What are the most important things to look for when purchasing a sewing machine?

Answer 1

First you need to know what you want to do with it. Are you going to use it for personal use or business? Clothing or crafts? You may want a heavier duty professional machine if you're starting a business or a personal use machine if you're only sewing for fun.

What stitches you need depends on what you want to sew. Basic machines have fewer options. Usually a straight stitch and a zig zag are bare minimum. As you pay more you get options like automatic button holes and more decorative stitches. You need to have some idea how much you need. Personally, all I *need* are the straight and zig zag but I love the auto button holes and use the decorative stitches only occasionally. But I mostly sew clothes.

You can check out machine reviews and recommendations here: http://sewing.patternreview.com/ You might also look at http://www.epinions.com/ for reviews from actual users.