14-Day Learn to Sew Series - Sewing Machine Basics

Before we can learn how to sew, we have to learn how to use our sewing machines. So let's learn a little bit about how to use a basic machine. Now sometimes in my classes, you'll see me sewing on big, fancy computerized machines and those are really great, but for this lesson, I'm going to use a little bit smaller machine, my little Passport machine because it's probably a little bit more similar to what most beginners are gonna be sewing with, and it's a good little machine. So we're just gonna go over some of the basic parts and how to thread it, how to put a bobbin in, all that good stuff. So I'm gonna start on the end where the power cord is. So most machines have a power cord and they may have a separate cord for the foot control. Now, my foot controller is on the floor but when I push on the foot controller, that gives the machine power and I can use that to control the starting and stopping of my sewing. Okay, above the power cords and the foot control cord is a round object called a hand wheel. Now, this turns. So there's basically an axle that runs through the machine or a drive shaft that runs the machine that turns when the needle is going up and down. So if I actually turn my hand wheel, I can see my needle bar going up and down. And there's times when you want to be able to go ahead and move your machine through its paces and you can use the hand wheel to do that. All right, now let's look on the top on the machine. So this machine has a spool pin, this is a spool pin, this is where your thread goes. This one can either be horizontal or vertical, and you're going to use that depending on the type of spool or maybe even a small cone that you're using, whichever position is going to feed the thread better, that's the one you want to use. There's certain knobs here that have to do with the threading path and you're going to see that in action when I go ahead and thread this machine, but there is a dial here on the front of my machine and this has to do with the thread tension. So this little thread tension dial, it's adjustable and five is the standard setting but I can increase or decrease my thread tension, and what that means is inside here where the thread goes through the path, there's actually two discs that squeeze together and that's what creates tension on the thread which helps to form the stitches, and so there's times when you need to adjust that but usually it's set in the middle. All right, so again, we have our threading path on the machine which I'll introduce you to when I thread this but now, let's go ahead and look at the front of the machine. So the front of the machine usually has some sort of user interface and it may be extremely basic as in actual physical push buttons, it may have dials, it just depends on your particular machine, and you're going to want to look in your sewing machine manual to see what all the functions are. On this machine, again, I have a little card here on the side that I can pull out that tells me what all my stitches are. Now, I happen to know that 01 is a straight stitch and 02 is a different type of straight stitch. So I can punch that in and this is going to set my sewing machine for that stitch. I want to go back to regular straight stitch, I can just put in one. All right, so next to it you have the ability to move, this function here, let's me move my needle to the left or to the right. So different needle positions, left or right, and so you have the ability to move your needle side to side and again, this is gonna depend machine to machine, it's going to vary a little bit on what options are available to you, but that's fairly common to be able to move your needle. Now, it may not be as many steps, it may just be all the way to the right, all the way to the left, what have you, it just depends on your machine. I also have the ability to lengthen the stitch or shorten the stitch and again, this may be a dial on your machine. Every machine's a little bit different, but you should have an ability to adjust your stitch length somewhere on your machine, so you need to find out where that is. All right, there's some other functions that are a little bit more specialized. On this machine, I have the ability to set the needle down so that the needle always goes into the down position every time it stops, that's an option that some machines have. I have the ability to restart a stitch at the beginning of a decorative pattern. And again, these other buttons here just are for me to select my stitch, that's just how it works. Now this machine, it has a speed control. This little level here allows me to adjust how fast my sewing machine will stitch. Of course for me, I'm a pedal to the metal kind of girl so it's always cranked all the way up, but there are times when you want to sew slowly and you can set this down, or when you're first beginning, if it's a little scary, just turn the speed down if you have a speed control. Now down here on the front, I have the ability on this machine to start and stop using a button instead of a foot pedal, so that's what this is for. But every machine has some variation of this and this is the reverse button. So when you need backstitch, which you learn what backstitching is , when you need to backstitch, there's a reverse button. Now on some machines, it's actually a lever you push down, there's various ways to do a back stitch but on this machine, it happens to be a little button. All right, so down here we have our needle bar. You can see that go up and down if I move my hand wheel. Now, there's no needle in it right now and there's no foot either and I just did that to give myself more space. I'm actually going to insert a top stitching needle. Now, some machines need you to use a screwdriver to loosen or tighten the needle. Now, this needle just goes up into this needle clamp here. So there's a needle clamp and then there's a screw here on the side that I'm tightening with my fingers. It has little grips on it to make it possible for me to do that. So there's my needle inserted, and when I insert this needle, I always make sure that the flat side of the needle goes to the back of the machine, so it's pointing away from me. That's very important. You also want to make sure that that needle is seated, it's set all the way up, and they make little needle holders you can use if that's hard to do with your hands. I'm fairly used to it so it's not so bad. This machine has something a little different and it has something called dual feed, and this brand, that's something that they're known for. This is something that can be engaged or disengaged, it's like a second set of feed dogs up top. So you may or may not have that on your machine as well, but your machine will have, no matter what brand it is or what style it is, it will have feed dogs here underneath the sewing foot. I don't have a foot on yet, but underneath the sewing foot, there are feed dogs and this is what pulls the fabric through the machine. And somewhere, chances are you have the ability somewhere to actually drop those down. In this machine, it's in the back. So there's a lever in the back that when I push down that lever, it actually dropped the feed dogs below the surface of the machine. So if I was doing free motion quilting or embroidery, I could drop those feed dogs and when I re-engage it, when I turn the hand wheel, they'll pop back up into place. Now, a lot of machines have the ability to pull off this cover and that allows you to use this part of the machine as a free arm, and this makes it easier to sew say sleeves and things. We're just gonna slide that back on. Now on some machines, you're gonna have the bobbin case is going to be in this area here. It's gonna be a front loading bobbin and there's a little case that you pull on a little hinge and it goes straight in, you want to make sure it's locked in place. This happens to be a top loading bobbin, so it works a little differently. And when I put the bobbin in, you'll be able to see how that works. All right, so let's go ahead and let's thread our sewing machine. So first part of threading is I'm going to need a bobbin. I do not have a bobbin wound in this color, so I'm gonna want to make sure that I do that. I'm actually gonna set my pin down at an angle here. So go through this first guide here and then I make a loop, according to my diagram here, around this little device, and this puts a little bit of tension on my thread to go over to my bobbin. Now, here's my bobbin. Now, this bobbin can go in either direction, but some bobbins actually will have the brand name on them and if there's a brand name, usually you make sure that that's pointed up, that that's on top. I'm just going to, there are holes in this bobbin I can pull my thread through, but I'm just going to wind it several times around it to get it started, and then when I push the bobbin towards this little white spot here, the front of my machine is now blinking SP, and this means, basically, special program and so that means it's ready to wind a bobbin. That's just particular to this machine. Again, your machine is going to do things its own way and you need to look that up in your manual. But I've actually turned my speed down because you want to wind a bobbin at slow speed if at all possible, it's just the best practice. That way, the thread doesn't stretch on the bobbin and create too tight of bobbin tension, and because I can use a stop/start button, I'm just going to do that. We're going to start winding our bobbin. Sometimes the bobbin doesn't start winding right away, you need to give it a few more wraps. I also like to stop if I had a big thread tail and sometimes give it a trim if I need to. So now my bobbin is winding. And again, I like to do this slowly. That lets me watch my thread flow, make sure that it's flowing smoothly. I can hear it clicking, it's not real thrilled about coming off on that horizontal position but we're gonna just go with it, it's not too bad. So once I've wound my bobbin as full as I want it, I can go ahead and stop it. Click to disengage the bobbin and I'm going to go ahead and snip the bobbin thread and set that aside for just a moment. Now I'm going to go ahead and thread my machine for stitching, and I think it didn't really care for being horizontal, I'm gonna make it vertical. So again, I'm gonna go through this first guide. Your machine, look at your manual, it should have a threading diagram, but all machines thread approximately the same way whether it's this machine or my machine that's a lot fancier, it's all kind of the same in that you'll have some sort of guide here, not too far from your spool pin, and then usually there's a second guide somewhere toward the back. Now, I'm about to go through the tension discs and the take up lever, and when we do that, on some machines, you're gonna thread from left to right, on other machines, you go from right to left, so it just depends. Again, look at your machine. And one thing to make sure is when you go to thread through the tension discs and the take up lever, you want to make sure that the foot position is up. So on this machine, there's a lever right here and I raise and lower that to raise and lower my foot, and I want to make sure it's in the upward position because that will make sure that my tension discs are open, and you want your tension discs to be open when you're threading to make sure that the thread will be seated in the discs properly. All right, so let's go ahead and go down through the tension discs, and that's this first groove here. We'll go down and around and up. Now, this metal here, here at the top of my machine, you can see a little arrow going upward, this is my take up lever and if I move my hand wheel, I can get it to pop up a little more obviously, but all machines have a take up lever like this and that's part of the threading process. So generally, you're gonna go down through your tension discs, and again, whether it's left to right or right to left, down through your tension discs, around the bottom, and up through the take up lever, and then straight down. Once you get down to this point, there's usually some sort of a guide here and then there'll be one right above your needle. Again, this is something that's very universal. This machine happens to have a little needle threader, which yours may or may not have, and this needle threader just has a little hook that you can use, if I get it through the eye of the needle, there we go, has a little hook that, if it hooks onto the thread, will just pull a little loop to the back of the needle and you can pull it through. They do make, of course, regular handheld needle threaders that you can use. Now, I don't have a foot on this machine. I'm going to go ahead and place a foot on the machine, and this is a regular straight stitch foot. So I'm just gonna snap that on there, and my needle thread I'm gonna just put to the back of the machine for now. Now, I need to go ahead and put my bobbin in the machine. And again, your machine may have the bobbin load from the front or from on top, there's two different types, and it's been this way for a very long time. So this is a little bit more modern invention to have a top loading bobbin, and it's nice 'cause it's easier to see how much thread you have left. So with this bobbin, I make sure that my thread is basically going, as it faces me, my thread is going counterclockwise because I know for this particular machine, that's how it goes for the correct tension. And that goes through a tension guide here. There it goes, I was thinking it was further up but it's right here. It goes through this tension guide here, up and around this guide right here, and then this little holder cutter here. So let me just show that one more time just in case it wasn't clear. So when we insert our bobbin, you want to make sure that the thread is wrapped in the correct orientation. Now for this top loading bobbin, my thread is basically going counterclockwise, but if this was a front loading bobbin, it might go in a different orientation. So you to need to, again, check with your manual to make sure that you're doing the correct orientation. So on this there's a guide right here. Comes around, there's another little guide here, and then it finally catches this little job right here. So this bobbin has a little plastic case that just snaps down, and then to open it, I just pull on this little lever here and that opens it. But that is how to load that particular bobbin. So once my bobbin is loaded, I do like to go ahead and pull the bobbin thread to the top. So here's my needle thread, I'm going to turn my hand wheel until I can pull up and get that bobbin thread to come up. So that bobbin thread came up as a loop onto my machine there, and then I can pull both threads toward the back of the machine. All right, so I just popped that bottom loop up and of course, I'm just going to do a little quick test. Here's a couple piece of scrap fabric now, I always like to have scrap fabric available. So I'm gonna put my foot down and just go ahead and sew a few stitches. Just make sure that everything is actually working, and my stitches are forming perfectly so it must be threaded correctly. If they're not, that gives you an indication that they're not done correctly. All right, so before we quit our little basic sewing machine lesson, I do want to spend a moment to look at feet, sewing feet, real quick. So sewing machine feet are fairly universal. So there's the same kind of feet available for basically every brand and model of machine. In fact, when I looked through the feet for my 1880's treadle sewing machine, I was amazed I could pretty much recognize all the feet even though that machine is, what, 140 years older than most of my other machines? So they're pretty universal. Now, some of them might look a little different. When you look at this selection of feet I have here, because the machine I'm using has dual feed, there's this weird notch cut out of the back. So that's a little weird but other things are fairly universal. So I'm gonna start with this straight stitch foot. Now, a straight stitch foot is a straight stitch foot because well, that's what it's designed for. So just like there is basically a needle for everything, there's a foot for every kind of stitch and every kind of fabric. So what makes a straight stitch foot a straight stitch foot is that it's usually completely flat across the back. You can see it's just a little groove here behind the stitch head, there's a little groove, and it has markings on it that are handy for doing straight stitching. But there's just that little groove compared to ... This is a foot designed for working with zigzag stitches or decorative stitches. Do you see this big tunnel here? So there's a big groove whereas this foot is completely flat across the back. This one actually has a cut out and that is so that your zigzag stitches can flow underneath the foot without getting caught. So if you're sewing a zigzag stitch and it's getting bunched up, it's not flowing through your machine well, chances are you are using the wrong foot. So make sure your foot has a tunnel like this on the underside and that's what you're supposed to be using for your zigzag or decorative stitches. There's just a few others. So this is another example of a decorative stitch foot. On this machine, there's no cutout because it's meant to be able to slide a little bit more than what the IDT would allow, the dual feed. Okay, this is a zipper foot and this is a really funky looking zipper foot. Some zipper feet are long and narrow. So just ignore this part on the back and we'll just look at the part in front. Most zipper feet have a notch on either side and that is so that when you put it on the machine, the needle can be on the left position or right position, and if you have the ability to move your needle to the left or right, this foot lets you stitch really close to things like a zipper without the foot getting in the way. And so most zipper feet have, again, a cutout to the left and the right. The foot itself might be adjustable to move left or right, if it's for an older machine, if the needle doesn't move, the foot itself is designed to move. In this case, it's designed for the needle to move, but this foot, when it goes on the machine, is offset left or right and then you can move the needle in the position you want. This is another foot that is handy to have and it comes with most machines, and this is called a blind hem foot, and this has an adjustable guide, this one happens to be adjustable, a lot of them are, and this little red tab here is adjustable, you can move it to the left and right, and that is a great foot not only for sewing blind hems, but also for when you need to edge stitch along something. You can move this guide and then move the edge of your fabric against it and that really helps make it easy to do top stitching. So those are just some little basics on how to thread your machine, how to wind a bobbin, and how to stitch.