Practical Sewing Tips & Techniques 2: Tension Trouble Shooting

Tension problems are one of the most common issues that people have when they're sewing. So let's talk about it. We'll take the fear out of it. Everywhere your needle touches your, or your thread touches your machine as you're threading, the machine puts tension on the thread. But where the most tension comes into play is with these tension discs.

So there's two little discs in there that kind of clamp down on the thread and put tension on it as it's running through the discs. And the, the tension dial or the knob, or whatever you use for your specific machine to adjust the tension will go from zero to mine goes to eight. Yours may go to a different number. But when the tension discs are at zero, that means there is no tension put on the thread. The discs are as far apart as they can go.

And as you increase that tension, the discs get closer and closer together and put more, and more tension on the thread. So that's where most of the tension comes into play. So when you are testing the tension on your machine, if you wanna see how your stitch is formed and see what adjustments you need to make to your tension, it is helpful to thread your needle and your bobbin thread with high contrast thread, both to each other, and to the fabric that you're using. So you can really see how that stitch is forming, and you don't have to strain your eye to see, you know, where your thread is going. When testing your tension, you wanna use the fabric that you, you sew with most often and use the correct needle for that fabric, and a new needle.

So if you're sewing with a quilting cotton, you'll use a new universal needle. So, sew a line and see how that tension is looking. And let's talk about some of the adjustments that you may need to make. So if you're getting some tension issues, you may get, you know, thread loops. So thread loops, this was on the wrong side of my fabric.

I was having a lot of problems this day. So I was having a lot of thread loops on the wrong side, so. If, I've heard the general advice that if you're getting tension issues, thread nests and thread loops on the wrong side of the fabric, it's something to do with the needle tension. And if you're getting thread loops and things on the right side of the fabric, it's something to do with the bobbin tension. It's not always true, but it's a good place to start.

So before you even touch your, any of your tension dials, if you're having tension issues which may include skip stitches or thread breakage, there are some things you want to look at first. So is your, your needle threaded correctly? Take everything out, start over, thread it again, making sure you're catching your thread in between these tension discs. And you can test that by give, that a little tug after it's threaded and then lower the pressor foot and give it a tug. And if it pulls, if it's harder to pull, that means you've got a thread caught in the tension desks and that's threaded correctly.

So it makes sure everything is threaded correctly on the top and in the bobbin as well. Take your bobbin out, re-thread it. And if you have, if you've wound your bobbin at a really high speed, that will have put more tension on the thread as it's being wound on the bobbin, which, when it's stitched into a seam can cause puckering and thread breakage. So make sure when you're winding your bobbin, you wind at a consistent, medium speed. So if everything is threaded correctly, can move on to the next step.

Make sure your machine is clean. If there's lint or debris in any of these moving parts, everywhere the thread touches something, it adds more attention to the threads. So if there's there's gunk in there, it's adding more tension to your thread or it may, you know, pull that gunk around and cause thread nests and all kinds of things. So you can, you can floss out your tension discs to make sure that there's nothing in there, gumming things up. So open up your, your tension dial so that there, the discs are as far apart as they can go.

Take some tightly woven cotton, a little piece, fold it in half, and kind of floss that in between your tension discs, make sure that there's nothing in there. And you want to dust out underneath your bobbin case everything under here as well. So when your machine comes to you from the manufacturer, a lot of times these screws are really screwed in tight. So the first time you do this may be kind of difficult to get those screws out. And you probably won't be able to find a screwdriver that is short enough to get in there, underneath the the arm of your machine.

So I just use a nickel. You can pop that in there and get those screws loosened. That's a nice trick. So take everything apart, dust out under there. Some people will say to use canned air and squirt that in there, get all the dust out.

But I find that, that may jam the lint even further into your machine in the worst case scenario. Best case scenario, you're gonna squirt that air in there and the lint is all gonna blow up in your face. So I like to be a little more delicate about it. Just take the little brush that comes with your machine and brush all that lint out. So make sure your machine is clean.

Also make sure you are using the right kind of needle for the application. Make sure you're using the right needle for both the fabric and the thread that you're using. So if you're using a knit fabric, if you're sewing on knits, make sure you're using a needle that is designed for that. So a ballpoint needle or jersey needle, or a stretch needle for knit fabrics. I kind of use them interchangeably.

If you're using something with a lot of stretch like a spandex, a specific stretch needle will probably be probably be your best bet. If you're using a regular cotton fabric, something that's not too thick, a universal needle will work for you for most project applications. If you are using a heavier weight thread, make sure you are using an appropriate needle for that. So if you're trying to use a universal needle with a heavyweight thread, such as a top stitch thread, can see how much thicker that is than a regular all-purpose thread, or sometimes they're just called heavy thread. That's a little bit thicker as well.

If you're trying to use one of those thicker threads with the universal needle, the thread is thicker and it's trying to go through the same size eye as an all-purpose thread will go through. So it's putting more tension on that thread which can a lot of times cause friction and fraying of the thread, and thread breakage. So use a needle that has a larger size eye, such as a top stitch needle. Metallic needles also have an elongated eye to allow thread to move through the eye without added tension, and without friction to reduce thread breakage. So if you've got the right kind of needle for your fabric and for your thread, make sure that needle is not dull.

If you're using a dull needle it's gonna have a harder time going through the fabric down into the bobbin area. It's gonna have a harder time making that connection with the bobbin thread as it winds around, and that'll result a lot of times in skip stitches. If your fabric on your, the bed of your machine is kind of jumping up and down, you may even hear a dunk, dunk, dunk, as the needle goes through the fabric. That's called flagging, and that is a lot of times a symptom of a dull needle. So change your needle out.

That's a lot of times, one of the first things I'll try. If I'm having tension issues, it's a really easy quick fix for thread loops and bad tension. So that's one of the first things I try. The common conventional wisdom is change your needle after every six hours of sewing. I have a really hard time keeping track of the hours that I sew on a needle.

So I'll just change my needle after every project usually. But if you are, if you're sewing on a material such as fleece or felt, or something like insulated batting with those metallic flecks in there, those will dull your needle faster. So you may need to change your needle more frequently when sewing on those types of materials, leather as well will dull your needle pretty quickly. Fabrics with a denser weave, a lot of times as well. So after you've gone through all of those things then we can start talking about actual physical adjustments on the machine.

So you'll want to start making adjustments to your needle tension, and make adjustments in half increments. So start, my machine has this kind of recommended range between three and five. So you can start there. And sew a test line, and if you're having issues, go to four and a half, sew another test line. If it's not corrected, go another half in whatever direction you need to go in.

So if you're getting thread loops on the right side of the fabric, or if you're seeing your bobbin thread on the right side of the fabric, a lot of times that means your needle tension is too tight, or too strong. So that needle thread is going down making the connection with the bobbin thread and pulling that bobbin thread up too hard, too much so that you're seeing that bobbin thread on the right side. So you want, you will want to loosen up that needle tension a little bit, so it's not pulling it up so strongly. And we want the needle and the bobbin thread to make that connection to form that stitch right in the middle of our fabric layers, right between there. So we, we only wanna see needle thread on the right side of the fabric, and we only wanna see bobbin thread on the wrong side of the fabric.

So that's what we're going for. If you're getting thread loops on the wrong side of the fabric, if you're seeing your needle thread at all on the wrong side of the fabric, a lot of times that says to me that your needle tension is too loose. So it's the needle thread is going down into your bobbin mechanism, wrapping, that bobbin thread is wrapping around and it's not pulling the bobbin thread up enough. It's not strong enough, not tight enough. So you may need to increase the tension on the needle so that it's stronger and pulls that bobbin thread up to meet in the middle of the fabric layers.

Sometimes, so if you, if you're making adjustments, trying to correct your tension, and if you get all the way to one side of the dial all the way to an eight, or all the way to the other side of the dial, down to almost zero, you may need to make adjustments to your bobbin tension to even that out a little bit. Sometimes machine manuals will tell you not to do bobbin adjustments, or it will just omit instructions altogether, and not say anything about bobbin tension adjustments. Because they are very fine and minute, and manufacturers may be trying to, to cover themselves a little bit, so that you don't try to make an adjustment and mess something up, and send them an angry email. So they will just say, "Take it to a professional", just to cover their bases. But you can do tension adjustments to your bobbin.

If it's not, if instructions aren't in your manual, a lot of times you can go online and find instructions for your specific make, and model. When you're doing bobbin tension adjustments. So in your bobbin case, there'll be a little screw that you're going to turn one way or the other. If you can take that bobbin case out, if you have a a bobbin case that you can take out to make adjustments, do that over a bowl, because if you are adjusting that screw, and if you lose it that screw in your carpet, it's gone. You're never gonna see it again.

So do the adjustments over a bowl, just in case that screw comes out, you won't lose it. So these tension adjustments to the bobbin you wanna do like very tiny, like quarter turn increments and test. And some people like to buy a separate bobbin case to do their adjustments to, so that they'll have that bobbin case with the manufacturer's setting preserved. Or you can take a really fine tip marker and mark where that screw started. So you always know where, where you started and where you can go back to.

So that little screw will will control the tension on the bobbin thread. So you can, you can do some adjustments there as well to try and even everything out. If you are still having tension issues, here are a couple of other things that I wanted to mention. Make sure you have the correct bobbin for your machine. So these bobbins, my, a metal and a plastic bobbin, they're the same height, so I can use those interchangeably.

But. Make sure, so this bobbin is, for some reason, I have so many different kinds of bobbins floating around my sunroom. I don't know why. But if you use a bobbin that is too short for your machine, that thread is going to come off the bobbin easier and you will get your own set of tension issues. If you're using a bobbin that is too tall for your machine, it's not gonna fit correctly, the thread is going to get gunked up, you're gonna get thread nests, and things are just, they're not gonna work.

So make sure you have the right bobbin for your machine. Also. For some reason, some machines have a hard time with certain combinations. So I was using my topstitch thread the other day and I put a roller foot on my machine, and I was getting these horrible thread nests, and things were not going smoothly. And I went through all my checklists and I could not figure it out.

I put a regular zigzag stitch foot back on my machine and things worked fine. So for some reason, my machine did not like the combination of a heavyweight thread and a roller foot. Heavyweight thread and a regular foot was fine. All-purpose thread and a roller foot was fine. But that combination, for some reason, just my machine had a really hard time with.

So that's a consideration if you're having a hard time with tension issues. So that is my tension checklist. I hope I didn't forget anything, but if I did, I've made those bullet points available for you as a bonus download with this course, so you will always have those on hand. So next, we're gonna talk about elastics.