Which is the best machine for free motion stitching on felt and nunofelt?
My students often ask me which machine I consider the best for free motion embroidery on felt. Even so I can’t give an ultimate advice , I hope my return of experience stated in this post will help if you, too have the same question.
First of all - free motion stitching on felt is special
Free motion stitching on felt is awesome because you don’t need to fix it in an embroidery hoop. This makes industrial or handmade felt the best material to start free motion embroidery with.
But be aware that you probably need to choose a different kind of machine to stitch on felt than what could work for “thin” materials. Of course there is thin felt too, but free motion stitching even becomes more fun the thicker the material is. Especially high quality and sculptural felt is very dense and can easily be several mm thick. That’s why I recommend a robust machine for felt embroidery!
Avoid first price machines
When I wanted to try out free motion stitching for the first time, I didn’t wanted to invest a lot of money and just bought one of these no name machines that you can find on promotion at a discounter for less than 100 euros. Finally the machine brook after less than two hours of use! The engin just overheated and exploded (very strange experience, believe me!). Better avoid this kind of machine!
Embroidering on felt, especially thicker and dense felt, needs a robust casing and a strong engin.
My most favorite machine ever
After my disappointing first attempt and on advice of friends and retailers I finally decided to buy a very expensive machine - a special quilting machine: the Bernina 500 QE.
I never regretted this choice (also it burned a huge whole in my purse)!
I love my Bernina! It makes stitching on felt easy and smooth. As it is especially made for quilting it’s very heavy so that the machine doesn’t start dancing on the table while stitching!
Another great advantage: the needle height can be adjusted, allowing to work on felt up to 8 mm thick!
The hick: this kind of machine is in a price range of 2000 to 2500 euros.
If you don’t use it professionally and just want to do some embellishing, this might be not the machine you are looking for. And that’s not all! As it is a electronic machine you will pay regular maintenance fees (if you aren’t married to a handy husband ;)).
Less expensive alternatives
As the Bernina 500 QE is expensive and fragile, I hat to find alternatives when I started teaching free motion embroidery on felt in my studio. First I bought some second hand Bernina machines from the 50ies and 70ies in a price range of 200 to 250 euros. These oldies are very heavy and therefor perfect for free motion embroidery. As long as they are running smooth this kind of machine is probably the best solution. However I often have to deal with issues due to the age. As I’m really not good in mechanics, this bothers me a lot. There is always at least of my “oldies” in “repare” mode.
Brother Inovatis 15 a great price-performance ratio
It’s a student of mine who introduced me to the Brother Inovatis 15. I was immediately seduced! Impossible of course to compare her to the beautiful stitching of a Bernina but in it’s price range this machine is awesome!
I bought mine for ~250 euros a few years ago. It’s the favorite machine of my students and in several years I never had a major issue with it.
The only problem: you can embroidery only on felt that isn’t thicker than 2 to 3 mm.
Last but not least: the Bernina 1008
For thicker materials I recently added a new Bernina to my stock: the last mechanic sewing machine of this brand - the 1008. It’s not as comfy as the 500 QE of course but it has a nice stitching and goes smoothly though thicker and denser materials.
The great advantage - it’s less expensive and more robust. Perfect for beginners!
Conclusion
The choice of the machine depends on how much you want to invest and on which kind of felt you want to work. May be there are better machines but this is my experience and I hope it helps you to choose the perfect machine for you!
Have fun with embroidery on felt!