Web Editor FMQuilters

Tip of the Week: Maintaining Your Sewing Machine Part 2

At our April meetup, Darren from Blow’s Sew and Vac gave us a lot of good informaiton about cleaning and maintaining our machines but he also gave lots of a lot of preventative tips to keep these sewing machines humming right along.

Where do thread related problems come from?

Thread comes in a wide range of prices and quality. Don’t be tempted to save a little by buying cheap thread. Inexpensive thread creates a lot of fuzz in the upper tension pickup and in the bobbin case. Good quality thread will reduce the amount of schmutz in our machines.

If you experience a sudden surge of thread breakage and lint in the machine, Darren said that 70-80% of the thread problems he sees is due to the thread quality. Another 20% of the problems comes from needle plate strikes creating rough edges that the thread rubs against.

Remember Upper Thread is a one-way path

When you are changing your top thread, snip the thread off at the top of the machine and pull it out through the needle. If you grab the spool and pull your thread backwards out of the machine, you’re stressing the upper tension plates.

Emery strips are your friend

Emery paper can be purchased in a roll at auto parts stores, Use it to polish out burrs in the needle plate that can shred and break your thread as you sew. Cut the paper into a strip as wide as the hole in the needle plate. Run it back and forth a few times which will polish out any burrs from needle strikes. Make it part of your regular maintenance.

Change Your Needle after every project

This is an important piece of advice that gets overlooked a lot. This photo shows the before and after a needle after approximately 6,000 stitches (or the average quilt top). You can see how blunt it has become. So even if your needle looks OK to you, it is as dull as the one you see here.

Treate your needle well

Lastly, Darren reminded us that needles are very flexible. If you push and pull your fabric at a speed that doesn’t match the speed of the needle, you’re constantly bending that needle and causing it to strike the needle plate. Let your feed dogs move your quilt, not your hands. Your hands should guide your fabric.