are up around $2K new, but the folks who are used to industrials all tell me they’re the best thing for sewing at home for them.

I’m pretty fast for someone who uses home machines, and I can use a friend’s Juki portable industrial without terrifying myself (not so with a true industrial!), but they’re still too much machine for the way I work. Nevertheless, if I were going to be doing any sort of light production work or had a garment that had to be done by a deadline, I’d be thinking strongly of th e semi-industrials.

Another route to consider is to pick up a couple of sergers, particularly if you’re interested in knits. A good 5 thread serger and a separate coverstitch machine will be good workhorses for you. Pick up any used home sewing machine that does decent buttonholes for the things sergers won’t do.

Ask around your school — there’s often a discount offered for students by either the manufacturers or the dealers.

Part 2: Sew-in: The Best (Pictures at end!)

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