The best sewing machines for making clothes

The XR9550 and the CS7000X sit at almost the same list price on Brother's own site — $269.99 against $279.99 — and they are not the same machine. The XR9550 spends its budget on the stitch library and the electronics; the CS7000X spends it on presser feet. Which is right for you comes down to one question: are you making clothes, or are you quilting?

For clothes, the XR9550 wins on buttonholes. Brother lists eight one-step auto-size buttonhole styles, against seven on the CS7000X and one on the XM2701. Buttonhole style matters more than it sounds — a keyhole buttonhole for a jacket, a rounded one for a blouse, a bar-tacked one for heavy cotton. It also carries an upper thread sensor, which stops you sewing eighteen inches of nothing before you notice the spool ran out, and a needle position key, which lets you shift the needle to sew an accurate narrow seam without owning a quarter-inch foot.

For quilting, the CS7000X wins, and it wins on one part: the walking foot. The XR9550 includes a spring-action quilting foot, which is a free-motion foot — it hops, and you move the fabric yourself. A walking foot is a different thing entirely: it feeds the top layer at the same rate as the feed dogs move the bottom layer, which is what stops a quilt sandwich shifting. The XR9550 does not include one.

The eight feet it does include cover garment work properly — an overcasting foot for finishing raw edges, a blind hem foot for invisible hems, a monogramming foot. Brother also puts a wide table and a hard case in the box, and at 10.14 lb it is the lightest machine on this site.

We have not sewn on this machine. The specifications are Brother's, and the price on the button is live from Amazon rather than remembered.

The kit it pairs with: Add a walking foot if you intend to quilt; the spring-action quilting foot in the box is for free-motion work, not for feeding batting evenly.

The CS7000X is the machine we point a first-time buyer at, and the reason has nothing to do with its stitch count. It is the presser feet. Brother lists ten of them in the box — zigzag, buttonhole, zipper, button sewing, overcasting, blind stitch, monogramming, quarter-inch, quilting and walking — plus a quilt guide. Two of those, the walking foot and the quarter-inch foot, are the exact accessories a beginner ends up ordering three months in, and they are not cheap bought separately.

The second reason is the threading. Brother's published specification lists an automatic needle threading system and a quick-set drop-in top bobbin. Threading the needle and setting the bobbin are the two jobs that make people put a machine back in its box, and this one turns both into a lever pull and a drop. On a front-loading machine you are removing a case, seating a bobbin in a particular orientation, and hoping.

It is a computerized machine, which means stitch selection is a mode key and a shift key against an LCD rather than a dial. That is a genuine trade-off, not a straight upgrade: a dial is legible at a glance and has nothing to fail, while an LCD tells you the stitch width and length the machine has actually selected. For someone learning, seeing the numbers is worth more than the simplicity of a dial.

The extras matter more than they sound. The detachable wide table turns a small free-arm machine into something you can push a quilt across, and the hard protective cover is the difference between a machine that stays out on a table and one that lives in a cupboard collecting dust. Brother also publishes a 25-year limited warranty and free phone and online technical support for the life of the product.

We have not sewn on this machine. Everything above is from Brother's own specification page, and the price on the button is live from Amazon rather than anything we typed. What we can tell you is what the box contains and what that saves you buying — which, for a first machine, is most of the decision.

The kit it pairs with: It already includes the walking foot and quilting foot, so its starter kit is short: needles, bobbins, thread, shears and pins.

The Heavy Duty 4423 is the machine people buy when the last one could not get through what they wanted to sew. Singer's specification is unusually concrete about why it can: a heavy-duty metal interior frame, a stainless steel bed plate, a motor Singer states is 60% stronger than a standard sewing machine motor, and a top speed of 1,100 stitches per minute.

The specification that matters most for thick fabric is the least glamorous one: adjustable presser foot pressure. When you sew eight layers of denim, the problem is not that the needle cannot pierce it — a 100/16 denim needle will — it is that the feed dogs cannot drag it. Increasing presser foot pressure presses the fabric onto the feed dogs so they can grip. Most beginner machines do not offer that adjustment at all; Brother lists it as 'No' on the CS7000X, the XM2701 and the LX3817.

As a first machine it is a compromise, and we would rather say so. Twenty-three stitches for a list price of $229.99 is less stitch library than Brother's CS7000X at $279.99, and 14.6 lb is a machine that stays on the table. The speed is the part that catches people out: at 1,100 stitches a minute the foot pedal has a much narrower usable range, and a first straight seam can get away from you.

What it does keep from the beginner playbook is worth noting, because Singer's cheaper M1500 does not have it: a one-step buttonhole, a built-in needle threader and a top drop-in bobbin. If you are choosing between the two Singers on this site and you can afford the difference, this is the better machine to learn on as well as the stronger one.

We have not sewn on this machine. Every figure above is published by Singer, including the warranty, which its product page lists as 90 day / 2 yr / 24 yr.

The kit it pairs with: Denim needles in 90/14 and 100/16, and heavier all-purpose thread. A universal needle will deflect and skip in eight layers of denim.

The XM2701 is the machine that answers the question this site exists to answer: what is the least you can spend and still have a machine that does not make you give up? Brother's specification lists an automatic needle threading system and a jam-resistant quick-set top drop-in bobbin on a machine it lists at $149.99. Those two features are the difference between an evening of sewing and an evening of swearing, and most machines at this price drop at least one of them.

What you give up is breadth. Six presser feet — buttonhole, zipper, zigzag, narrow hemmer, blind stitch and button sewing — cover ordinary garment sewing and nothing beyond it. There is no walking foot, so quilting through batting will fight you, and no quarter-inch foot, so piecing accurately means marking or moving the needle. Both can be bought later; both cost money the CS7000X does not ask for.

Stitch selection is a dial and thread tension is manual. That is not a bad thing for learning. A dial has no menu to get lost in, and manual tension forces you to understand what tension actually does rather than trusting a machine to hide it from you. It is slower to get a perfect stitch and faster to understand why the stitch was wrong.

One number to take seriously: 12.6 lb. That is the heaviest machine in Brother's beginner line here — heavier than the CS7000X at 10.5 lb and the XR9550 at 10.14 lb — and there is no hard case. If the machine is going to live on a shelf and come down for each session, weigh that against the price saving.

We have not sewn on this machine. The specifications above are Brother's own, and the price on the button is live from Amazon.

The kit it pairs with: Budget for a walking foot if you plan to quilt, and for a dust cover — neither is included.

A knit fabric is made of loops, not a grid. Push a sharp needle through a loop and you sever it, and a severed loop unravels — that is what a run in a T-shirt is, and it is why a first attempt at hemming a jersey top so often produces a line of small holes along the stitching.

SCHMETZ describes the jersey / ball point needle as 'designed for sewing on knits and some stretch fabrics' and publishes it in 70/10, 80/12, 90/14 and 100/16, plus an assorted pack. The rounded tip slips between the loops rather than through them.

There is a second needle worth knowing about, because people buy the wrong one of the pair. SCHMETZ also publishes a stretch needle, 'designed for synthetic suede or elastic knitwear' with 'a deep scarf to prevent skipped stitches'. The scarf is the groove above the eye where the bobbin hook passes. On a very elastic fabric the material moves as the needle enters, the hook misses the loop of top thread and you get a skipped stitch; a deeper scarf gives the hook more room. So: jersey needle for ordinary T-shirt knits, stretch needle for swimwear, activewear and anything with elastane.

If your machine has been skipping stitches on knit fabric, change the needle before you change anything else. It is the cheapest fix on the list and it is right more often than any tension adjustment.

The LX3817 is where the budget line genuinely bites, and it is worth being specific about how. Brother's specification page lists the needle threading system as manual. On the XM2701, fifty dollars higher, it is automatic. That one line is, in our view, the difference between a machine a beginner keeps using and one that gets put away — threading a needle by eye under a machine arm, at the end of a long day, is where a lot of first attempts end.

The buttonhole is the second cut. This machine sews a four-step auto-size buttonhole, which means moving the dial through four positions in the right order for each buttonhole. The XM2701 and the CS7000X sew a one-step buttonhole: place the button, press, done. If you are shortening trousers and taking in seams you will never notice. If you are making a shirt you will notice on the first placket.

What survives the cost-cutting is more interesting than what does not. It keeps the jam-resistant quick-set drop-in top bobbin — Brother has not fitted a front-loading case to save money — and it has an independent bobbin winding motor, so winding does not drive the needle. It has a free arm and an LED-lit work area. At 10.36 lb it is lighter than the XM2701.

The honest use case: this is a mending and hemming machine. If what you actually want is to take up jeans, fix a seam, and run a curtain hem twice a year, seventeen stitches and four feet is not a compromise, it is the correct amount of machine. If you think you might make a garment, the next machine up buys back the two features you will miss.

We have not sewn on this machine. Every specification above is from Brother's own product page, and the price on the button is live.

The kit it pairs with: Add a needle threader tool, a blind stitch foot and an overcasting foot if you intend to sew garments rather than mend them.