A Guide To Sewing Stitches

Hi, my name is Aliza from Seam So Easy, www.seamsoeasy.com.

I am going to show you how to choose a stitch on your machine. The numbers up here correspond to the numbers on here, see, turn this dial which is your stitch selector guide for whatever stitch you want. Today, we are going to start with number 1, which is just a straight stitch.

This is your stitch length dial and that allows you to choose how long or short you want your stitch. I will show you that. This is a stitch with dial, known as straight stitch that makes no difference, but when it gets to a zigzag, it will make a difference and I will show you the different options available.

This dial here is your tension disk, it starts with zero which means no tension and goes up to nine which is a very tight tension. We generally sew on anything between a 3 and a 5 which is medium tension. The tension simply means that you are controlling how tight this top thread goes down.

Alright, so let us start, this is what a regular stitch would be like, so we are choosing number 1 which is a straight stitch on a very small stitch. Put the needle down, start sewing, this little button is for incurring your thread, it is to make sure that your thread does not come out. As you can see, this is a quite short stitch.

I will increase that to a number 3, slightly longer stitch. With number 4, which is longer stitch, anything beyond that, you are getting into a basting stitch which is very long and not always suitable but it depends entirely on the project that you are sewing. I will go back to a 3, this is that stitch with a 0 tension, which means a very loose tension.

As you can see, I am having trouble undoing it, but the thread sits bunches with the top of the fabric. Your perfect tension means your thread has to sit flat on your fabric. I will show you what the tightest tension does.

Can you see how the fabric starts to puck up? That is because the thread going in is too tight. The next stitch I will show will be an even stitch. This will change dependent on what sort of project you do, but it is always advisable that before you start your project, you take a little piece of fabric and get your tensions right.

I will now move to a zigzag stitch which is the number 2 stitch, and in this stitch, the stitch width also comes into play, so keeping our stitch as small, we will start it on a 3. You can see how wide that stitch is and the length between the stitches is quite wide. You can reduce that by going to a 2.

You can increase it by going to a 4. We will go back to a 3, I will also show you what stitch width does. This is a number 1 width.

As you can see, it is barely nonexistent because the width of the stitch. What we are asking the machine to do is to sow on no width at all. If you are into a 5, it would be a very wide stitch.

So dependent on your project, you might need a very wide or a very close stitch, like that. The choices are, there are quite a few choices obviously, but it depends on what you are sowing and for what purpose you are using it. So, if you are doing it to him or something that is going to take a lot of wear and tear, then you want quite a wide stitch, which is quite close together.

That is how you choose the different stitches. .