Did you know that properly caring for your sewing machine won’t even take you more than 10 minutes? Find out how to clean your trusty sewing equipment to keep it in tip-top shape in five easy steps!
Properly Caring for Your Sewing Machine in 5 Easy Steps
After finishing a big sewing project, the victorious sense of overcoming a challenge might keep you from a good clean up of your machine. As a result, lint, small pieces of fabric, and errant threads build up under your needle plate. Eventually, the build-up of dust will slow down your machine and will probably even affect your sewing. Prevent this from happening by being extra careful in cleaning up your machine! Learn more by following this easy step-by-step guide.
Vintage white all-metal mechanical sewing machine via @peterlappin #sewingaddict
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Materials You’ll Need to Properly Care for Your Sewing Machine:
- Your Sewing Machine Manual
- Screwdriver
- Small Lint Brush
- Sewing Machine Oil
- Tweezers
Step 1. Disassemble Your Needle Foot and Plate
Take all the unnecessary clutter in and around your machine. Take off the fabric, threads, and bobbin installed on your machine. Carefully remove the needle from the foot. Using a screwdriver, remove the plate so you can reach into the deeper parts of your machine.
Step 2. Gently Brush Off the Bottom Bobbin Case
With a lint brush, or any little, fine brush you may have around, gently brush off the lint and dust you can see in your bobbin case. Sweep your brush outwards.
Important Note: Do not use pressurized gas in cleaning your machine! Instead of blowing away the dust and lint, blowing air through your sewing machine only pushes the dirt deeper into the crevices of your machine.
Step 3. Replace the Bobbin Case Cover
After making sure all dust and lint have been brushed off, cover and screw your needle plate back into place. Do not tighten the screws too much or else it would be difficult to unscrew them the next time you clean your machine.
Step 4. Oil Your Machine Properly
Properly oiling your machine depends on your machine’s make. Read up on your machine’s manual to learn which parts you should oil to get maximum efficiency. If you don’t have your manual around, you can look for the holes in your machine that don’t have threads on them. Holes with threads are made for screws while the ones without threads are where you usually oil your machine.
You should also add a small drop inside the hook race and to the outer ring of your bobbin hook. Hook race is the silver ring on the inside where your bobbin hook fits into. The outer ring of the bobbin hook is where it slides along the hook race.
Step 5. Test Your Machine Out
Wipe down the surface of your machine and voila! You’re almost done! Replace your needle with a fresh, new one. Turn your machine on and try to run your machine for several minutes. This will spread your oil through all the gears and places it should go. And ta-da! You’re done! Your machine should be running smoother and more efficiently now! Properly thread your sewing machine and start making more sewing projects!
For a more detailed discussion, watch this video from Leah Day:
Caring for your sewing machine is easy as 1,2,3! It doesn’t even take up much time and the benefits last much longer. With a machine that runs smoother and faster, you can keep on doing more sewing projects. Aside from that, you can save a lot of money by doing the easy steps a professional cleaner does. Try to do it today and see the improvement right away!
Want to learn how to buy a sewing machine fit for you? Check out the 7 Things to Know When Buying a Sewing Machine! Do you have other tips for caring for your sewing machine? Let us know in the comments below!
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Editor’s Note – This article has been originally posted on March 4, 2016, and has since been updated for quality and relevancy.
Featured Image via Colette