Why hello there!
It’s me, your favorite Professor Pincushion.
Today, we’re going to talk about sewing machine troubleshooting and how to maintain
your sanity.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been here….
Oh you little
[Goat Noise]
I'm so
[Elephant Noise]
mad right now
[Boat Horn]
Oh, my! Loved ones may want to stay out of the room for those moments.
So if your machine is acting up, grab a cup of calming tea and let’s talk about what you
can do to have a better relationship with your sewing machine.
The good news is that, most of the time, machine problems are caused by user error and not
because the machine is broken.
The bad news is that you have to figure out what that error is and sometimes it takes
awhile.
Always have plenty of your fabric scraps available so you have something to test on.
Ok, so for me, the first thing I do when my stitches are just looking awful, I take out
all the thread and rethread the machine.
It’s very important that you thread your machine exactly how it’s shown in your manual.
If it’s been awhile since you’ve used your machine, give yourself a refresher.
Even though I’ve threaded my machine a thousand times, I still make mistakes and a lot of
times rethreading can easily fix the issue.
While threading, make sure the needle is in the highest position and with the presser
foot is up.
After you finish threading, gently pull the threads and they should pull through without
a struggle.
If it’s really hard to pull through, chances are you did something wrong.
You should also take a look at your bobbin.
Your thread should be on your bobbin so it looks neat and even.
If it looks like this one, you might have issues and might want to redo the bobbin thread.
Also, if you’re almost out of thread, sometimes that gives me issues as well.
When putting the bobbin in the machine, you’ll also want to make sure you’re threading
it correctly, so check your manual.
One thing that can really affect your stitches is the needle.
A bad needle can give you skipped stitches and broken stitches.
Even if the needle seems fine, there could be something wrong with it.
The rule of thumb is that you should replace your needle at the beginning of a new project.
If you’ve been using the same needle for a year now.
Shame, shame and that’s probably what your problem is.
An old needle, a bent needle, or a nicked needle is going to give you problems.
When all else fails, replace the needle with a shiny, new one.
You also want to make sure you’re using the correct type of needle.
There are different needles made for different types of fabric and fabric weights.
Using a sharp needle on a knit instead of a ballpoint, could affect your stitches.
Check out our Sewing Machine Needle video for a more indepth look at this.
Next let’s talk about tension.
On my machine, I have upper thread tension, lower bobbin tension and also the presser
foot tension.
The thread and bobbin tension affect how tightly the upper and lower threads are locking together.
If the thread tension is too tight, it creates puckering or thread breakage.
If it’s too loose, the stitches can look like a hot mess and won’t hold the fabric
pieces together well.
Check out our Sewing Machine Thread Tension Video if you need help with this.
The presser foot tension controls how much pressure the foot is putting on the fabric.
You don’t want it to press down on your fabric too hard or not support the fabric
at all.
With all tension, it’s about finding the balance.
We have a tutorial on Presser Foot Tension which can help you out, if you need help it.
We can’t talk about stitches without talking about thread!
Are you excited that you picked up a garbage bag full of thread for a quarter at grandma’s yard sale?
Well, that might not have been a great bargain.
Believe it or not, thread does have a shelf life.
If it’s too old, it might break easily.
You also want to use good quality thread in your sewing machine, not the cheap stuff in
the bargain bin.
Cheap thread is cheap, but it might be leaving a bunch of thread fibers in your machine.
This starts to build up and it could affect the machine’s performance.
Show your machine love and spring for the good stuff.
Not only can thread fibers go inside the machine, as its racing through all the hooks and discs,
but you’re also getting fabric fibers in the machine when you sew, especially in the
base of the machine.
And we’re not even talking about general dust from just sitting around.
Have you ever opened your machine and saw all the little dust bunnies in there?
Yeah, it’s disgusting and it could be the source of your problems.
What can you do about it?
Watch our sewing machine maintenance video to learn how you can do some of the cleaning
yourself.
You can also watch our Sewing Machine Cover tutorial to make a handy cover to keep the
dust off.
Is your fabric not feeding through at all?
Check to make sure that you didn’t accidently put your feed dogs down or check that your
stitch length isn’t at a low number so it seems like it’s hardly moving.
Do you get a thread nest at the beginning of your seams?
Make sure that you hold your thread tails for at least a few stitches.
Otherwise, if you don’t hold them, they sometimes get sucked back into the machine.
Have you done everything and your fabric is just a pain in the neck with puckering?
Try stabilizing the fabric by cutting a strip of tissue paper and putting it between the
fabric and foot.
It works like magic and then you can tear the paper off after your seam.
If after all this, you still can’t get the machine to work properly or it’s making
some kind of horrible racket, take it to a professional.
Find a local sewing and vac shop and schedule a sewing machine maintenance for a full tuneup.
You should be doing this once a year.
And it doesn’t matter if you used your brand new sewing machine once and then it sat in
a closet for the next five years, it might still need that tuneup when do you finally drag
it out again.
I hope this helps and, remember, let’s not take a hammer to our sewing machine, but instead
try to love and understand it!
Happy Sewing!
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