A honest list of 4 best sewing machines with most number of stitches. Priority is given to quality and stitches. List is kept under $500.
Decorative stitches add a lot to your creativity. A simple addition of a good looking stitch can be the difference between your project being sold or catching dust in the store. For basic sewing and mending, you don’t need a lot of built-in stitches. But if you are in the sewing business, you need many, just to keep yourself ahead of competition. Quality is an important factor here. There is no point in buying a sewing machine with 1000 built-in stitches, that doesn’t sew well. You need quality and stitches alike, which is a rare combination, especially in the under $500 category. To help you out, I have compiled a list of 4 best sewing machines with most number of built-in stitches, that you can get under $500. Actually I was going for a top 10 list, later I decided to trim it down to just 4 because of the quality issue. I had to omit a lot of machines due to lack of quality. In my experience, these are the best in terms of quality and features.
1. Singer 9960
This machine is an absolute gem. I love this machine for a variety of reasons. Singer has got right the magical combination of quality, affordability and features. As of now, 9960 is the most affordable sewing machine in this list. When this machine was launched, it was like 5 years ahead of the competition. In the price segment, 9960 was one machine that was clearly a class above all its competitors, be it Brother or Janome machines. 9960 comes with 600 built-in stitches. The machine has so many advanced controls and features that you may not even use for its entire lifetime. Add to that, the excellent stitch quality. The stitches are of the highest quality. The monograms come out perfect as well. You can even match the $1000 industrial machines with 9960, in terms of stitch quality. It is the reason why Singer 9960 features in our list of ‘Machines You Can Buy With Your Eyes Shut’.
Features
- 600 built-in stitches
- Automatic needle threader & thread cutter
- Sewing start/stop & speed control
- Programmable needle up/down
- Top drop-in bobbin
- 13 one-step buttonholes
- 5 fonts for monogramming
Cons : There was a bobbin jamming issue with old batches, but Singer fixed it in an upgrade and there are no other big issues to talk about.
2. Singer 9980
9980 is the elder brother of the Singer 9960. This is only a slight upgrade in built-in stitches. While 9960 had only 600 built-in stitches, 9980 comes with 820 built-in stitches. The difference pretty much ends there. Being an upgrade, you can expect it to be priced higher than 9960. I won’t recommend this machine over 9960, unless you are very specific about the extra stitches you get. Especially when you consider the price gap between the two.
Features
- 820 built-in stitches
- Automatic needle threader & thread cutter
- Sewing start/stop & speed control
- Programmable needle up/down
- Top drop-in bobbin
- 13 one-step buttonholes
- 5 fonts for monogramming
Cons : The monograms are not as impressive as you get on 9960. The automatic needle threader is picky at times.
3. Brother DZ3400
This is one quality offering from Brother. DZ3400 is specifically popular as a Brother machine with a lot of built-in stitches. It comes with 270 built-in stitches. The machine is very similar to other Designio machines except for the stitches count. The stitch quality is very good and its performance over multiple layers of denim is excellent. However DZ3400 is not as feature loaded as the previous machines.
Features
- 270 built-in stitches
- Automatic needle threader
- Sewing start/stop & speed control
- Programmable needle up/down
- Top drop-in bobbin
- 8 one-step buttonholes
- 2 fonts for monogramming
Cons : Watch the price. It tends to be expensive at times.
4. Brother DZ3000
The only difference between this machine and the previous one is that, this one has lesser number of built-in stitches. The quality and performance are the same. Brother DZ3000 has 240 built-in stitches.
Features
- 240 built-in stitches
- Automatic needle threader
- Sewing start/stop & speed control
- Programmable needle up/down
- Top drop-in bobbin
- 8 one-step buttonholes
- 2 fonts for monogramming
Cons : Watch the price.
PS : I haven’t included machines that has under 200 stitches, since our main focus is on built-in stitches.