Using a sewing machine for the first time.

Chomeur

I decided that sewing by hand for minor clothing repairs was not a good use of my time so bought myself a £90 sewing machine by brother. I hadn't realised how much was involved in setting it up, but think I've understood it all. Anyway much of the time that I sew something the result looks OK on the front, but a disaster on the back - masses of thread gets mixed up into big clumps. It's not going to be acceptable.

I tried phoning the brother customer helpline but, at 4:50pm they had a message that they were closed. Any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?

tanith

Its the tension that is wrong you need to adjust the tension there are many videos on utube that you could look at this is just one but you may be able to find one for your particular machine if you look hard enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ekWAnJDt5I

jackyann

I wonder if you have wound and threaded the bobbin correctly? I would check that.

Sometimes cheap threads snag and catch.

Do persevere - once you get it sorted out it's very worthwhile.

Chomeur

jackyann wrote: »

I wonder if you have wound and threaded the bobbin correctly? I would check that.

I think I have. There's a slit guide that the lower thread is supposed to pass through, and it's very hard to see whether it actually has gone through this, but I'm passing it through as well as I can. I'm also a bit puzzled by the instruction to have both threads loose and lying to the back of the machine extending 5cm when setting the machine up - they're clearly not going to stay there while I'm sewing so I do wonder what the point of this is. I assume these are standard arrangements for most machines.

But I've increased the tension on the upper thread from 0 to 5 and that does seem to have resolved things (on one trial at least).

grandma247

The loose threads can get caught up in the mechanism so you need to put them to the right hand side and hold them whilst slowly doing three or four stitches then you can let go.

jackyann

the loose threads remain at the end of the seam and you cut them off at the end
they go to different directions on different machines, so follow your instructions or they may get caught up
tension settings are different as well, so also follow your machine's instructions

PH321

I find my machine does that if I have the bobbin in it's holder the wrong way round (so it's going anti-clockwise instead of clockwise, I think, I can never remember so I always check the instructions!)

Chomeur

grandma247 wrote: »

The loose threads can get caught up in the mechanism so you need to put them to the right hand side and hold them whilst slowly doing three or four stitches then you can let go.

I was wondering whether they wouldn't get caught up when I read the instructions (which are to leave them lying loose at the back). Your suggestion seems to help a lot, thanks.