Thread tension and all that stress that comes along with having your stitches not look pretty
is the number one reason my technical phone rings.
People are always wondering what’s going on with tension.
So today we’re getting to the top and the bottom of tension.
Follow along.
Now if you think you’re having problems with your tension whatsoever of course the
first thing you’re always going to want to have happen is a clean, well oiled machine.
We’ve got a video for you on that.
A fresh needle is always a good idea.
But we want to do a test so I’m coming over to my sewing machine.
I first thing I’m going to do is I have black thread in the top and I have white thread
in the bottom.
Whatever you’re doing make sure you have different colors of thread so that you can
really tell what thread is not behaving well.
And now as we sew I’m not only going to listen but I’m going to look and I’m going
to feel as well as we go.
So I’m going to be quiet and we’re going to put our ears on the machine.
So everything sounds good.
I’m not hearing any lumps or clumps or thumps.
And as I sew to the end of this I am going to go ahead, oop, and lay this down here for
us.
As I said, we have the black thread in the top and the white in the bobbin so let me
flip this over so you can see because I want to show you the differences of some of the
tension situations.
So let’s start with no tension whatsoever.
I left this out here to remind myself.
The pink thread was actually in the needle.
So the yellow thread is the bobbin.
So look at all this pink thread you see here.
That is from the top thread, the needle thread, not being in tension whatsoever.
So I either, the person who was threading that machine, that was me of course, had the
presser foot down.
So they threaded on top of the disks.
So when we’re threading and unthreading the machine we always have the presser foot
in the up position our tension disks are wide open so the thread falls into the tension
disks.
So I did this on purpose by threading the machine incorrectly.
I had the tension disks closed and the thread sitting on top.
Sometimes it just misses and doesn’t end up where it’s supposed to.
That can cause that too.
This you know because it’s the one that sounds like loose marbles inside your sewing
machine when you’re getting started.
And it’s frightening and it’s jammed up.
So hopefully none of you have seen this but I think we all know what that is.
The other tensions are almost more of a feel kind of a tension.
I’m rubbing these with my hands and lelt’s point this out real close if you’ll come
in.
Now as I flip this back over, this tension right here was one that I really liked.
It’s nice and balanced.
And I can feel that it’s laying in my fabric on both sides.
The one next to it looks kind of similar to the naked eye but I can really feel how loose
the upper tension was so the black thread was loose on the top.
This white thread from the bobbin I could cut it right here and I could probably just
pull that right out.
Now these other two tensions here you don’t see any of the black whatsoever.
The stitch is very definitive.
But when I flip it over you can see the white up on the up side or the top of the project
which meant that my upper tension was too tight.
So the first step is doing a test with multiple colors of thread.
Different colors of thread so you can see which thread is too tight and which thread
is too loose.
Once you determine if you’re having that situation now I want to walk you through the
troubleshooting on how to make those adjustments.
So check this out, we’re going to start with the bobbins.
Ok now follow me into the bobbins.
But I have to remind you we’re just looking for baseline tension.
Most bobbin tensions you won’t need to adjust.
Your dealerships may tell you you shouldn’t.
I’m telling you you should know the difference.
So first of all let’s start with our drop in bobbin.
This drop in bobbin case came out of my standard Baby Lock machine.
This is the bobbins you find on the top of your, your sewing machine basically.
This bobbin case, if you look really close, that is the spring right in there behind that
green paint that would have allowed us to turn that screw.
So the manufacturer set this bobbin tension correctly.
And then then went ahead and they tightened and glued that down.
So what I’m trying to say is there is no real adjustment you can make in the standard
drop in bobbin case.
Some machines you can buy an adjustable bobbin case for drop in.
The work around or the fix is if you feel like your tension is running tight go to a
lighter weight thread.
If you feel like your bobbin tension is running loose, and a lot of us use bobbin fill, bobbin
weight tension or bobbin weight thread I should say, it runs very fine so if you’re in a
drop in bobbin you might want to use a standard 40 weight thread instead of those bobbin fills
which are like a 60 and they’re finer.
So the work around on the bobbin is about testing your thread weight not about the actual
spring in the bobbin case.
Now a lot of us still have a wonderful old style front load or side load locking bobbin
case.
This is what it looks like from the front.
It’s got that little lever that we hang on to.
It’s going to load into the machine like this.
So this is a non-top-loading style bobbin case.
And they’re on the older style machines but they’re also on today’s new modern
sit down quilting machines like on the Jane or the Brother 1500, the Juki or like our
wonderful big 16 inch sit down machine.
So listen very carefully I’m going to show you the tension adjustments on this but there’s
two different kinds of bobbin cases we’re talking about even though they look very very
similar.
So the first thing we do on both style bobbin cases is we hold the bobbin or bobbin case
so we’re looking at the bobbin.
And we pull on that thread.
And as we pull on that thread I want to just see it going clockwise.
So if it’s going clockwise, the bobbin is in the bobbin case correctly.
And on my samples here, just to point out, I keep talking about the baseline, the bobbin
tension being the baseline.
What I’m trying to say is the bobbin is set correctly.
So on all of my samples my bobbin was good.
I’m going to teach you the top adjustments here in a second.
We want to, we want to get this perfect and know how to do it so we can keep playing with
our top tension.
So the bottom is our baseline.
And the first thing is it’s going clockwise.
A lot of the new bobbin cases, especially on our machine quilting machines they prevent
and have what’s called a backlash spring.
So if you look in here there’s a little metal spring I’m pushing against.
And when the bobbin goes back into the bobbin case, what happens is that bobbin now has
a spring load to it.
So when the bobbin gets pushed in and the bobbin case gets pushed in and locked into
the machine.
As you’re quilting fast the bobbin will be spinning and as you stop we don’t want
it to keep spinning to causing extra stitches and problems and extra something.
So a lot of machine quilting machines have them and a lot of other machines don’t.
Look for yours.
Find out if you have a backlash or check spring in there.
And if you do because it adds tension when it’s in the machine not on the table your
adjustment will be this.
We’re going to pick up our thread and our bobbin.
And I could lift the bobbin case up but I can’t get it all off of the table.
I’m pulling the thread out and it’s not lifting the bobbin case or just slightly lifting
the bobbin case off of the table.
And then the bobbin case falls back down.
Now if you did not have that check spring in here, so if you don’t have something
inside of your bobbin case like this, you probably learned the old yo-yo adjustment.
And that’s not just an adjustment made by myself, yes I’m a yo-yo of course.
But the yo- yo adjustment would be if I’m holding my thread and I bounce it, it should
come to a stop.
This one did not because it’s set for the check spring, right?
So what you’re going to do is you’re going to take a small screwdriver or your fingernail
will work if you don’t have beautiful nails.
The small screw, don’t touch it, it’s going to take it all apart.
Don’t touch it.
The big screw or the bigger of the two small screws is the one that we can adjust.
We can add about a quarter turn of tautness to that spring.
And now I can lift the bobbin case all the way in the air.
But as I give a little bit of drop I could actually feel that bobbin slide down maybe
a half to quarter of an inch but it definitely came to a stop.
If I wanted to loosen it up I would just put that screwdriver in there and I’d loosen
it back up slightly.
Give it the yo-yo test.
And now you could probably see it dropping a few inches.
So we get our bobbin case whether it’s a drop in or a front load, side load style bobbin
case and bobbin all under proper tension first and then we go up and we start looking at
what is causing tension issues in the upper portion of the machine.
Check this out.
A lot of us have tension systems we can’t even find on the upper portion of our machine.
This particular one on the Baby Lock, the tension disks are hidden deep inside of here,
right?
But it has a dial that controls the upper portion of the tension.
This dial ranges from zero to nine.
So anywhere from like three to five is going to be that constant upper tension, that tension
we really want.
Some of you have a push button tension and a digital tension.
Now follow me over to my Jane, of course I love this machine, but I want to point it
out.
This has got a fantastic old fashioned external bobbin, or excuse me, external tension system.
You see all the parts on the outside.
So as I’m lifting my presser foot you can see those actual disks right there.
Those open and close.
That’s why I’m always saying you always thread the machine with the presser foot up.
When the foot’s up the tension disks are wide open.
It also has this little check spring.
And this little check spring, that’s one of those parts that’s in the machine that
if it gets bent or damaged you really can’t replace it or repair it yourself.
You have to get it into a service tech to get that taken care of.
And you’ll know when that’s gone wrong because what’s going to happen is you’re
going to have erratic stitch quality.
Instead of a bunch of loose tension or a bunch of tight tension you’re going to have tension
that’s all over the place.
And a lot of times the culprit is that check spring on the, on the bobbin, excuse me on
the upper tension, whether it’s on the outside or the inside of the machine.
So the first thing that happens with our upper tension is they get clogged.
They are dust.
They get fuzz inside of them.
And the way that happens is a lot of us will go ahead and cut our thread but we pull our
thread up.
So the two things I want you to do always when threading and unthreading your machine
is we’re going to lift that presser foot lifter up.
That goes ahead and opens all of our tension.
And we’re going to cut our thread.
And we always take our thread out in the sewing direction.
And that keeps all the lint coming out.
Now imagine this, let’s say you had a piece of thread that’s as thick as my pipe cleaner
here.
Let’s call that a 30 weight thread.
And you had a size 100 thread that’s as fine as my little blue thread right here.
If your tension disks were set up so that when this closed, it was designed to squeeze
nicely on a lightweight thread.
And you went ahead and you had a thick, thick thread inside that same tension disk.
And you cranked that down, there’s no way I can even pull that through.
So you want to be thinking about what weight threads you’re using and that’s why we
want to be able to really have that dial travel from zero to nine.
And that’s the other reason we have the baseline tension set in the bobbin, so we
can make all of our adjustments on the top.
If you are trying to test and make sure it works, here’s the easiest test.
Have your machine completely threaded.
Have your presser foot in the up position.
Begin pulling on your thread as it comes out of the eye of the need.
Lower your presser foot and all of a sudden I always yell, Fish on.
Look at that needle wiggling back and forth.
If I pull any harder I will break the thread at the eye of the needle.
So right now I can confirm that my tension disks and my tension springs are opening and
closing.
It was loose with the foot up.
Tight with the foot down, ok?
That doesn’t mean it’s working properly, it just means it’s working, right?
The proper test is to put in the two colors of thread.
And to run your tensions and see if your threads are really locking together.
If you feel like you’re not getting a squeeze, if you feel like it’s not working properly,
that’s another time I take a pipe cleaner.
I might even put a little bit of machine oil on it.
And I’ll go ahead and I will floss that back and forth through my tension disks, whether
they’re external this way.
Or if it’s internal and come in here with that presser foot up, I can floss through
those disks.
This is one of the reasons that all of us sewing educators always talk about using good,
good quality thread.
Crummy quality thread will leave a bunch of lint in there.
And waxed thread will actually leave a wax coating inside of the tension disks.
And it’s very difficult to clean out, probably needs to be done by a pro, ok?
So we want to make sure that that is completely clean and functioning and then from there
let’s come down to our samples again and talk about this with a little bit more detail
and we’ll wrap it up for the day.
This particular first series of stitches here, remember I said I could pull that white thread
out well that meant that my top tension wasn’t tight enough.
So if I want it to be any tighter, let’s say I’m starting on a four, I’m going
to go to a bigger number.
I like to make like full number adjustments.
So I’m going to go from a four to a five which should cause that black thread to pull
tighter and pull the white thread more into the body or lock the stitch into the body
of our project.
Earlier I pointed out that the white bobbin thread was showing on the top of the project
which meant that my top thread was already too tight.
So in that situation I would have gone from a four down to a three, ok?
Another way that we can loosen our tension like that is again different weights of thread
or the point that my brain just stopped on, you saw that happen, I know you did.
The wider the stitch you’re going to make, the looser you want your upper tension so
that that thread can flow nicely on a zig zag or a satin stitch.
So we want to balance our tension, make sure our machine is properly functioning so that
when we get into our decorative stitches or our topstitches our fun threads, our embellishment,
we have control over all of those awesome supplies we want to be able to use while we’re
making awesome creative stuff.
So hopefully that solves a little bit of the mystery between the upper and the lower systems
of your tension.
Hopefully it’s not causing anymore stress.
Don’t pull your hair out.
It doesn’t work very good with sewing thread.
And please keep dropping those comments below.
Let me know how I can help you be more successful while you’re watching Man Sewing.