Blog

Baby Lock Jubilant vs Brother NS80e Best Sewing Machine for Beginners: Feature Rich and Priced Right If you’re shopping for a great sewing machine under $600, you don’t have to compromise. Meet the Baby Lock Jubilant and Brother NS80e — two customer favorites for new sewists, travelers, or anyone upgrading from an older machine. We…

Sewing Machine Stitch Problems: Why does my straight stitch look like a lightning bolt? Another common stitch problem you may encounter on your sewing machine is when a regular straight-stitch looks ever so slightly zig-zaggy, a bit like a lightning bolt. What causes this phenomenon?  It all has to do with how the needle pierces…

Troubleshooting Loose Stitches – Intermittent Knots & Loops How the Relationship between the needle, fabric, and thread affects stitch quality | How to match the needle to the fabric to the thread.   What happens if we are experiencing loose stitches intermittently?  Meaning, the stitch is loose occasionally with thread looping or knots showing?   Intermittent…

Spool Cap Tips from a Technician There are two main purposes to the spool cap on your sewing machine. The first is fairly straightforward: a spool cap holds the thread spool onto the spindle and prevents the thread spool from rattling around and/or falling off. The second purpose is less obvious, but just as important:…

How to Wind a Bobbin: Tips from a Trained Technician If you’re looking to learn how to wind a bobbin on your sewing machine, there is one key rule to remember: the thread being wound onto the bobbin must be under adequate tension. How do we achieve adequate tension?  We make sure that the thread…

How to Replace a Sewing Machine Needle: Tips from a Technician It’s important to know how to replace a sewing machine needle properly, because improper needle insertion can cause all sorts of problems.  Later in this article I will link you to other informational articles on how to pick the right needle for your project,…

Free Motion Quilting: Tips from a Technician One of the most common complaints we receive from customers is that their machine is not performing adequately while doing free motion quilting. To understand the difficulty of free motion quilting we must first understand what we are asking the machine to do. During normal sewing, all sewing…

Puckered Fabric: Why It Happens & How to Avoid It Puckered Fabric is a distortion where the fabric appears indented– or, puckered– in a manner where it cannot be smoothed out.   You can see examples of puckered fabric in the photos below: What causes puckered fabric? Fabric puckering occurs at the point in the stitch-making…