How can i use my sewing machine

When the bobbin has been wound, place it in the bobbin cage below the needle on the lower half of the sewing machine. Sometimes the bobbin simply drops in the bobbin case is built in. In this case it is important to pass the thread through a small notch at the front of the case and then pulled to the left. Leave the end of the thread outside. It will need to be brought up through the hole in the needle plate after you have threaded the top thread.

Follow the link above for detailed instructions on winding and inserting a bobbin. Thread the sewing machine. The spool of thread resides on the top of the sewing machine, but must be unwound and attached to the needle.

To do this, take the thread and pull it through the thread guide at the top, and then down and around the takeup lever. There should be small numbers and arrows printed on the machine showing the way in which to thread the machine.

You may also be able to follow the guides printed on your machine. Usually, the thread follows this general pattern: "left, down, up, down, into a hook, through the needle. If it is already threaded, that is a clue to the direction; if not, the last thread guide before the needle, is located nearest to the direction from which you must thread the needle. Get both threads out. Hold the needle thread taut, and towards you in your left hand.

Now pull up on the needle thread that you are still holding with your left hand. The bobbin thread was caught when the threaded needle went down and up and is now looped over the needle thread. Pull on one side of the loop to bring up the bobbin thread tail, or just release the needle thread and pass a pair of scissors between the presser foot and plate to pull the looped bobbin thread out.

You should now have the ends of two threads, one from the needle and one coming up from below from the bobbin. Plug the machine in and turn it on. Many sewing machines have a built-in light, which is often a good way to tell whether there is power to the machine. The power switch will usually be on the right side or back of the machine, if there is one. Some machines don't have a separate switch, in which case they're turned on as soon as they're plugged in. Place the pedal in a comfortable spot under your feet.

Part 3. Select a straight stitch and a medium stitch length. Consult your manual for how to do this on your machine. On this machine, stitches are set by rotating the lower knob on the right side of the machine until it clicks into place.

Always set the stitch with the needle up and out of the fabric, since it may move the needle. A straight stitch is used to sew most seams. The next most common stitch is the zigzag, usually used to prevent edges from fraying.

Practice on some scrap material. Choose a simple, woven material, not a knit one, for your first sewing experience. Don't use a very heavy fabric for your first attempts at machine sewing. Denim and flannel can be hard to sew because they are too thick when several layers are piled together.

Line up the fabric under the needle. Sew with the bulk of the material to the left of the machine; crowding the bulk on the right side can cause messy stitching.

Lower the presser foot onto the fabric. There is a lever behind or to the side of the needle assembly that raises or lowers the presser foot. If you give the fabric a gentle tug while the presser foot down, you'll feel that the machine grips it pretty firmly. While you sew, the machine uses a feed dog under the presser foot to advance the fabric at the correct speed.

There's no need to pull the fabric through the machine; in fact, pulling can bend the needle or damage your project. You can adjust the speed and the stitch length on the machine. Hold the loose ends of both threads. For the first few stitches, you'll need to hold these ends to keep them from retreating into the fabric. After you've stitched for a short distance, you can let go and use both hands to control the fabric and the machine.

Press the foot pedal. The foot pedal is your speed control. Just like the gas pedal in a car, the harder you push it, the faster you will go. Push it slowly at first, just enough to get the machine going. Your machine may have a knee bar rather than a foot pedal.

If that's the case, use your knee to push it to the right. You can use the balance wheel on the top, right side of the machine to get the machine spinning or to move the needle by hand. The machine will advance the fabric automatically away from you. You can "steer" the fabric in a straight line or a curve by guiding it through the machine with your hands. Practice sewing in a straight line and try sewing some curves.

The only difference is how you guide the fabric. Do not force the material or pull the material while it is going under the needle. This can cause the material to stretch or the needle to break, or the stitches to clog up in the bobbin. If you feel like the fabric is not moving fast enough, press the foot pedal harder, adjust the stitch length, or if you must buy a faster machine.

Find the reverse button or lever and try it. It reverses the direction that the machine feeds, so that the fabric travels toward you as the machine sews. Often, this button or lever is spring-loaded, so you must hold it down to sew in reverse. At the end of a seam, sew a few stitches in reverse back over the last few stitches you just made.

This finishes the seam and helps keep it from pulling out. Use the hand wheel to move the needle to its highest position. Then, raise the presser foot. The fabric should pull out easily. If the thread pulls back when you try to remove the fabric, check the needle position.

Cut the thread. On many machines, there is a small notch on the back of the post that holds the presser foot. You can hold both ends of the thread and draw it down over this notch to cut the thread. If you don't have such a notch or you would like a cleaner cut, use scissors to trim the thread. Leave a tail extending from the machine for your next seam.

Practice sewing a seam. Pin two pieces of fabric, right sides together, near the edge. You can sew a single layer of fabric and might do so to stop an edge from fraying, say , but since the goal of most machine sewing is to join two pieces of fabric, you should get used to sewing with a couple of layers and pins.

Fabric is pinned right sides together so that the seam allowance will end up on the inside. The "right" side is whichever side of the fabric you will want on the outside when the piece is done. On printed fabric, it is generally the side with brighter colors. Solids may not have an obvious right side. Place the pins perpendicular to the line where the seam will go. You can sew right over straight pins, and still remove them later with no damage to the machine, the fabric, or the pins. It is safer to remove pins just before stitching reaches them, as accidentally striking a pin will break, or at least dull the needle.

Avoid sewing over the heads of the pins, however. While you're looking at the fabric, notice which way the fabric itself goes. Seams may go any direction, but most sewing projects are cut so that the main seams go parallel with the lines of the weave.

Also note the direction of the print if your fabric has one, and arrange it so it will be "right side up" such as with a floral or animal print or so that stripes or other patterns run a certain direction. Move to another part of the fabric. Use the hand wheel at the top of the right side of the machine to move the needle to the top of its travel before starting a seam and again to remove the fabric from the machine at the end of a seam.

This lifts the needle, and allows you to move to another area of the fabric you're working on. If the needle is not at the top of its travel, the thread may not move when you pull on the ends. Look for lines on your sewing machine indicating seam allowance. This is the "normal" space between the edge of the fabric and the stitching line. Use a ruler measure on either side of the needle.

This should already be marked on your machine's "throat plate" the flat metal piece that the needle goes through. If not, mark it yourself with masking tape.

Learn to sew a sharp corner. Where you want to turn the corner, lower the needle all the way into the fabric. You can use the hand wheel to lower the needle. Push the bobbin winder across and start winding! Some machines will also require you to disengage the flywheel to stop the needle going up and down while you are winding.

Further Reading: How to Wind a Bobbin. When the upper and lower threads have been sorted, it is time to join the two together and start learning how to use a sewing machine. Turn the flywheel the large round wheel on the right of the machine towards you. It may also be labeled as a hand wheel in your manual. This will allow the top threaded needle to travel to the bobbin area. Watch how easily the upper thread curls around the lower thread and pulls it up to the upper level of the machine.

Always remember to turn the wheel towards yourself until you can see that lower thread emerging. Pull the lower thread out and then keep the threads together towards the back of the machine. It is always a good idea to test drive your machine on a sample of fabric first. The best fabric to get started with would be stiff cotton. Quilting cotton is always easy to sew and can be purchased in fat quarters which are a small piece of pre-cut fabric.

Calico is also a cheap easy to sew fabric for beginners. This cream-colored fabric is usually a little stiff and because it is a light color, you can make notes on the samples as you go. You have sewn your first stitch line and are ready for more adventures of the sewing kind. Luckily no license is required and any mistake can always be unpicked with a seam ripper unpicker. Don't feel bad if you have to unpick some stitches.

Even experienced sewers have days when they need to use a seam ripper. You can now check the tension of your row of stitches and adjust if necessary. This just means looking at your sample and assessing if the stitching looks nice and flat or if it has loops showing on either the top or bottom of the fabric. Further Reading: Sewing Machine Tension. Sewing is a very forgiving craft so feel free to experiment and try a variety of fabrics and the different stitches your machine has to offer.

Make full use of your manual to guide you through the steps of sewing buttonholes, using the zig zag stitch or other decorative stitches. Some sewing machines come with several types of the presser foot as accessories. The bobbin is yet another important component of a sewing machine as it supplies thread from the bottom needed to make stitches.

Threading bobbin is pretty simple with some sewing machines as they come with an easy bobbin winding system.

The shuttle or the bobbin case keeps the bobbin rolling inside it and supplies the necessary thread for making stitches. The threading system of a sewing machine is important for stitching without trouble.

The thread before reaching to needle passes through various channels and one has to go sequentially. If any channel is missed, you may not get nice stitches, sometimes it may lead to the breaking of the thread as you sew. The optimum settings of thread tension should be done for a sewing machine otherwise it will break the thread every now and then. If the thread tension is too low, you will see the thread is released accessively which will result in uneven stitches, specially the bottom one.

However, if the thread tension is high, you will notice the thread is breaking every now and then. Hence, it becomes very important that an optimum thread tension is maintained. The stitch length controller lets you set the length of the stitches. For a mechanical sewing machine, you will see a big rotatory dial is fixed on the front side of the sewing machine which can be rotated clock or anticlockwise to change the stitch length.

For a lighter fabric, its good to have smaller stitches however for heavy material such as leather, the bigger stitch length is preferred. There are different low-end sewing machines that come with very few built-in stitches to some high-end sewing machines such as SINGER have up to built-in stitches. The mechanical sewing machine has the dial to change stitches however, the computerized sewing machines have a touch panel for selecting stitches. In most of the sewing machines which comes with reverse stitching feature come with a reverse stitch lever.

It is very useful for material like leather which needs to be sewn tightly. Stitching speed is controlled by a rotatory dial in a mechanical sewing machine. However, the computerized sewing machines come with an LCD screen display which can be used to control stitching speed. You just have to tap the screen to increase or decrease stitching speed.

Just press the ON button and the sewing machine will start electronically. To top the machine, press the OFF button. To get started with your first sewing project, make sure you thread the machine by following the manual that came with the sewing machine. The instruction manual explains every single step needed to feed your sewing machine with thread. It also explains what all channels the thread should pass through. See: Best Sewing Machine for Beginners.

Once you thread the machine and also the bobbin is threaded and placed in the shuttle. You are ready to start sewing.