Sewing 101?

[StevenMoore]

Just purchased a tacsew 111-155 machine, tried to sew a few pieces and after they flew off the table more times then I want to mention I went back to the computer and ordered a servo motor for it. While waiting for the motor to ship I figured I would research as much as I could on leather sewing. The reason I bought the machine is to make leather covers for composition notebooks and such. My 12 year old daughter goes through them like crazy for school and asked if I could make some covers for her and her friends. I came upon this site, very friendly group and I've learned a lot to help my new hobby. After using the search function I did not find the answer to my question so I figured I would introduce myself and ask a couple questions. First question. How do you stop a stitch from pulling apart? During my speed sewing I managed to make for lack of a better word a crooked eye glass case. My first project so I'm proud no matter what. However I noticed that if I pull hard enough I can pull the first few threads. I know home sewing machines have settings for locking the first thread? Is this what the reverse lever is for? Should the thread be knotted? Sorry for the silly questions. Just want to make sure my daughters first book covers stays together for the balance of the school year.

Thanks,

Steven

Southern Maryland

[Earl]

Steven, The person that showed me how to lock the first and last stitches on cloth upholstery, sew about 3 stitches foward, reverse to beginning, and then stitch to end of run, doing the opposite at the end to lock all stitches. On leather, this may create too many holes so leave your upper and lower thread a bit long, 4 inches or so out your needle and bobbin thread. After you make your sew, also leave some extra at the end. Take it out of the machine, so it will look nice from top, pull the bottom thread a bit to make the top thread start coming thru, now pull the top thread to the bottom and tie top and bottom threads together and clip off the threads. Do beginning and end same way and all will be locked. Sounded simple as I wrote this, hope it makes sense to you. Earl

[MikePatterson]

Steve when starting and while holding both top thread and bobbin thread tight and to the rear of machine sew forward three stiches and then back up three stitches when you get to the end of run back up three stitches and forward one stich. This should lock everything and allow you to snip thread if you want to you can burn short onds with a lighter.

Hope this helps it works for me.

Mike

[StevenMoore]

Steve when starting and while holding both top thread and bobbin thread tight and to the rear of machine sew forward three stiches and then back up three stitches when you get to the end of run back up three stitches and forward one stich. This should lock everything and allow you to snip thread if you want to you can burn short onds with a lighter.

Hope this helps it works for me.

Mike

Thanks to both, I will definitely use that technique. Never did ant sewing, wife looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head when she saw me downstairs setting up the sewing machine. "What? Real mean sew too!" Very happy I came across this forum! If I can ask a follow up question, The spools of thread, the 1 pound ones, how does everyone store them? I have seen spool racks for the small ones but nothing for these large ones. I have four right now and I can see that number easily growing.

Steve

[Bree]

Until your servo motor arrives, get some scrap and learn the "friction zone" of your clutch motor. This is the area somewhere in between speed=0 and speed=max. It is not a very large zone but it exists. Teach your foot how to stay in the zone and grab hold of the machine's flywheel as you sew. This will prevent it from going into hyperdrive by slipping the belt unless you jam down your foot on the pedal. As long as you stay in the friction zone and keep hold of the flywheel you will be able to control the machine at slow speed.

Once your servo motor arrives you may still find this skill useful as you can set your servo to high speed and ratchet it down as needed by foot/flywheel control. This allows you to generate higher torque to sew through thicker and heavier material. Servos ar enot as powerful as the clutch motor you are replacing.

Practice on scrap and try new things. You'll get the hang of it very quickly.

[StevenMoore]

Until your servo motor arrives, get some scrap and learn the "friction zone" of your clutch motor. This is the area somewhere in between speed=0 and speed=max. It is not a very large zone but it exists. Teach your foot how to stay in the zone and grab hold of the machine's flywheel as you sew. This will prevent it from going into hyperdrive by slipping the belt unless you jam down your foot on the pedal. As long as you stay in the friction zone and keep hold of the flywheel you will be able to control the machine at slow speed.

Once your servo motor arrives you may still find this skill useful as you can set your servo to high speed and ratchet it down as needed by foot/flywheel control. This allows you to generate higher torque to sew through thicker and heavier material. Servos ar enot as powerful as the clutch motor you are replacing.

Practice on scrap and try new things. You'll get the hang of it very quickly.

Thanks for the help, I spent most of today doing what you suggested. I also re-adjusted the table height. I'm 6'4" and it was kinda awkward getting my big legs under the table in a way that lets me use the knee lift and the treadle in the right way. Making it higher helped. Thanks for all the suggestions, this is a great forum.

Steve

[Bree]

Thanks for the help, I spent most of today doing what you suggested. I also re-adjusted the table height. I'm 6'4" and it was kinda awkward getting my big legs under the table in a way that lets me use the knee lift and the treadle in the right way. Making it higher helped. Thanks for all the suggestions, this is a great forum.

Steve

Great start! Getting the table and hardware to fit your bod is really important. You need to be able to operate all the controls with ease so that you can concentrate on the sewing. That is the fun part... sewing stuff and making things... not futzing around with the machine controls all the time.

Just for fun, here is an exercise for you... take two pieces of fabric, stack them, and then cut them so that they have a long straight section and then several curves... wide ones, tight ones etc. Position your needle so that it is 1/8" from the edge of the fabric. Now sew all the way down the straight section and along the curves. The object is to maintain exactly 1/8" from the border and to always have the top and bottom pieces exactly aligned together. It's trickier to do then one might think. The faster you try to sew the harder it gets. There is little room for error on this one so sew carefully.

Good luck!

[StevenMoore]

Great start! Getting the table and hardware to fit your bod is really important. You need to be able to operate all the controls with ease so that you can concentrate on the sewing. That is the fun part... sewing stuff and making things... not futzing around with the machine controls all the time.

Just for fun, here is an exercise for you... take two pieces of fabric, stack them, and then cut them so that they have a long straight section and then several curves... wide ones, tight ones etc. Position your needle so that it is 1/8" from the edge of the fabric. Now sew all the way down the straight section and along the curves. The object is to maintain exactly 1/8" from the border and to always have the top and bottom pieces exactly aligned together. It's trickier to do then one might think. The faster you try to sew the harder it gets. There is little room for error on this one so sew carefully.

Good luck!

Installed the servo motor. Its like having a different machine. I did the exercise you mentioned and I think I failed Shallow curves were fine, staying close to the edge I was ok, got better the more I did it. The biggest problem is tight curves. I noticed the walking foot tends to make it hard to turn a tight corner without wrinkling the leather. I used a fairly light weight leather. And the servo motor was on its slowest setting. I think I just need more time then I can speed it up to the next notch and can turn a sharper corner. Thanks again for the help! Makes it much more fun as I now feel like I might be able to actually make something!

Steve

[Bree]

Installed the servo motor. Its like having a different machine. I did the exercise you mentioned and I think I failed Shallow curves were fine, staying close to the edge I was ok, got better the more I did it. The biggest problem is tight curves. I noticed the walking foot tends to make it hard to turn a tight corner without wrinkling the leather. I used a fairly light weight leather. And the servo motor was on its slowest setting. I think I just need more time then I can speed it up to the next notch and can turn a sharper corner. Thanks again for the help! Makes it much more fun as I now feel like I might be able to actually make something!

Steve

LOL!! I expected you to fail. I failed. Most people will fail at it. It isn't easy. It LOOKS easy but the looking and the doing are two different things. But now you know and every time you try it you will get a little better. You get the "feel" of sewing. You learn when you can speed up and when you have to slow down. You learn when the action of the feet and/or feed dogs will give you trouble and how to adjust. You will be learning stuff every time you sew. So Sewing 101 never really stops.

Why don't you post PIX of your exercise piece and show where you had trouble so others can see it?