Handheld Machine Jamming: The Threading Step
A handheld sewing machine that will not sew is almost never broken. The needle goes up and down, the motor …
Threading a Serger Without the Panic
There is a line that turns up in serger reviews often enough to be a genre of its own: everyone …
Computerized or Mechanical: Which First Machine
Ask this question in any sewing group and you get two confident answers. One says mechanical machines last forever and …
Free Motion Quilting: Setting Up Your Machine
Free motion quilting looks like a skill problem and is mostly a setup problem. Almost every complaint that sends someone …
Brother CS5055 Review: Where the Extra Stitches Go
Sixty stitches. It is printed on the box in a large font, and it is close to meaningless. Nobody sews …
Which Needle for Which Fabric: The Short Chart
Most needle questions are really one question asked at the fabric shelf: this is what I am sewing, what do …
Needle Keeps Breaking: Stop Pulling the Fabric
A snapping needle makes a noise you do not forget, and the second one in an evening feels personal. It …
Sewing Kit: What Actually Belongs In One
A sewing kit is the thing you go looking for at eleven at night with a button in your hand. …
Heavy Duty Thread: When Polyester Is Not Enough
A seam is only as strong as the thread holding it. That sounds obvious until you look at a cushion …
Handheld Sewing Machine: What It Can and Cannot Do
A handheld sewing machine is the size of a stapler, it costs less than a takeout dinner, and the product …
Do You Need a Serger: Five Signs You Outgrew It
Every sewing group has the same thread running through it. Somebody asks whether they should get a serger, twenty people …
Budget Sewing Machines: What You Give Up
There is a version of the cheap sewing machine story that is entirely true and rarely told: a basic mechanical …