
Sewing Essentials Session 2: Understanding Your Machine
Ashley HoughDescription
Knowing how to use your sewing machine is one of the most important parts of sewing. Ashley will walk you through all of the important parts of a machine found on most models. She will also explain threading the machine, winding the bobbin and give you tips to make your first sewing practice go smoothly.
Sewing machines can be a little bit intimidating. Whether you've gone out and bought one or maybe you're borrowing one from a friend, let's go over a little bit about the important parts in the machine. Now you might be looking at this thinking well, mine looks nothing like this. Well, that's okay, I know there's a lot of different styles out there, a lot of different brands, and they all have little features here and there. Some that are brand-specific and some that just have things in different areas.
What I'm gonna go over today are all of the basic parts that you'll find not only on this machine, but on any machine out there because it's what's required to actually make the sewing machine work. And they're the important things that you need to learn about the machine before we really get started. So we're gonna start in this general area over here. We have first thing is a presser foot. Now a presser foot is what's going to press down on your fabric and as it goes through your machine.
Now I have just a regular presser foot on my machine. You can get a variety of different presser feet for your machine, and your machine will actually come with some specialty ones that I'll show you in a little bit. But in general, your machine should just come standard out of the box with a regular presser foot on it. Your presser foot will be up but you can lower it, and you will need to lower it before you start sewing. This can be done either by a button on the front of your machine or a lever located in the back or on the side.
Your machine will not sew if your presser foot is up. So if you have everything in place and you're trying to get it to sew and nothing is working, make sure your presser foot is down. Located underneath your presser foot are what's called feed dogs, and this is what feeds the fabric through the machine. So they sort of go in a little circular motion. They're going to grab your fabric, and they're going to pull it through the machine.
And then go down and grab more fabric, pull it through the machine, and that helps you get an even stitch as you're going. So you wanna make sure that your feed dogs are working. Now if maybe you've borrowed this machine from somebody and you sit down to sew, and everything is working but the fabric's not moving, there is a lever located somewhere on your machine that will turn those feed dogs off. Now this is found on different places on any machine. Mine is here in the back, and it's just this little lever here that I can move back and forth.
And this will either engage or disengage those feed dogs, So if you notice that they're not moving, find your lever, it's either on the back. Maybe on the front or the side. Usually somewhere near the bottom of your machine and make sure that that hasn't accidentally been pushed to disengage those feed dogs. Also back in the same general area here, we have what's called a throat plate. And this is a metal piece that's going to protect all the inner workings of the sewing machine.
It's where the feed dogs come out from, and it's where your needle will go down into. Now there are specialty throat plates that you can buy meant for certain types of fabric, but your machine will come with just a standard throat plate. And in many times they will have markings on them or lines on them like these. These lines are what you can help line your fabric up with while you're stitching to get accurate seam allowances. It's a good idea to get familiar with the lines on your throat plate so you know when you line your fabric up with one of those lines, what kind of seam allowance you're going to be getting.
Also down here, we have our bobbin. Now your bobbin can be either a top-loading bobbin like this one or a front-loading bobbin. And there are benefits to both. If you want to be able to look in and see your bobbin without having to take anything off of the front of your machine, then the top load is what you want. Sometimes I find the top load can be a little bit easier to just drop your bobbin in as well.
But again, your bobbing could be a front-load. And then there'll also be some arrows that show you where your thread needs to go when you're putting your bobbin in place. Again, that could be a little bit different depending on your machine, but there will be some sort of arrows to indicate how you need to put your bobbin and your bobbin thread in place. And then there is some sort of cover that goes in place to protect your bobbin. So those are all the important features right here on your machine.
Really close to down here we have on the side, we have our thread cutter. Most machines do come with some sort of way to cut the thread. That could be either with this little... It's a little knife down in there that you just put your thread through. Or yours might be super fancy and have a little button you push that automatically cuts the thread.
But there will be a way to cut your thread on your machine. Next, we're gonna move over to the side here and how we actually operate our machine. So I have my foot pedal up here. Normally this would be down on the ground because I'm operating it with my foot. But this is how you use your machine.
Works just like a gas pedal. The more you press it, the faster your machine will sew. If you just barely press it, it will go really slow. When you're just starting out with sewing, I would recommend starting at a slower pace. You want to make sure that you are in control of your machine, and it's not just grabbing that fabric and going.
So start at a slow pace, and you can do that using your foot pedal. You can also do that using what's called a hand wheel, that's right here. And this operates the machine just like your foot pedal does just much, much slower. Now what you wanna remember with your hand wheel is that you always wanna be turning the hand wheel towards you. That will make the machine work just like it would if you were using the foot pedal.
If you go away from you, it puts everything in reverse and you might mess some things up. So just always make sure that you wanna be turning that hand wheel towards you. Now we're going to move to the front section here of our machine. And this is one area that definitely differs depending on the type of machine and the brand of machine. But in general, this is the area where it's going to show you what stitches you have on your machine, as well as give you the option to select those stitches.
Mine as you can see has a little screen that I can select stitches one, two, three, however many I have. Yours may be a dial, or it might be an actual touchscreen where you go in with a little stylus and select your stitch. You will also have the ability to change your stitch length, as well as your stitch width. Again, that could look a little different on your machine, but it will be found somewhere in this area. Just above this area, we have where the actual thread and everything is going to go onto our machine.
Normally if you just get your machine right out of the box, you're gonna have this tiny little thread spool. And you're thinking my thread is never going to fit on there. Usually just pull them right up and you have plenty of space there to be able to put your thread on. You will also sometimes find another small hole in the top of your machine. And this is where you can put an additional thread spool if you're going to use a twin needle.
Also up here is where your bobbin will go if you need to wind your bobbin. So as you can see, I would put my empty bobbin on here, I'd have thread. And then it shows you on the top of your machine here little pictures. Now this picture is showing me how I'm going to wind my bobbin. I can see that it's numbered.
Well, there's number two, but I need to go and find number one to see where it starts. So you can see over here on my machine, I'm gonna come from my thread. Follow number one, two, three, four. So your machine will really try to give you as much information on it as you need to be able to do the basic functions like threading and winding your bobbin. So whether your bobbin can be wound straight from your spool of thread here through the top of your machine.
Some machines allow you to thread your bobbin straight from the needle, and you just pull the thread up and bring it right to here. So figure out which way that your bobbin needs to be wound because at some point, you're going to run out a thread on that bobbin and needs to do that. But it should be somewhere up here in this area. Move a little further over, we have a little dial on the front of our machine. And this is a tension dial.
And you will want to adjust your tension depending on the types of fabric you're sewing. Generally, I keep my tension somewhere in the middle. So if you see this dial. This can go all the way up to an eight, all the way down to a zero. So if I'm just sewing cotton fabric or something that's a medium-weight fabric, I'm gonna keep my dial right about the middle.
And your machine will kind of give you these lines here, tell you generally you're gonna be somewhere between a three and a five. When you purchase a machine straight out of the box, it will probably be set somewhere in the middle. So if you wanna just leave it where it's set and try it out that way, that's what I would recommend doing. Also up here in this front area, we have some other buttons and levers located on the front of our machine. These also differ from machine to machine, as well as brands.
But they will usually either tell you what they are or give you some sort of picture to show you what they are. So you can see here, I have a little light next to what looks like different kinds of stitches. And that's because my machine is set up to do stitches. If I were to press here, it lights up next to the alphabet which means that I am now ready to stitch the pre-programmed letters I have in my machine. So you wanna make sure that you're set up for straight stitching, and yours might have something similar like that.
Just below that, we have a little lever. And this little lever has different arrows. This is what will help me adjust the speed of my machine. So one arrow is pretty slow, whereas three arrows is as fast as it will go. If I have my lever all the way down here at just one arrow, that means I can floor my foot pedal but it will still only go kind of slow.
If I bring it to two, that means I can still floor my foot pedal and it'll be at a medium speed. All the way up at three means if I floor my foot pedal, it is gonna go as fast as this machine will sew. So if you aren't comfortable regulating the speed with just your foot pedal alone just starting out, maybe set it on the absolute slowest that your machine will go. That way you can go ahead and just press the pedal all the way down and worry about figuring out your machine this way before it comes to regulating the speed of your machine with the foot pedal. Also next, we have a needle, and you can see a little line.
And it's showing the needle is going below that line. That means that's the needle down function. If you imagine that that little line is my fabric, that means that I'm going to stop with my needle down in the fabric. That'll come in handy when you're sewing if you need to stop and you don't want your fabric to shift. You'll wanna stop with your needle down in the fabric.
Now if you just always have that engaged and you have your needle down, and you're done sewing and you can't get your fabric out from underneath your presser foot, make sure that your needle is up. That way you don't break your needle trying to pull your fabric out. If that's a little bit tricky and you don't wanna worry about using the up or down function, again you can always use your hand wheel to move where your needle is in your fabric whether that is up or down. You will have another button that looks similar, something like this where it's showing a little U-turn. That just means reverse.
You're going to do a lot of either backstitching or backtacking at the beginning and ends of your projects, and we'll get into what that means in a little bit later. But that's how you sew backwards. You also might have something on your machine that will light up if you have any sort of issues or indications, sort of like an error button. And that can be located anywhere on your machine. It might light up red if you have maybe...
Maybe your needle broke or maybe you have a jumble of thread in your bobbin. You'll have some sort of button that will light up to sort of tell you that you have an error. So these are all of the basic parts of a sewing machine. Now again, your machine, they might be found in a little bit different areas. But in general, all of your needle, your bobbin, your presser foot, all of that is the same on every machine.
You're going to have to have that in order for it to operate. As far as how your needle is threaded, how your bobbin is wound, and where your stitch selector is at, they should all be over on this side of the machine but that might vary a little bit. So I would recommend whatever machine you're using whether you borrowed it from a friend, maybe have that friend show you how to use that machine. Or if you just bought this machine, go ahead and get your machine manual out and really make sure that you're familiar with all the basic parts of your machine. Now when you just buy a new machine, it's gonna come out of the box and you're gonna have a fun little bag full of things.
And a lot of times you might just set this bag aside, and you may never even look in it. But it does have some useful things in it, and a lot of the fun accessories that come with your machine come with most machines. So if you just dump yours out, we're gonna go over some of the things that come with most machines. So first thing is some sort of screwdriver. And you may be thinking well, I'm not gonna do any maintenance on my machine.
If it breaks, I'm gonna take it to someone. Well, there are certain parts that you will actually wanna use your screwdriver on. And this comes in when you're changing a needle. You actually have to unscrew to loosen that needle. Sometimes that's done, you can do it just with your fingers.
But if it's on there a little extra tight, you may actually need to use your screwdriver to get that loose. Your machine will sometimes come with a seam ripper also just in case you have to remove any stitches that may have gone awry. It will come with that extra thread spool that we were talking about that goes in that extra hole on the top of your machine for if you are going to be needing two spools of thread for a twin needle. That's what this will look like. Your machine will also come with some needles.
Come in little packets like this. These are just universal straight needles. You can see this is just also a regular needle, and then it will come with your twin needle. So it gives you all the things that you will need to be able to start out sewing. And then you'll have this little plastic piece here, and you might not know where that goes at all on your machine.
But say you have your bobbin, and you want to store your bobbin without your thread coming unspooled. That's what that little handy thing is for. It's so you can throw this bobbin back in the bag. And when you go to get it out next time, you don't have to worry about being all unraveled. So will come with a little clip like this for your bobbin.
And it will also come with some sort of attachment for doing button holes, buttons and button holes. And yours may look exactly like this or it may look nothing like this. And this is the time where you might have to refer to your manual as to how to use your button and buttonhole attachment. Mine is one that actually allows me to put a button into my foot, and then I can use that as sort of a size gauge for how long I may need my buttonhole to be. But again, yours may look nothing like this or something like this.
So check your manual on that. And then if your machine is in some way a specialty machine. So in my case mine is a standard sewing machine, but it also comes with quilting features. Therefore it comes with a couple quilting accessories. I have my quilting foot and a little guide to help me do some straight lines.
So if you have some tools that don't look like they fit with just regular sewing, it might be because maybe your machine has some embroidery capabilities, quilting capabilities. And that might be what those extra little pieces look like. So you may need to consult your manual on that. And we also have another tool here, and this also helps with being able to change your... Whether it's your presser foot or your needle, anywhere you're going to need a little extra help if you can't undo things with just your fingers.
So when you get your machine, dump out your little bag, see what all it comes with and get familiar with all the things that go with your machine so you can really be confident using your machine. I mean, if you're just starting out with sewing, you don't want one of your first sewing experiences to be frustration because then you never might come back and pursue sewing more. So make sure you're really comfortable with your machine and all of its parts. I'm gonna go ahead and get this cleaned up. And then we're going to come back and talk about some of the needles and thread that we'll be using in our machine.
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