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"  With sewing machines ranging in price from the low hundreds to thousands of dollars, it&amp;#039;s hard to know which one to buy. At the Good Housekeeping Research Institute (GHRI) our textile experts tested 18 sewing machines to find out which ones were the best. Here&amp;#039;s what we looked for: Sewing Ability: The most obvious requirement and also the most important! Because we know you could be sewing everything from jeans to prom dresses, we put the needle to swatches of satin, cotton, microsuede, upholstery fabric, cotton duck (heavy and light), wool/lycra blend, heavyweight wool, denim, cotton jersey, polyester fleece, cotton corduroy, silk charmeuse, and silk chiffon. Whew! That was a lot of sewing! Plus we sewed through multiple layers of fabric. Ease of Use: How easy was it to thread, wind the bobbin, change the needle and presser foot, use the automatic needle threader (when there was one) and make buttonholes? Sound: When you&amp;#039;re sewing for hours the last thing you want is a noisy sewing machine so we measured the decibel levels reached by each. Customer Service and Instruction Manual: When something goes wrong and you need some help can you find it easily in the manual? If you call customer service for real-live assistance, how quickly do you get to speak to someone and just how helpful is he or she?  When you go shopping for a sewing machine, keep in mind:  Are you a beginner, intermediate, or advanced sewer? If you&amp;#039;re a beginner or are just going to be doing basic sewing, you may not need a high-priced machine with lots of features and functions. On the other hand if you&amp;#039;re an intermediate, or even an advanced sewer it may be worth splurging on extras like automatic buttonholes or automatic needle threading. Consider what features you&amp;#039;ll be using. Is speed a priority, or perhaps automatic needle threading? Figure out what functions are important to you and zero in on machines that have them. Check out which accessories come standard with the machine. It may be cheaper to buy a machine with the extras that you plan on using rather than buy them separately later on.  Ready to buy a sewing machine? Check out which one is right for you in our Sewing Machine Reviews If you&amp;#039;re interested in visiting us to see how we test products at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute, please go to www.goodhousekeeping.com/ghritours.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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