A. Boston Say: brother CS6000i aus
A complete sewing novice……., 2007-10-25
This review is for: brother CS6000i aus
I once tried to use a sewing machine when I was around 14 and into altering my clothes. Honestly, I think I almost blew up the darn thing. I had borrowed it from my grandmother and I don’t know if it ever worked again. At that time I vowed NEVER to touch a sewing machine again(I easily get frustrated when things don’t work out the way I plan). Well, about 13 years later, I decided I wanted to make a quilt out of old band t-shirts. I had planned on sending them away to a professional company, but could not justify the $400-500 price, and someone said “why don’t you do it yourself?”. Never one to turn down a challenge, I decided to give it a go. If I “blew up” another machine I would know I’m never meant to use one.

I read a lot of reviews on amazon, because frankly, I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I knew something that was ‘user friendly’ and good for a beginner. Beyond that, totally clueless. I remembered the Brother brand being good, and I liked the look of the machine. Not too many knobs and buttons and I can totally work with digital. The fewer things I can manually break the better. I also didn’t want to go all out on price, but get something moderate so that if I did end up enjoying it, I wouldn’t have to immediately get a better one. So, with these ideas, I finally decided on this machine.

And I’m EXTREMELY proud to say, I made a quilt/blanket my first day. No, it wasn’t perfect, but I got the machine running and found it pretty easy to figure out. I started slow and really paid attention to the manual (which is rare in my case). Granted, some of the terminology is like reading japanese, but some staring at the diagrams in the manual helped me to figure it out as well as making a couple phone calls to see what threading the bottom and the top meant, did I need to do both? Apparently so. I even know what a bobbin is now. =)

I’m just finished my 2nd quilt, a T-shirt one as a first go before doing the important T-shirts. I also made a case for my nook e-reader! I’ve ordered some ‘complete guides to quilting’ to get a better idea of things, but I am confident this machine will work well for me. I think the light it has is fantastic, I could easily get busy in a darkened room and see what I was doing. Once you get the hand of threading it’s easy to remember. The speed button works well, it can go very slow if you’re unsure and speed up as you become more used to the machine.

The only thing I don’t love is, and maybe there’s a trick to this I haven’t caught onto yet…..is that I end up JAMMING as much blanket as possible under the arm to try and finish things in the middle of the blankets. I wish there was more room between the body of the machine and where the stitching happens. I’ve fiddled a little with the different stitches, which is really fun. I still don’t know what the tension is, but I guess I’ll figure it out as I go along.

If you’re a beginner like I am, I would definitely recommend this machine. It’s a fun new hobby and not nearly as daunting as I had thought it would be. Happy quilting!

K. Beshears “Randa’s Mom” Say: brother CS6000i aus
Thank you Plein Jane!, 2007-03-12
This review is for: brother CS6000i aus
I bought this machine after reading the review by Plein Jane. What a great machine! It was so much fun to work with after my Singer (which sort of fell apart after only three small quilt projects). This machine has all the functions of the $1000+ Janome that I’ve been drooling over for a couple of years. For someone like me who cannot afford to spend that kind of money on a machine, and for those who can, this is the machine to buy. The only thing that could make it better is if it will work for me for many years. UPS needs to be more careful in shipping. The box it came in was pretty beaten up.

12-3-2010 UPDATE: Almost four years and many quilts/projects later I still LOVE this machine! I can’t believe how it still works like it did the day I bought it. I noticed that someone gave it a bad rating based the bobbin case and the comment left on that one by someone else was dead on. This machine does not like cheap thread, but why would we want to put all that time and money into a project and use cheap thread anyway? If you’re considering this machine I highly recommend it. If I ever wear mine out I hope Brother is still making them because I’m going to want another one just like it.