Help! I want to break my sewing machine

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joeyg4583

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:hair: I am fostering some of the texas hedgies. I am trying to make hedgie bags and my sewing is going badly to put it lightly. I have never sewn anything in my life. I am using my brand new sewing machine that I got for Christmas. My needle has broken twice and my thread keeps jamming (I still only have like 1/4 of an inch sewn and it has been like 3 hours). I think part of the problem is how thick the fleece is. How do you guys do it> there's gotta be some secret sewing society tip I don't know or something. Please Help!!!!
 
You need to adjust your tension. Read your instruction book and experiment. If all else fails, take the machine to a sewing machine repair shop or fabric store and see if they can help you.
 
Well - what type of needle are you using? Is the needle pushed up far enough so that it's not dragging? Have you tried sewing slowly to see what's causing the thread to hang or if the needle is hanging?

Do you have your bobbin in correct?

I sew up to 4 layers of thick fleece with no problem.
 
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I made sure the needle was in correctly, the bobbin is in correctly. I have put it in multiple times. It is like i can barely move the fleece once the presser foot is down. It will do some stitches and then it is like the needle gets stuck down inside the fabric and the needle will rapidly move up and down and then the machine will say the safety device has been activated and/or my needle will break. I then turn the machine off and back on, make sure the bobbin is threaded and start again. There is a presser foot tension and I have it on the weakest setting. I am using the zigzag foot and a 90/14 needle.
 
What about your spool of thread? Have you re-threaded that?

There's more than one tension setting. How is the thread tension? Have you try adjusting that?

But having the dog on the lowest setting probably won't help the problem. Generally they both should be in the middle. At least that's how I set my machine up, and I go through so much fleece. My only problem is de-fuzzing the insides of the machine.
 
This is probably a silly question, but since you said you have zero sewing experience....Once you have everything threaded, and the fleece in position, are you holding down the loose ends of the thread before you start sewing? If you don't hold down the thread ends to secure the thread before you use the pedal, it can snarl up and get jammed....
 
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The presser foot is down and i didn't hold the ends but i'm not sure that is the problem because sometimes it would sew for a while without issues and the stitches look normal. I really appreciate all your help. I think you are right, i'll give up for tonight and take it to a sewing shop tomorrow and see what they say. Thanks again!!
 
Been there and felt the same way many many times. I am a very experienced sewer though but still get frustrated.

Hedgie bags and liners because of the multiple thicknesses of fleece can be a challenge. Not all machines will easily sew the bags.

It may be your needle. For fleece you should use a ball needle. I never do but some machines are fussy about it. Also, you need a heavier needle to go through the thicknesses.

Start out practicing on a woven fabric, not the fleece. This way you will find out if the problem is the machine itself or the thickness of the fleece. If you don't have any woven fabric, a few sheets of paper towel will work to practice on.

I have had a couple of pieces of fleece that I simply could not sew on. I have multiple machines and not one would sew properly without skipping whole groups of stitches in a row. It wasn't the machines because I even took the fabric into the sewing machine store and it wouldn't sew on their machines either. Really weird.

Take your machine and what you are trying to sew into the store and have them show you step by step how to do it. It is probably something very simply that in your frustration you are missing it. Been there more times than I care to think of. lol
 
And just to make sure... things are lined up right so that your needle is NOT "nicking" the foot as it comes down into the fabric? That's the only time I've broken a needle (thogh I haven't sewn that much that's really thick/heavy). Needle + metal = bad.

Are you getting a snarl of thread on the bottom? If the bobbin tension isn't right or if the fabric, for whatever reason, doesn't push through/along the track right, sometimes I get a snarl that catches, and then the fabric can't progress and things come to a halt. My sewing machine (which is like, 40+ years old) has a diagram - if the top thread is loose but the bottom thread is tight, then do this. If the bottom thread is loose but the top thread is tight, do this. Dunno if modern machines would come with that as well - I would hope so - but the tension on the needle thread and the bobbin thread is sometimes going to be different for lightweight vs heavy fabrics, and you need to figure that out (usually trial and error).

Also make sure you're not trying to go "full speed ahead" right from the get-go. Most machines that I've encountered (which admittedly isn't that many) have a pedal that's pressure sensitive - the harder you push, the faster it goes. Start off really really slow to allow yourself time to make sure it's going to start to progress smoothly, before picking the speed up. You don't have to go fast - that's for people who're good at it and are sure of what they're doing - and unless you're barely getting it to crawl along, it'll still be faster than sewing by hand :)

Many fabric stores have sewing classes. It might be worth your while to take one - you'll learn how to use a machine as well as things like how to choose, apply, cut, and sew patterns, in a basic class.
 
It was something simple and easy :) I was using the J foot and I should have been using the walking foot. Also I think I had the machine going to slow and I needed to make the stitches bigger. It isn't gorgeous but look what I made:
IMG_0709.jpg


and it took like 20 minutes not 20 hours this time. Thank you all for your help! I am a little more sane today :)
 
Yay! Congrats-- I'm sure your new hedgies will love it. :thumbsup:
 
That's awesome :thumbsup:. I can totally identify with the frustration :)).
 
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