Lessons

Lesson Info

Machine Overview

Hello and good morning internet toe welcome to creative live my name is ken klosterman and I will be your host today and this is our instructors becky hanson how are you doing this morning? Becky great now becky we had a great day yesterday we covered two different fast our classes two different models and this morning we are going to be learning all about the heavy duty model from singer, which is model four four to three and we're doing a series of faster classes here you have been teaching and educating people about singer machines for longer than I want to say many multiple decades is incredible you don't look you don't look like you could have been aging, but what we're doing here is take going through the different models from singer a dizzy really and some of our more popular want models so benefit perfect just so I'm going to just let you take it away and we're so excited to have you thank you let's go before I get started with really going through the machine itself. I'm going...

to spend a little time with some sewing machine basics because there's a few things you should know about threads and needles and just some general information before you even get started too so that your machine does run its pass and it doesn't matter if it's this model or any any model of sewing machine it's just kind of sewing machine basics that I want to take time to cover with this model in particular once took just to get started. I have done here. I just want to show you if you have this machine or if you're thinking about purchasing this meat machine, I just wantto give you a little reminder if you can to hang on to your box. If you ever need to transport your machine, you're going to store your machine if you don't have a regular selling space that you work on and keep it out regularly, or you need to send it for any kind of service or warranty work, the best place to do that isn't something that fits it perfectly. So I really encourage you to hang on to that box if you can. And also I thought you might find it interesting. Have a look at what the machine looks like on the inside, so I brought along with me sometimes call these like the machines skeletons. But I know today a lot of times I hear folks say, oh, the machines today aren't built the way they used to be built and it's true, the outside of the machines are of a lighter composite material to keep it. More portable, because people transport their machines, take them to sewing class and you don't want that big, heavy machine that you could hardly lift anymore. Eso they're designed to be lighter and wait, but you can see on the inside we have a heavy duty aluminum frame and all the places where it's important, that it be solid and metal it is so I thought you might enjoy seeing what the inside of your machine looks like. Okay, so we'll set that aside for now and let's get started talking about what comes with your machine, so when you do take it out of the box, what you'll find is a little plastic envelope that has some materials in it. And of course, first and foremost is your instruction manual, and I would encourage you before you get started to just and even if you have the machine to maybe if you maybe never have really done this, but sit down and really go through your manual, read it cover to cover because you'd be surprised some of the information that you'll find that you didn't know there's charts and hear about what fabric to use with what kind of needle and a lot of valuable information that will help you so with confidence and keep your machine running its best. You also get a little dust cover. So if you are leaving your machines sitting out quite a bit, if you're lucky enough to have a space where you can just kind of leave all your selling stuff out, you might want to throw your little dust cover on at the end of us when you're done sewing just to keep dust and lint out from all those little open areas like the tension area and so on. Keep it as clean as it can be in between your sewing sessions. There's also some information in here about how to get in touch with singer in your warranty information, warranty centers and so on. And then last but not least, there's this wonderful big what we call a quick start guide and what you'll find here is a very easy to follow diagram of how to wind the bob in and insert the bobbin into the machine. And so this this's side one and then you flip it over, decide to and this is how you then thread the top of the machine because you always thought the bob in first, and then you thread the top of the machine and so you might want to even keep this handy if you don't remember how to thread your machine you can just pull out your quick start guide it even shows you how to use that needle threat or real close up so all of that is in that little envelope and you want to open that up and take a look at all those materials so let's go ahead and we'll get started with actually winding a bobbin so here on your let me give you a little tour of the machine first before we do that so as I mentioned a bit ago there's the machine is very portable so we have a peer of the top carrey handle and you can use use that to carry a machine don't grab it like this to carry your grab it by the head you always use your carry handle when you wantto transport your machine from room to room or take it to class wherever you're moving your machine over at the side of the machine is where we plug in the power cord and we have the switch to turn the power on so I already have done that up here is your bob and wind er spindle and you're bob and wider stopper and will use those in just a moment when we wind the bob in this is your school pinned for placing your school of thread thread guides for a cz we thread the machine we're going to use those in just a moment this is your bob unwinding tension disk, which you'll also see in just a moment we are attention control our needle positioned I'il are stitch with control this is air stitch length control don't here is our patterns selector dialogue and this is used we turn this to select stitches and I'll go into much more detail about that shortly you reverse button this is a thread cutter this is our presser foot lifter in the back of the machine we use this to raise and lower the presser foot very important and we'll talk about that more you press a foot, your needle, your needle clamp and needle clamps screw all down here we also have it's a little hard to see because it tucks up out of the way but this is your automatic needle threat er and I'll show you how to use that as well. The machine converts to a free armed by sliding this removable extension table off the end of the machine and this is where your accessories are stored. So sometimes we hear folks say I didn't get my accessories but they haven't looked in this little compartment right here which is where those are when you take your machine out of the box and what's nice about keeping them here too is they're just right at your fingertips all the time and so I'm gonna take the spool cap you actually get to see what you get in here, by the way so we have our extra needles and we have foot for sewing buttons on you have to school caps you have a larger one for some of the bigger schools and the small one for some of those smaller, thinner schools we have on edge quilting guide I'll show you that in a little bit there's a zipper foot you have extra bobbins extra bobbins in here and we have what's called an on auxiliary spool pin and that is for twin needlework or sewing with your threads upright and I'll show you that and there's a foot for sewing buttons on and a small screw driver here's another bob in here so you get one bobbing in the machine and then some extras as well and before we wind a bob and what I would like to do is show you a little bit about bobbins because using the right bob and in your machine is very, very important. I know sometimes folks like to have extra bobbins because if you fill up the ones you get with the colors you like but you want more bobbins for more colors of thread you want to pick up some extra ones and you want to make sure you buy the right I think his bobbins are not all the same and I brought a few packages of a few different kinds of bobbins just to show you how at a glance you might just say, oh it's a singer and oh, it says bobbins but they're not all the same e think it at a glance you can even see somewhere was more metal and some are transparent your particular machine uses what we call a class fifteen transparent bobbin so obviously right now we can see right now these kind of more vintage style class sixty six bobbins both of these his class sixty six here those air not for your machines so those go away over here now we have class fifteen j and these say class fifteen and even though that says fifteen there's a j at the end of it and that's for a different series of machines in our lines, so that isn't even though they're transparent and they look at a glance like they're the exact same thing, they really aren't there a little tiny bit differently shaped if you were have them in your hand side by side, you kind of even see that and feel the difference so you don't want fifteen j what you want are the class fifteen transparent and here even though this says class fifteen on it, they both say class fifteen at the top you don't want to put a metal bob and in a machine that comes with the transparent style because your machine is actually calibrated for the style of bob and that it comes with they actually are weighted differently and if you swap out bobbins you may find that your machine isn't sewing properly so you want to use exactly the same style of bobbin that comes with your machine so you would look for the class fifteen transparent bobbins when you're shopping for those they're available at pretty much anywhere sewing notions are sold ok, so let's go ahead and we'll wind a bobbin and to do that I'm going to place my thread spool up here a tw the top on the spool pin and we'll put the spool cap on our I mean he is my larger spool cap and then we're gonna unreal some of the thread and up here at the top of the machine you can see there's a little thread guide I'm going to just kind of like flossing your teeth just hold it with your two hands and just snapped it in you kind of hear that and feel it click into place and then the next thing you're going to do is bring this around and you're going to go there's a diagram here at the top of the machine you're going to go around this kind of like a figure eight sort of like and we're going to put the end of our thread into the through the center of the bomb I hope you can see this okay I'm gonna go through the center up through there's a little hole on your bob and you're going to go from the center out through the top you don't want to set this on here and just kind of wind threat around like that and push it over and go it may not wind properly for you will probably wind real messy and then you're not going to have good tension when you so so you want to wind it properly that's very important for good stitch quality so we're going to take the end of the thread and put it in through the center through this whole out the top like that draw the threat out and then you're going to set this down on your bob and winding spindle and when you push that down make sure it goes all the way don't if you have this sticking up a little bit your thread khun start winding underneath the bobbin and you don't want that to happen of course that we want to push that all the way down and then we're going to push this to the right to engage it no I'm going to step on my foot controller holding holding this thread up just let that go a little bit until there's a little bit of thread on there and you can stop and trim this thread tale and then resume winding your bob will probably use a good bit of this thread here today so I'll put this about half full or so if I would if I wanted to fill it I would just go ahead and run it until it automatically stopped because it when the but when the threat gets full it rubs up against this bob unwinding stopper and that would mean a bob and stop turning and then you know that you're bobbing his full on I think I'm ok with that amount of thread so I'm going to stop and I'm going to trim my thread and push my bob into the left and then remove it from the spindle and now we're ready to insert it into the bobbin case so this bob in when you lay it in your bob in case drop it in and pull the thread toward you and you should see the bob and turning against the clock if you were watching yesterday with the front load style bob and when you pull the thread it goes clockwise but on this top drop in style of bobbin it's just the opposite when you lay this in here it goes against the clock and then there's a thread guide right here and a thread guide right here so you want to go first into this first thread guide and then lay it in that channel right there that little slot so I'll do that again for you, you're going to trim that thread that just a little long there? Um, drop it in, pull this thread toward you. So it's going against the clock and then there's a notch right here, going toe put that into that notch. This is like putting tension on your bob and thread so it's very important. You don't, you can't just drop your bob and in here, put the cover on and go. There will be no tension on your bob, and so you want to thread it into these guides like I'm showing you, you drop it in it's going against the clock into this first guide right here, and then you lay it setting right in that little channel. Just let it sit there, and then you can replace your cover. And for convenience, you'll notice here if you can see that, okay, from the angle you heard there's a little diagram on the cover in your bob and cover that actually shows you the correct places to set your bob and thread when you drop it in there. So that's, a quick little reference as well, is that quick start guide that I showed you right at the beginning of the session so well, the cover goes in there's a little sort of like a little prongs or a little tongue right here that fits right underneath that slot and you put that in there first and then just snapped that down when you want to take this off this is your bob and cover release button you just push this to the right and it makes this just sort of popped open and you can remove it and then you put it back in here like that to set it in place and now are bob and is set so now we're going to thread the top of the machine and I'm going to take my thread and go back into the same thread guide and then up here we're going to bring it into these two slots up here there's a little too sort of like little plates the fit thread fits in now one thing before you go on I want to show you one very important thing that you always want to remember if you don't even remember anything else I tell you today is before you proceed threading the tension of your machine you want to make sure that your press afoot lifter is up and the reason for that is when the print when the president lifter is down the tension is closed and when you raise the presser foot lifter the tension is open so what's what happens is that when you thread the machine it can actually receive the thread if you have this closed and then you thread the machine, even if you put it correctly in every guide it's supposed to go in if the tension was closed when you started ah, when you proceed to thread, you're going to have a complete mess on the underside of your fabric when you start to so so this is very, very important cause there's there's no tension on the threat as you go, so it just makes a mess. So in order for the machine to take the thread, you need to raise the presser foot lifter ok, the other thing you need to do is make sure that your take up lever is going to get threaded and the way to do that we turn our hand, we'll hear it the side of the machine and you see this little silver, um, piece that was poking its little head up over the top of the machine and that's called your take up lever when you're sewing, that goes up and down with every stitch and it's helping the whole process of the stitch formation. And if you miss that when you thread, you also won't get your machine to so properly and you'll hear it probably sound like it's going to come clunk, clunk, clunk really, really loudly and that it just it's not feeding the thread properly to form the stitch so you want to raise your press it put lifter and you want to turn your hand wheel so you see that it's called the take up leverage so that that's in its highest position okay and then as you proceed down the front uh channel around this u turn at the bottom I'll do this again for you I'm just going to show you once and then I'll show you again we're gonna come back up the channel and we're going to go from right to left and then bring it back in and I want to look and make sure that goes into the eye of that I can see that it did and then bring this back down again and I'll repeat that again before we go on down to thread the needle so let's do that one more time so you can follow along if you're following along at home, snap it in your top thread guide here into these two uh guides at the top presser foot lifter is up take up levers in its highest position so I'm in good place to start threading the tension area bring the threat down around this u turn up and really look at this make sure it goes in you don't want to go too fast and miss it like look at it make sure it slips into that hole right at the front I can see it's in there so that looks great and then bring this down and there's a thread guide here we're going to just talk the threat around that and then there's one just above the needle right here and I'm going to tuck it around that one and then I'm ready to thread the eye of the needle on we have a zay mentioned earlier there's an automatic needle threat er it's up here and I'll show you this a couple times because the first time sometimes you miss what's happening there so I'll do it a couple of times but you'll bring this down with your finger and then pushed to the back and it brings what's happening here is there's a little tiny hook on the end of this device and your needle needs to be in its highest position for this to work you want to make sure your needles all the way up before you bring this down if your needle is down and you bring that around that little there's a little pin in there that could hit the shaft of the needle and maybe bend and then you can't use your needle threat or anymore do you have to just get that little part of it fixed or replaced so you wanna make sure your needle is in the highest position and then let's let me do that and what's happening if I'll just kind of use my hand here but if this was like the eye of your needle and this is the little hook on the assembly and you're bringing that little piece around and it's coming into the eye of your needle comes in here like that so that little hook is sitting in the eye of your needle. So what you'll do is you just tuck your thread underneath that little hook and it pulls the loop through, and then you can just grab the loop and pulling on through so let's do that. So I know that's kind of hard to see, because this is real small, but bring that around, tuck that thread underneath the hook and it pulls my little loop through, and I can't. I got my needle threaded just like that, so I'll do that for you one more time, so you can see how that works. And all of this, too is indicated with really nice diagrams on that quick start guide I showed you right at the beginning, so you've got some visuals there in your box, so we hook it around. This, uh, first guide, it helps us hold the thread sites straight sideways. You tuck it up underneath that little hook pullback, it releases that loop see it there, there's that loop, and then we pull the rest of that through and our needle is threaded, so now all we have left to do is turn our hand wheel holding the needle thread and we want to draw that bob and threat up to the top side, and I pulled it up. And what now? We just bring the bobbin thread totally up, and we put both reds underneath the presser foot, and we're ready to start sewing. I've got my threat. Tales are a little long here, I'm going to trim those and you can do that either one of two ways you can either use your thread cutter here at the side or you can cut it with your scissors. What I would do if you cut it with your scissors instead of using your thread guide here at the side of the machine is just don't cut too close to the foot, and the reason why you don't want to do that is because then when you start sewing that take up lever will just pull your threat out of the needle and you'll have to re thread your needle all the time. So if you leave the thread tales a little longer, that won't happen to you. Ok, so let's start sewing and we'll talk about seems and seem allowances and things like that.