Sewing 101: How to Thread a Sewing Machine, Part 2

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you've had a blessed day with your family, perhaps making new traditions in a time of social distancing with all of its inhibitions on our normal routines. For our family's part, with the kids not in school during the day we finally had time to make Easter egg salt dough ornaments,something I've wanted to do for a couple of years, but never could find the time to fit into our busy weekday schedule! My three love to paint anything, so, needless to say, it was a big hit!

I'm not so sure I want to do it again anytime soon, though, since finishing the ornaments took a lot longer than I thought it would!😂 But I have to say, I do like the way they turned out! Since we don't have any Easter trees or even spare branches to turn into one, I'm making some into necklaces and stringing the rest onto ribbon or string for a garland, we'll see what works best.

This week, I want to finish up last week's post about threading a sewing machine. If you missed that post, you can find it here. As I said last week, it's really not that complicated once you know how, but it can be very confusing if you don't have someone to show you the way.

To start with, every sewing machine has two spools of thread, one on top of the machine and one underneath inside the machine, either directly underneath the needle or on the side of the machine. A sewing machine works by interlocking these two threads back and forth together, creating a very strong seam.

To thread the top part of the machine, place your spool on the peg poking up on the top right-hand side of the machine and pull the thread toward the left side of the machine. Bring it around the first hook (1) and down along the groove underneath the hook, around the bottom and up the other side (2), then around the second hook and down again toward the needle underneath (3).

Right above the needle, you will see a tiny hook; loop the thread through this hook (4), and then bring it down and thread it through the sewing machine needle (5). Pull it through and then underneath the sewing machine foot. The top of the machine is now threaded!

To thread the bottom spool onto the machine, you first have to find it. 😊 As previously stated, the bottom spool can be found either on the bottom side of the machine or directly underneath the needle. My machine is like the first, but getting the spool in and out from either place is essentially the same.

The bottom spool fits in the shuttle race, and my machine has a handy little diagram on the inside cover of the shuttle race that shows you how to assemble and disassemble it for cleaning. This is important because this area is really prone to collecting lint, so I advise blowing it out frequently and periodically removing the whole shuttle race to blow and brush the lint residue out completely. (I'm a little embarrassed you can see some of the lint in my machine in this picture; obviously, I should have blown it out before I took the picture 😂.)

You can buy small spools with thread already on them, but sooner or later, you'll have to re-thread them, so here's how it's done. Place the empty spool on the little knob on the top front of your machine. You'll see that this knob is in a slot where it can slide back and forth; more on that in a minute.

Take the end of the thread from your large spool and wind it around the small metal knob on the top middle of your machine as shown in the picture below. Wind the end of the thread around the empty spool in a clockwise direction (1st picture) and then push/pull the spool and knob sharply to the right (2nd picture). This locks it in the position to be threaded.

Once the spool is pulled to the right, you can start winding thread on it. Push down on the foot pedal below the machine and hold it down until the spool is filled with thread. I've found it best to hold on to the end of the thread on the empty spool as it begins to wind in order to keep it from slipping off the spool at the beginning. Once the thread is locked on (you'll know because it pulls out of your fingers by itself), you don't need to touch the spool again until it's full. Once it's finished winding, push it and the knob back to the left, cut the thread in the middle to separate the two spools, and re-thread the top spool through the needle. Now, you're ready to thread the bottom.

As the pictures below show, the bottom spool fits in this little metal sleeve in the machine, and you pull the thread through a slot at the top of the sleeve. The sleeve itself fits into the shuttle race: slide the sleeve into the notched opening, lining up the notches and lifting the front latch until it's in position, then letting the latch down again to lock the spool in place.

 Holding the end of the top thread with your left hand, turn the knob on the side of your machine with your right slowly toward you, lowering the needle below the machine's deck (1). The top thread should catch around the bottom thread (2), and as you continue to turn the side knob, it will pull the bottom thread around and back up through the plate until it comes out on top (3 & 4). Once both threads are on top the metal plate, you can close the bottom compartment, and you are ready to sew!

If this is your first time sewing, I strongly recommend practicing on some scrap fabric first until you get the hang of your machine's speed and controls. Controlling the speed especially can be a little tricky depending on the machine, and sewing in a straight line is not quite as easy as you might think. Like any skill, sewing is made up of lots of little simple skills that, when put together, can appear very complicated, but in reality are pretty easy to master individually. The more you play (work?) with your machine, the easier and more naturally using it will come to you, and before long, you'll be making things you never thought you could do! Happy sewing!