How to Wind a Bobbin Correctly Every Time

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Duration:   5  mins

Learn tips for how to wind a bobbin correctly every time, including how to hold your thread, what speed to wind at, and what a good bobbin should look like.

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Sewing Basics for the Beginner

After you first learn to sew, one of the next steps in learning how to prepare a sewing machine is learning how to wind a bobbin. Your machine may have come with a couple prewound bobbins, but that will only last you so long. ZJ Humbach shares with you several tips for how to wind a bobbin. She starts by showing what a general thread path from the thread spool to the bobbin will look like. All machines are a little different, so she recommends consulting your machine manual for the exact thread path, but in general the thread needs to go through at least one tension loop.

ZJ explains how you can hold the thread in place lightly if you find that it comes out of the tension loop while winding. She then shows how to thread the thread through the small hole on the top of the bobbin and hold it while you begin winding. While winding a bobbin, ZJ explains what speed you should wind a bobbin at and why, and how to tell what your machine is doing by listening to it.

Bobbins—How to Wind Them

After winding a bobbin, ZJ shows what a correctly wound bobbin should look like as well as what a poorly wound bobbin can look like. She also explains how the bobbin should feel and how a poorly wound bobbin can cause tension problems, bird’s nesting, thread breakage, and poor stitch quality. When it comes to sewing, there are so many parts of a sewing machine involved in the process, and knowing that you have a correctly wound and inserted bobbin can help eliminate many problems people run into while sewing.

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6 Responses to “How to Wind a Bobbin Correctly Every Time”

  1. Patricia Hotchkiss

    I have a bobbin winder which saves me from having to disengage thread, etc. I do know that the featherweight folks recommend only winding bobbins using the sewing machine. What are your thoughts, experience with bobbin winders?

  2. Lois

    Really informative video. Thanks

  3. Donna Bradley

    My bobbin never winds evenly. According to mfr there’s a screw on the part that holds the thread on to the machine. I can’t find it, any thoughts?

  4. GERI

    I notice a lot that the thread does not wind completely top to bottom. What I have always done is to guide the thread over my finger so that the thread goes up all the way snd down all the way. Have you done it that way when it doesn't wind correctly up and down?

  5. Eileen Franco

    My bobbin won’t rewind.

  6. Karen

    Is the reason a bobbin does not wind evenly because of going to fast. Mine seems hit and miss. Thank you,

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