Beginners Sewing Course - Day 1 - The Basics

hello i'm anika from made to sew and welcome to our beginners crush course in sewing now this is the first of five tutorials that we've put on for you and the idea of this course of five tutorials is to help those of you that maybe are new to sewing and you want to sort of take your sewing to the next level all those of you that have been sewing for a while and want to learn some sort of tips and techniques and ways of doing things that might make your sewing more professional so we're going to start today by looking at the sewing machine and really going back to basics we're going to be looking at threading the sewing machine winding a bobbin looking at what thread you should be using and what needle size to use and also sort of changing the needle and changing the foot so let's get started so we're firstly going to be looking at the thread that you should be using for your sewing machine now i tend to recommend 100 polyester thread for the majority of projects and that's the best thing to start with as a beginner now you will have found that your machine may have come with some threads um you may have picked up some sort of cheap polyester threads and they will be absolutely fine to work with when you're starting generally speaking the cheaper polyester threads are slightly fluffier in texture and you will find that you can probably break them with your hands and so they're perfect for sort of you know everyday jobs and when you're beginning you're trying things out when something isn't maybe really important that it looks really professional and that it lasts so if you are moving on to making things that you want to last you want them to you know to be very strong the thread that you're sewing with and the thread that i tend to use on a sort of daily basis and that i recommend is the gutermann um 100 polyester it's the glutamine so all thread okay um and this is a very very strong and smooth thread so you'll find that you can't break it in your hands as well and therefore it's perfect for sort of jobs that need to last and giving that really professional finish to your items now this thread comes in numerous different sizes depending on what you're working with and numerous colorways so it's really what you need for your job um in terms of the top of the spool you'll see that they're different colors now this is one thing to really point out for when you are going to buy your thread now the smaller sized spools i believe are cream and the slightly larger ones have a white top so if you're looking for the 100 polyester it's a cream or a white top that you're after because glutamine threads do come with lots of different color tops you can get blue you can get gray i believe you can get green these are all different threads for different uses so if you're looking for the 100 polyester just make sure you get the white or the cream so that you're not disappointed when you get home so hopefully we've sort of gone over the thread that you should be using next we're going to look at the sewing machine needle and the size that you should be using so looking now at the sewing machine needle that you should be using in your machine if you've purchased a new sewing machine you probably would have had a pack of needles that would have come with the machine and they'll be perfect for you to be using if you're a beginner if you've picked up a second hand machine and it's come with some needles i would probably recommend picking up another pack because obviously you won't have know how much they've been used and in what condition they're in so i tend to work with the schmetz um sewing machine needles i get on very well with these and in terms of sort of the average size of needle you're going to be working with an 80 12 or a 90 14 and that's the metric followed by the imperial number now the 80 12 90 14 will be perfect for use on your cottons your poly cottons your linen your lightweight upholstery fabrics and those are really the fabrics that as a beginner you're going to want to work with you don't want anything overly complicated that's going to put you off your new hobby but what if as you progress you want to go to lighter weight fabrics lighter weight fabrics require a smaller needle size so you're going to want to pick up a 75 11 or potentially smaller than that and there'll be fabrics like silks and things like that for heavier weight fabrics so say denims or heavyweight canvases or upholstery fabrics you're going to want to go to a larger number so that's going to be a 116 or a 110 18 and so forth so average size is an 80 12 90 14. smaller sizes are for lighter weight fabrics larger sizes are for heavier weight fabrics hopefully that helps you decide what needle you should be using for the job now the other question i often get asked is how often do you need to change the needle in the machine i don't tend to abide by sort of the manufacturer's rules on so many hours of sewing i think that most of you will probably not know how many hours of sewing you've put in to the um the project that you've been working on with that needle so what i would recommend if you're starting a new project that's really really special or you're starting a project and say lightweight fabric then i would recommend that you do start with a fresh needle but most the time i tend to check my needles check that it's not bent you can lay it down on a flat surface and check that it isn't bent and i always test my fabric before i start a project so put your fabrics through the machine check that the thread is okay for the fabric and check that the needle the stitch length all of those things are going to be fine for your job if you do that you should find then that if the needle is too small or too large for the job and you should also find then if maybe there's the needles become a little bit blunt you'll find that it may skag or pucker the fabric slightly that will usually mean that either the needle is blunt or you need a smaller needle for the job so as i said i don't tend to abide by the manufacturing rules but just double check before you start always test your fabric and see how you get on so now we're going to move on to looking at the sewing machine so firstly a quick look at the machine that we're going to be working with now this is a husqvarna viking and this machine in particular is an emerald 116. however i believe that there is also a one one eight and a one two two in the same series now i do understand that you may not have the same machine as this and that is absolutely fine what i would recommend though is that you go and find the manual if you haven't got a manual then maybe try and download one from the internet so that you can check about how the manual suggests you should be threading the machine and winding the bobbin because it can make a difference in how the machine performs now i wanted to sort of go through quickly all the buttons and bits and pieces that as a beginner you will need on the machine before we get started with widening the bobbin so to start this is our key little dial that we need to know about this is what stitch you were going to be stitching and you'll see here this is the list of stitches with the corresponding number that corresponds to the dial here now below that this is the length of the stitch that you will be stitching and the little green dial up here is the width of the stitch okay so as a beginner these are the key things you want to know what you're stitching how long the stitch is and how wide it is okay now another thing to point out is this button here and this is the reverse or backwards button on the machine and you will need to hold it down to use it okay and you've also got the hand wheel on the side here which if you were to turn towards you would allow the machine to stitch so that can be great when you are a beginner and you're maybe you're worried the machine might go a bit too quickly that you can use that if you need to finally really um the only other thing you may come across as a beginner is this dial here which is the tension dial now with this machine i believe the manual suggests that you keep it on number four and i pretty much i don't think i've hardly ever changed it and number four seems to work with most fabrics but do check what your machine recommends and obviously find out where it is if you do need it then finally really it's just a case of the on off button now with this machine that's to the bottom right and if i flick the switch the light will go off and then back on again so july back here in a second and we'll go through how to wind a bobbin and then how to thread the machine so now we're going to go through how to wind a bobbin on the machine now we're going to start by positioning this spool of thread onto the spool pin and we're using the horizontal spool pin here now on this machine the thread has to be coming underneath from the spool itself so coming out underneath when you position it onto the pin like just like that but i would check your individual manual for your machine and see which way it suggests then we're going to be using the spool holder to hold the spool onto the pin now with this machine they come in different sizes this is the small one for smaller spools and this is the larger one for larger spools okay so next we're going to take the thread and we're going to wrap it around from back to front this little tension silver little tension gauge here and you need to make sure that you really pull the thread between the two discs and you sort of hear a clicking noise if you don't you'll find that your bobbin doesn't wind very nicely because it just won't have a nice tension on it okay next take your bobbin and here you really need to make sure that you're choosing the right size bobbin for your individual machine now with our bobbins there's a little hole in the top of them and you need to take the thread and feed it from the inside to the outside through the hole there we go so from the middle to the outside next we're going to take the bobbin and put it onto this silver bobbin winder here and push down hard and then we're going to push the bobbin to the right now before we start winding there's one last thing we need to do and that's to pull the hand wheel out at the side of the machine now what this does is stops the machine from sewing whilst you're winding the bobbin and it allows it to go therefore a little bit quicker so we're going to hold on to the thread coming out of the bobbin here very tightly and i want you to wind it for a little a little while a couple of winds around the bobbin okay perfect now we can cut off this thread so just reach in with a little pair of scissors and trim it off just like that and then we can continue winding the bobbin until you're happy with the amount that's on there now if you're completing the bobbin full for a whole project then if you keep winding this is the bobbin stopper and this will stop when the bobbin is full okay so if i let you wind your bobbins until they're full then what we're going to do is take the bobbin off the bobbin winder so we need to push it back to the left and lift it up and then we can trim the thread off here so that the bobbin is a separate piece and that's ready to go now before we start threading the machine there's one last thing we need to do and that's to push the hand wheel back in so that it will allow this machine to stitch again so join me back here and we'll start threading the machine so before we start with threading the machine i just wanted to talk about how you should position the spool onto the machine now there are sort of two different types of threads or different different way a thread is wound onto a spool now the sort of standard method nowadays is this where the thread is very much zigzagging up and down the spool and this is what's called cross wound thread okay the alternative option though is a slightly older method which you don't see as much nowadays where the thread is really one on top of the other there's no zigzagging going on here it's very very smooth and this is what's called stacked thread now both of these ideally need to be positioned on the machine slightly differently for the machine and the threads to run through the machine happily so we'll start with this with the standard cross round thread now with this thread majority of the time you want the thread really to be coming off the end so coming off the end of the spool now therefore this works perfect with the standard horizontal spool pin that we've got here it also works well if you've got a vertical spool pin that's maybe down at the back of the machine very low you'll find that it will again come off the top of the pin happily if i position that on there just to show you again we'll use the spool holder and pulling on the thread there that's happily you're not going to get caught that works really nicely now if you're going to be using the other thread so that's the stacked thread you'll find as an example if you position this on to the horizontal pin and we put the spool holder on that this will get caught as you're pulling the thread off and you'll find that as you're sewing it will get caught and it just won't run through the machine as nicely so what you want to do instead for the stacked threads is that you want them to sit on a vertical spool here now with my machine i've got a little hole here and you can get your you will get with the machine a sort of other spool pin that you can pop on the manual recommends putting a little bit of a felt circle around the bottom which again comes with the machine and this thread can pop on here and you'll see it should be coming off at a right angle to the spool so the thread should come off at a right angle to the spool and that will sew much happier in that method so i'll let you get started by working out how to put your spool on the machine and then join me back here and we'll start to thread the machine so we're going to start by threading the machine down this area here up to the top of the needle because that will allow you to complete this threading a couple of times to get used to it and then i can zoom in and show you the needle in greater detail so i'm going to be using the cross wound thread that we spoke about before and that's on my horizontal pin with my spool holder in position to hold that nice and securely as we spoke about when we were winding the bobbin the thread is coming underneath from the spool so that's all as it should be so most the time you will have instructions down here some arrows or something that are really going to help you navigate this area but i would recommend just checking the manual and checking that you are doing it correctly so there's a little sort of slide arrow area you can slide the thread into at the back here where i've got an arrow so my thread's going to come into that area and then i'm going to come down this first channel all the way down there and then at the bottom i've got an arrow that's going to go across the bottom and allow me to come back up the second channel so we're going down the first channel around the bottom back up the second channel next up here we've got this little silver lever now this lever will move up and down so if you can't see it turn the hand wheel on the side of the machine and get it to come up so that you can see it now the thread needs to go from the right side of this to the left into the little lever and there's a little eye at the front of the lever and the thread literally does need to click into the front of that so that you can really see the thread then we're going to come back down this channel and we'll be stopping there ready to move on to the needle so i would recommend watching that and doing that a couple of times so that you feel comfortable doing it join me back here and we will thread the needle once you've threaded the top part and you've come down this channel here you're then going to need to position the thread behind the little groove on the left hand side here so just into that groove at the top of the needle next to thread the needle you can either do this by eye from the front to the back or you can use the little needle threader to use the needle threader use your left hand to push it down at the side here now you'll need to make sure these are quite temperamental so make sure that your needle is as high as it will go so by doing that you need to turn the hand wheel at the side to move the needle as high as it will go then push down with your left hand go underneath this little nook here from left to right and in front of the needle okay it's caught at that time make sure to you collect your thread from the back of the needle not from the front because you're all you'll be doing is to pulling out your little handiwork once you've got the thread at the back of the needle we will tuck that underneath the foot out of the way now to position the bobbin into the machine we need to open the bobbin case here i've got an arrow and a little button that you need to push to the right which will pop open the clear case now the bobbin itself the thread needs to be sitting on the bobbin going counter-clockwise to start with okay and then you're going to position that in to the little area okay and then place your finger on the bobbin grab hold of the thread and pull it so that you're really clicking it back and you'll hit you should hear it click okay and there's a little groove right in here a little silver groove that you need it to click into now you need to catch the bobbin with the needle thread so hold on tight to the needle thread and use the hand wheel turn it one full turn towards you the needle will go all the way down and all the way back up and then you should be able to pull on the thread of the needle to collect there we see the bobbin thread pull both of these threads and tuck them neatly out of the way underneath the foot and you can replace the case for the bobbin with my case i need to put the left edge in first and then clip the right side down so there we have the threading of the needle and the insertion of the bobbin now join me back here in a second so that i can explain how to remove the foot on the machine and change the needle how do you change the needle on the machine now we spoke about this earlier changing the needle and the size that you will need so to change it you'll need to unscrew the little black screw here be careful not to drop the needle in the machine so be ready to catch it and take it out there we go now if you want to know what size needle you have in the machine you should see it etched onto the top part of the needle somewhere it is very small so you may need a magnifying glass to place the needle back into the machine there is one flat edge or flat side of the needle you want to position the flat side to the back of the machine away from you and when you're positioning it in you need to make sure to hold on to it tight so that you don't drop it and to push it right up so that it's right up into the area up here turn the screw to tighten it and to make sure that it is tight and you will obviously need to re-thread this to remove the foot you literally push the foot toward yourself and then you would be able to change it there's a little bar on the foot here that is what sits onto this white groove to put it back on you need to line up the bar with the white groove and push them quite hard back together with a click i hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and i will see you tomorrow for day two [Music] you

Channel: Made to Sew

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Rating: 4.9068561 out of 5

Keywords: Sewing (Industry), Sewing, Beginners Sewing, Sewing Class, Learn To Sew, Sew, Beginners, Sewing Course, Beginners Sewing Course, Beginners Sewing Class, Threading Machine, How to thread a sewing machine, How to thread a machine, Emerald Husqvarna, Tips, Tutorial, Help, How-to (Website Category), Howto, Tricks, Sewing Machine (Product Category), making, Do It Yourself (Hobby), Hobby (Interest), sewing, how to sew, sewing machine, sewing for beginners, beginner sewing, sewing tutorial

Id: IGITrkYdjJs

Length: 20min 36sec (1236 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2015