New to sewing and machine has a fault - advice?

[StickEmWithThePointyEnd]

I'm going to borrow my MILs sewing machine to practice on but she has warned me that the tensioning button is missing.

How much of an issue is this? I don't really know anything about sewing yet so I can't judge how hard it will be to use with this button missing.

it's a pretty big issue....the tension is what makes the stitches even...when mine is wrong, the stitches are all messy.

You need to ask whether the tension is set ok, and if there is any way of changing the tension ie could you use a pair of pliers to turn what's left of the button.

You need to try out the machine with a piece of spare fabric to test the tension. The tension is how the top and bottom threads relate to each other. If the tension is too high or low then the stitches won't be evenly balanced. Hopefully the tension will be ok, otherwise there are sewing machine shops who can service and repair the machine.

Thanks for the replies, I'll ask her everything you've advised me to find out when she drops it off. I don't know what make it is at the moment but when it gets here I'll do some research to see if its worth fixing (I'll probably end up coming back here to ask you all ). All I know is its an old machine she has had for years.

it's pretty hard.
ask her to get it serviced and the tension button replaced.

otherwise you'll only be avle to sew one kind of fabric!