Video:How to Thread a Sewing Machine

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Transcript:How to Thread a Sewing Machine

Hi, I'm Pamela Wicinas for About.com. Today I'm going to show you how to thread a sewing machine.

Find Your Sewing Machine's Diagram

This sewing machine is about 30 years old, but still works quite well. So older machines are still quite handy to have. Some machines will have a diagram inside this piece here on how to thread the machine. If you inherited a sewing machine or found one at a tag sale you might not have the manual. A good place to look for a manual for most sewing machines is online.

The Sewing Machine's Bobbin

When threading a machine the first thing you need to do is fill your bobbin. So to thread a bobbin you need the thread that you're going to use, and you need to put the thread on the bobbin. So you take the bobbin and you put it on the bobbin winder, which is the top of the machine, most often. You put your thread on here and this is a guide for the bobbin. Move this back into place.

Disengage the Needle

In order to wind the bobbin you need to disengage the needle. It's a little different on every machine, but on this one you loosen the center wheel, so that if I turn this it doesn’t make the needle go up and down. Take the thread through the first guide on the sewing machine, and you bring it back and start it off around the bobbin. Use the pedal to make it go.

Once the bobbin is threading, if you keep an even pressure on it, the guide will help get an even wind on your bobbin. You don't want the thread to be all one side or the other. This way, if you can see, the thread is, as its winding, its winding up and down the length of the bobbin to give it a good even spin.

The Bobbin Case

Most machines have a bobbin case that the bobbin goes in. This bobbin case has a little guide for the thread to go through, and we have to make sure that this gets in properly or it messes up the whole threading system. The thread went through there, and under here, and comes out here, make sure the needle is up and slide it in there. And then you thread the machine.

Thread the Guides

The key to threading a machine is to get the thread through every guide. There's usually a top guide, and then you come down through a wheel that has numbers on it. This is the tension guide. Then you have a guide that hooks it down here, in order to bring it up, this little guide up here moves back and forth and this is what's taking the thread up and down.

So once you go through the tension and hit this guide you'll come up and thread it through here. It might be a little different on every machine, but this is the basic idea. Once you get it through this little hole up here you bring it back down and hit this guide and then there's usually a guide right above the needle and you just loop it in there.

The Pressure Foot

This little thing here is called a pressure foot, and there will be a lever behind the machine that takes the foot up and down. It's much easier to thread this when the pressure foot is down. It's very hard to get the thread through the needle if its at all frayed. So I always cut a new sharp cut, and you thread the needle front to back. Once you thread it you lift the pressure foot back up, put it between the two little feet here, and take it back like that.

Catch the Threads

Once your top thread is threaded and your bobbin is in place you need to bring the bobbin thread up so that it comes out with the top thread. You manually move the needle down and through a couple times and let the threads catch. This thread went down and brought up the bobbin thread. You take a pin or your scissors and just guide the bobbin thread all the way out the opening, ending up with the top and the bottom threads coming out the back of the machine. You are now ready to sew.

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