I love this little machine! It's become my favorite over my Babylock Rachel because of how smoothly it runs. It sews straight where my BL tends to move to one side. I paid more than double this machine's price for my other machine, but when it had to go in for maintenance I needed a backup. My inexpensive backup machine has become my preferred! Having said that it is a pain to clean out the lint compared to my other machine and I wish it had a serpentine stitch. But altogether this is a great machine for piecing and I like it for simple straight line machine quilting too.

Very easy to use.
Great for our crafting projects.
This would make a nice first machine for a beginner.
It's very quiet 🤫

It helped me sew straight and the button hole maker was amazing. I made buttonholes for our linen shower curtain and it it was so easy and fast to use. I love the speed up or slow down physical sliding scale.

Hope you get plenty of use out of this machine (it wasn't cheap). Sews very nicely and smoothly.

I should start this by saying that I'm not a professional seamstress by any means. I know how to sew, but I'm still basically a beginner. But sometimes it helps to hear how easy or difficult a sewing machine is for someone who isn't as familiar with all the features.

I love that this machine is heavy weight and that most of it, aside from the outside cover, is made of metal. It feels very well made like something that will last. Janome has a good reputation for that.

It's easy to load up bobbins with thread and as long as you have the bobbin pushed all the way down, the thread won't go under it and wrap around the metal part it sits on. It will automatically stop when it's full. The drop-in bobbin loader is easy to use and it's easy to use the thread up/down button to get the main thread to grab the bobbin thread. My only issue with the bobbin in that the clear plate that goes over it doesn't always pop up when you slide the black button. I have to push down on the top left corner to get it to come off. Not a huge issue, but annoying.

The auto threading feature is useful but you need to know to do it slowly. That isn't mentioned in the directions so I watched a video online to figure it out. If you let the threader pop up too quick, it either won't grab the thread or it will only grab bits of it and shred it. So, raise it slowly and it will easily thread the needle for you. And getting the thread down to the needle is very easy as the thread only has to wrap around the different parts instead of going through anything. After you do it a few times, it's very easy. And I didn't have any problems with the thread getting pulled out of the needle if I didn't hold onto the loose threads before starting to sew. Just make sure there are a few inches pulled out and push them to the back, behind the plate. Then just start sewing. There is a handy thread cutter on the side so it's easy to pull your material out and immediately cut the thread. The distance of it from the needle leaves a proper amount of thread out to start sewing again.

Sewing is easy and you can adjust the speed to your comfort level. The pedal isn't too sensitive or not sensitive enough -- it's just right. I will say that the pedal should be heavier. It's very light and can get flipped over. I might try to glue something on the bottom so it will stay in place better. There is also a stop and start button on the front that you can use in lieu of the pedal. I haven't tried really heavy fabric, but it sews well through cotton until you get to parts where you have seams that have several layers of fabric. With four layers of fabric, I have to carefully pull the fabric through so it doesn't get stuck. It's not that hard, but it does make a bit of a ca-chunk sound when I have to do that.

There is a decent light over the sewing plate, but I still have an LED light next to my machine that really illuminates that area. I might get another light to put on the underside of the machine to light it up better. It helps to be able to see what you sew.

You can pull off part of the bottom to sew hems or sleeves. There is a hidden spot in that piece to store stuff, but not a lot.

One of the most useful features is the locking stitch. It's stitch 01 and it will automatically make a forward/reverse/forward stitch about a centimeter long at the beginning when you start sewing. Then, when you get to the end, push the reverse button and it will automatically do the same at the end. And now it's reset to do the stitch at the beginning of your next sewing pass. There is also a button to add a locking stitch anywhere you want. It stays in the same spot and just adds about 4-5 stitches. This saves so much time so you don't have to reverse stitch at the end of every pass to keep things from coming undone.

As for the number of stitches, it's great that there are 100 to choose from, but I will probably only ever use 10 of them. There is a card with all the stitches so you can see what they all look like, but I don't do a lot of decorative stitching in my work yet. The different buttonholes are very useful, though. You can choose different stitches using the computer panel on the front. It's fairly simple to use, not a lot of buttons. The display is big and easy to read.

Finally, the main thing I look for in a sewing machine is that is just works and doesn't get stuck or the thread doesn't get bunched up all the time. This one passes that test. Once you have the tension set to where it works for the fabric you are using, it will stay and things will work fine. I did discover after some frustration that if the thread is bunching up on the bottom and changing the tension doesn't work that you have loaded the bobbin wrong. It's very important to wrap the thread around the outside part of the bobbin like it shows in the directions. That will fix most tension issues. Beyond that, I did find that when the bobbin gets really close to running out, there is a chance the thread will get tangled and bunch up. I think it just loses the thread tension on the bobbin and comes out at the wrong tension. You end up having to cut a wad of thread out from under the material to get it free. This doesn't always happen at the end of the bobbin, but about 25% of the time. Not sure how to fix that so I really try to keep an eye on the bobbin and take it out when it's almost empty.

Overall, I really love it. It's heavy and feels well built. It stays put on the table but is easy to put away in the cover/bag that came with this bundle. For a beginner, this machine has a lot of features that make sewing easier and lots of other features that I will use and appreciate as I get better -- a good machine to grow with. One thing that would make it better would be for Janome to make some good instructional videos. The manual is pretty complete, but there are some things you just need to see. For the price of these machines, they could certainly afford to do that. I searched YouTube to find videos specific to this machine and there aren't that many. And Janome mostly has basic sales videos, not tutorial videos. So, hopefully they will add more of those in the future because this is a great machine and I'm excited to learn about all the different features. Definitely recommend.