Today's sewing machines are a lot different than when you took Home Ec in high school. "Sewing machines today have become very easy to use. They've become very intuitive,"says Kathleen Huddy, Textiles Director, Good Housekeeping Institute. "These machines have no-brainer instructions printed right on the machines themselves for threading and creating a bobbin."

Good Housekeeping looked at five different machines in the beginner category price point, and used 10 different fabrics so experts could see exactly how the machine would perform on every type of fabric. The Euro-Pro Shark was a big hit with testers who'd never sewn before.

"It's very simple to use. You just turn the knob to get to the different stitches," says Huddy. "It tells you the stitches on the front. The threading is on the machine also. It has an extension table so that when you're ready to do larger projects it'll be there for you."

The Brother CS6000i also did well in the tests. "One of the wonderful things about this machine is that if you are starting a project, such as a button hole, and you put it together incorrectly, the machine will do an error message and that will prevent a huge mistake on your fabric," Huddy explains.

Interestingly, Americans spend more than $1 billion a year on sewing and knitting products. To learn more, check out the October issue of Good Housekeeping or visit www.goodhousekeeping.com.