Wether you have just started sewing or you're a beginner sewist.
I find there's always things that we come across about a sewing machine
that are just like secrets to us, and we didn't know.
So this video is a little bit of fun, and I've got five different sewing secrets
that maybe you didn't know about, but will definitely help you
use your machine better.
If you haven't heard of these, let's see how many you have heard of.
Sewing friends, welcome back.
I'm really excited about today's video.
If we had just meeting welcome my name is Evelyn Wood
I’m the creator VintageSewingSchool.com. Here on this YouTube channel.
We are going deep dive into
how to create your own garments, how to sew the very best
garments, the ones that you really dream of in your mind.
So with that comes knowing your sewing machine, of course.
And I've got five tips for you today, as I said, and I find that these aren't
like necessarily secret secrets,
but they're secret because sometimes you just don't know about them.
I can't tell you the amount of times that some of these ones, particularly
a couple of them, that when people hear them
and they see them for the first time, they just like, you know, the mind blowing
emoji and maybe let's do that, leave a mind blowing emoji.
You get that feeling through here on the
some of these that they're just like, How did I not know this before?
Like, it didn't click.
Some people have been saying for 30 years and say, How did I not know this?
So let's see how many of these you know and how many new ones you can add
to really help your sewing, because understanding your machine that we use
and knowing how to use this better will make you like will give you
better garments instantly when you know how to use your machine better, right?
Yeah. Okay.
The first one is your zipper foot it is not just for zippers.
I know.
I bet a lot of you obviously know this,
but if you're new to sewing, you probably didn't realize yet.
Or know or see or hear, but your zipper foot,
That's that one with the single shoe down here,
you can use this for so many different things.
Mostly they all have to do with guiding fabric through
so you can pop it on and say if you’re top stitching
or your edge stitching, or you want to sew really close to something.
You actually gives you one side that you can see and then you can follow along.
And it actually gives you a guide, something to follow.
That's a lot easier
sometimes than your full regular foot when it was covered on either side.
So your zipper foot is a very, very useful foot,
I find I'm changing to and from it all the time.
And it has nothing to do with a zipper, so don't be fooled
by the name of this foot comes in many, many useful times.
Mostly for guiding for edge stitching when everyone sew really close to
something can be super useful to get a better view
of what you're looking at and use the actual foot the shoe as a guide.
Now remember, if your like mind blow, mind blow emojis, I want to see those down below.
I actually keep tabs of how many you know
and which ones were new to you and put them will tally them up
and we'll put them in the comments at the end. I'd love to know.
All right.
This one I remember I didn't even know this for ages
when I was starting to sewing.
And when it finally clicks in, you just.
Wow. All right. Are you ready?
Let me know if you know.
So you know how when you pull your threads some time
and they just seem to be stuck and they won't move and they, you know,
and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
There's no mystery about it.
It's that when you lift your presser foot,
it actually releases the tension in all of your discs here on your thread.
So it actually releases them and it allows you to pull
through your thread with ease, actually releases it.
So let's pull this here, right?
And then if I put my foot down,
it won't move, right? It's stuck.
It's literally now stuck because when you lift it up,
it releases the tension. Right?
I know this one is mind blowing to a lot of you
thinking that there was a mystery to this.
Why does sometimes it work and sometimes it doesn't and I can't pull the threads.
Your foot must be up any time that you intend to pull those threads out.
Yeah, I know that one's a lifesaver for also stopping thread jam, etc.
So if you didn't know that one, that one is a great one.
Okay.
Next secret is that well,
did you know that you can use your hand wheel to sew with
so you don't actually have to put your foot on the pedal and go, go, go, so to say.
You get to any spots, you can literally use your hand wheel
and usually it's always towards you to go forwards.
You can just sew with your hand wheel and just wind it round
and round and round, it’s super slow of course.
But that's probably the point
when you get to really thick areas if you want to, fine.
If you're starting and stopping from a particular point
and you just want to handwheel it down one or two stitches,
you can just do the whole thing.
Like if there's a whole tricky seam, you could just do this right.
I know it's one of those things that when, when I know when I was starting
and I realized I could do that was so good because it took the stress of getting
all those really difficult areas when I knew I could just hand
wheel it down to stitch by stitch, nice and easy, comfortable.
Yeah, I know, right?
So, yeah, you can do that. It's, it's a thing.
You can do it, I promise.
All right. This one's an interesting one.
If you're a vintage machine lover, you may already know, but maybe you don't.
If your sewing machine does not have a reverse function.
So, you know, most obviously, all modern machines
have a reverse function, but a lot of vintage machines don't.
Or maybe it breaks one day or something, right?
How are you
lock in your stitches at the end.
Really easy.
You do it the way that they did before that there was actually reverse stitching.
It's really easy.
So let's say you want to start a seam, right?
And we come up here as normal.
What you'll do is you actually sew down
those first few stitches as you normally would instead of reversing.
What you do is you lift up your foot, move your fabric back
to where you started from.
Be careful, because it might get a little bit tight, only do a few stitches
and then sew over the top of these are again.
And so when you're finished here, what you're left with
is a double double over stitch, just like a reverse.
And it's nice and strong and it won't come apart.
And there your seam is now locked in and it will not come apart.
And you didn't even need to use the reverse on your sewing machine.
Now, a word of warning.
I wouldn't do this on modern computerized machines
that are have the reverse function
because they're probably just like throw off the timing, etc.
in them. They sort of calculate it like they have that feature.
Why would you need to?
But the older machines will love doing this.
Okay, now long time viewers here will already know this one
because I've shown you how to do this before.
But did you know yet that you're supposed to clean your sewing machine
and that this metal plate here comes off?
So when we first start sewing,
this is like, I had no idea I was supposed to clean it.
Right? Let me show you
if you've ever wondered what that little brush was.
But it comes with your machine.
This is why you're supposed to get in here and clean out all the fluff
and keep it nice and clean and tidy because fluff accumulates
and your machine will not like it.
I have made videos here on sewing machine maintenance, but
I highly recommend if you're using know like learning this for the first time,
you go and clean your machine.
Now it is something that you need to do regularly, so make sure that you do that.
And hopefully that wasn't a secret.
And you have been cleaning your machine regularly
because it will definitely love you for it when you do.
Okay, now for the fun.
Let me know in the comments below
which one were the mind blowing ones for you learning for the first time?
Which ones did you already know?
Or even better yet, are there other little secret things
that you found that sort of, you know, secret
that I didn't mention that you think that we might not know or I might know?
I would love to hear those to read the comments down below, of course,
because there'll be hopefully some extra tips for us.
And I'd love to see which ones you did and which ones you didn't in the comments
or my sewing friends until next time happy sewing, bye.