I wind my own bobbins. A stand-alone bobbin winder came with my Innova and it does a great job of winding quickly and perfectly. I use both poly and cotton threads, but mostly poly since it is less linty and has a nice sheen. I had some lessons with purchase of the machine (mostly just understanding how to operate it), and since then I have taken a couple of Craftsy classes, read lots of books, watched videos on YouTube, etc.