sewngineer

[sewngineer]

Introduction

We’ve all experienced the frustration that is linked to sewing machine rage. Countless times I have felt irritated, disinterested or even fed-up with my machine being overly dramatic because I dared to adjust the tension ever so much too tightly. Well, that all changed when I decided that it is time to put my engineering degree to good use. Granted, it’s for electronic engineering, but this machine runs on electricity which is sort of related so it shouldn’t be that hard. Right?

I’ve taught myself to sew as a hobby for a couple of years and during that time, I have come to learn a lot about how to keep my machine from throwing a fit. I learned a whole heap of skills, from performing basic servicing to figuring out exactly how to make it do exactly what I want it to. I’ve been meaning to pass my knowledge down and have done so by helping friends, as well as starting my own little collection of various mistreated or abandoned machines to fix up.

While my sewing is still definitely firmly lodged in the “amateur” category, I have managed to make a couple of pieces I am very proud of. Especially from hard to work with fabrics like leathers and too many layers. While some have scoffed at my little Singer not being good enough to handle such endeavors, I proved them wrong by showing how I got my girl to power through those chunky fabrics.

This blog aims to address every single issue I encountered, self-inflicted, machine error, friend suggestion or otherwise and showing a meaningful way to troubleshoot the error without having to go through a million Google searches of “help, skipped stitches” that only offer the advice “rethread your machine or change the needle.”

For those interested, I own three machines, whom you will meet over the course of the blog.

Tailor Swift- She is my Singer Heavy Duty model. She has been my faithful little labrat when it comes to sewing strange things. She has been forcefed leathers, foam, a tent and a bunch of general outfits.

Dolly Parton- She is my gorgeous antique I rescued. She came to me, stuck, rusted and in horrible shape. She’s a 1920’s (I believe) shuttle bobbin machine and she often gets used when I don’t feel like hunting for power points.

Jolene – She is my most recent find. A front loader Janome model of unknown year/make. She’s been living on my desk and been used in most of my projects of recent.