Welcome back to independent verification. My name is Andrew Esquivel. Today we're going
to be reviewing the Brother XM2701 sewing machine.This review is for those of you who
have little to no experience using a sewing machine, and thus you don't really want to
spend a whole lot of money on what would ultimately be your first ever sewing machine. I'm reviewing
it in that perspective because that's the situation I've found myself in, which is why
I got it. Let's be clear, there are plenty of machines out there that are of way higher
quality than this one, have a ton more features than this one and are subsequently way more
expensive than this one. That's not why people like me get this. I
got it because it's cheap and it does the basic work that we need it to do. There's
nothing fancy about it, and that's okay because that's what it's meant to do. That's what
it's here for, to just do basic work on fixing parts of your clothes that maybe need to be
hemmed or maybe there's a tear that needs to be sewn shut. Nothing fancy. That's exactly
what this does and it does it pretty well. It's been about 15 years or so, give or take,
since I've barely touched a sewing machine. During that time, I've completely forgotten
how they function, how to set one up, or really even use one properly. That's how I feel comfortable
saying I'm really coming at this in the perspective of a total newbie. You know what? I'm happy
to report that it's not hard to figure out. Most everything is labeled in which order
things go where when you're routing the thread through things and getting it set up. It's
pretty self-explanatory actually. Brother provides instructional videos which is something
I didn't have 15 years ago. Figuring it out really is something that pretty much anyone
can do. One thing to remember is that this is not a tutorial.
There are plenty of other people on YouTube who have made fantastic videos on how these
things work, the insights, and how to manipulate the machine to get the best results out of
whatever stitch you're trying to do. The reason why I'm showing you the machine at all in
this angle in this case is because I really do want to emphasize how stupidly simple this
thing is to figure out. Everything is labeled that tells you exactly how to do it in what
order and how things go where they need to go.
When you're trying to wind everything up, set the thread to go to the arm that goes
up and down, and then goes into the needle and everything. It's very clear how everything
goes and how to spool up a bobbin, which is another little thing that goes down in here
and how to set that up. It's all there. As long as you can interpret the insrtructions,
which again, someone who's not used a machine in over 15 years.
Again, I didn't use this machine, they've apparently changed a little bit since I had
worked on stuff involving them back when I was younger. It's easy to figure out. Instead
of just repeating all the things that any other YouTuber with way more experience with
sewing machines could say about this particular one, let me just show you something that I've
done with the machine in the real world. Actual examples which involves my work pants.
Get a load of me. These are some very basic stitches that have been done. Obviously, I
am very far from the work of a professional seamstress. Well, you know what, as a utilitarian
stitch to hem these things up, it did a pretty good job. The reason I'm showing you this
case in particular is because it's not just some thin fabric that everything had to go
through to make these particular stitches happen.
This is fire hose canvas and I folded it twice. That makes a total of four layers of tough
heavy canvas that the machine had to go through perfectly every time it needed to make a stitch.
Some cheaper machines out there have problems going through big amounts of layers like that.
To throw an even tougher situation at it where you have thick heavy canvas, well, all I can
say is I'm pleasantly surprised that it was able to do what it was able to do.
I was able to hem up my pants a few inches because they were definitely too long and
it was easy. It was really easy. In fact, there's actually one thing that I want to
talk about on this thing that really makes it easy. Now, I just want to take a quick
moment to appreciate this nifty little mechanism that they've included that helps you put the
thread through the eye of the needle. This thing comes down and then you turn it
and it locks into place and right here is a little hook that goes through the eye of
the needle and you just basically wrap the thread around that hook and it pulls it up
and through. Oh man, that is an incredible invention in my eyes. I remember when I was
younger having to thread the eye of the needle by hand, it was always such a pain in the
butt. Now, of course, what review would this be
if I don't actually show you the machine working? I got a random piece of, well, fabric. This
is canvas, not super thick canvas, but canvas nevertheless. We're just going to quickly
sew through it, just a quick utilitarian straight stitch. Put it in there, drop the foot. Of
course, turn it on and when you do, a nice little white LED will light up the work area
that you're using. Let's get one stitch going by hand by turning
this little crank. Then we use the foot pedal. If you're used to driving a car, this really
shouldn't be all that much different, and we just gently feed the fabric through. We're
not pulling it because it just moves a little bit for you. We'll go down and go back a little,
forward a little, and we'll just pull it and break the thread right there. Scoot to the
side and let's take a look at what I have just done. Zoom in real nice and close for
you guys. This is the stitch that I just made. Now,
it would have been better if I'd taken my time and I wasn't just all over the place.
That's honestly, that's user error. [chuckles] Still just a quick little thing. Let me get
the camera to focus here. Quick little straight stitch. Again, as long as you get some practice
in, you'll get those those stitches a bit straighter. If I try to pull on the stitches
here, yes, I can't get it to separate, so it's a good strong stitch.
Now, obviously, there are plenty more stitch patterns and tips that you can do with this
machine than just a simple straight stitch. I'm not going to go over all of them because
there's 27 different things to select here. It's not just the stitches that have things
you can select. There's components that it comes with to help you with every sort of
various scenario and some of those things are feets.
Now, these feet serve different purposes for different types of stitch work. That's a bunch
of these. I'll be honest, I haven't tried any of these because I haven't needed to.
Honestly, this goes beyond the scope of what I got this machine for anyway. I imagine there's
a bunch of you who if they get this-- I imagine there's a bunch of you if they do get this
will probably learn a lot more than I have, use it a lot more than I do, and get more
satisfaction out of it because the fact that matters is, at the end of the day the machine
costs around $100. I believe I got it on Amazon for about $87 before tax. When you think about
it, all the pants and clothes that I have been able to mend together instead of throwing
out, well, this machine has already paid for itself.
The work pants that I'm wearing right now sell for about $70 alone. Instead of having
to buy a new pair of pants when something rips or tears, saving myself what might be
a $70 expense to replace those pants by just doing some simple stitch work on this machine.
Is the machine perfect? Probably not perfect. There are some things I'm sure that could
probably be improved upon, but in my experience as someone who really hasn't worked with these
machines a whole lot, I'm really quite happy with it. That's basically where the story
ends. I'm someone who doesn't know anything about this stuff. Just got it because I figured
it would save me money, and it did. You know what? I'm satisfied. It does the
basic things I need it to and for a basic machine, i wouldn't ask for much more than
that.