How To Operate a Sewing Machine

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Rebecca and I'm going to talk about how to operate a sewing machine. Now obviously all sewing machines are different but most sewing machines include the basic features so once you've figured where they are on the machine, they're going to operate in a similar manner to mine. Before you even start sewing on your sewing machine, its a good idea to know if you have the basic things that need to be changed or can be changed on your sewing machine such as your needle or your presser foot. Now on this machine, the feet are actually quite large and I have a little lever here which I'm going to push and then I can without doing anything else to the machine, remove and change the feet. So I've got my basic foot here and now I'm going to put on my zipper foot so that I can sew a zipper. Another important thing to know how to do because you'll do it often, is changing a needle. I have just a little screw right here and most machines are pretty much the same and I just loosen the screw and slide my needle out. You always want to make sure that the flat side of the needle is to the back and the rounded side is to the front and that means that the eye of the needle should be facing you so that you can pass the thread through from front to back. Another feature on this sewing machine that you need to know how to use is adjusting the stitch length. Now I usually set it at about three or three and a half to get a good stitch length. Most sewing machines have at least the basic features on how to do zigzags and some different stitches. The other thing that a sewing machine can do thankfully, is stitch backwards. So every machine is different on that, however, once you figure out how to do it, its very straightforward. For mine, the lever that I use in order to adjust the stitch length when I want it to stitch backwards, I have to hold it in the up position, stitch for a few stitches and then let it drop back down and it will stitch in the stitch length for both the back stitch and the forward stitch. Another way to know a little bit about how to use your sewing machines, let's go ahead and make just a basic straight stitch. So I got my fabric here, going to line it up, we're going to back stitch a couple of stitches to make a nice secure stitch and then here we go. Pull my fabric out, make sure that I have a little bit of extra thread both left on the machine and left attached to my garment. And here we go."