From: ejl6m@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Eva L. Benitez)
Subject: Summary of response: bobbin tension & teaching sewing
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 21:40:18 GMT

     Thank you, thank you!
     Some of you may recall a week ago I posted about the problem I 
was having with the bobbin thread being too tight on my sewing
machine, creating a little bit of pucker in most of my seams.
I am happy to announce the problem is solved, thanks again to the
collective wisdom of alt.sewing.  :-)  A couple of you wrote with the
solution.  It seems that on the side of the "thing" that holds the 
bobbin, there are two small screws, and the one nearest where the 
thread exits (on mine, the left screw) controls the tension.  I
got MUCH better looking seams once I tried turning that a bit
counterclockwise!  The upper tension had to be adjusted to match, of
course.
     Other suggestions for eliminating pesky pucker included changing 
to all-cotton or to all-long staple polyester thread.  And for general 
better performance, there was a recommendation of Schmetz needles over
Singer.
     Which leads me to comment, if I go to my auto parts store, I can
pick up an owner's shop manual on fixing about any car out there (and 
I have one, and I heartily recommend them), but I've never seen any 
place selling a book on how to work on a sewing machine.  Has anyone 
seen one?  Or does anyone out there care to write one?  Since sewing 
machines operate on the same general principles, I could get a long
way with just a little book on basics like tension (OK, after a 
decade I may have finally figured that out) and general principles
of operation and trouble shooting.  As with my car shop manual, I 
suspect that if I read a book on sewing machines I would discover
things that I'd never realized were machine problems but are 
affecting the quality of my sewing.  It took me years to focus on that
stupid pucker problem and realize it wasn't my technique, it was the
machine.
     On teaching sewing, my favorite advice received was to make sure
my friend understands she WILL make mistakes, so she won't be so frus-
trated later when she DOES make mistakes.  Another preliminary consider-
ation mentioned was to figure out whether she was someone who would be
more encouraged by getting the first project done fast or by getting
something done that was pretty nice.  In either case, there's the 
importance of establishing good habits, teaching her "all the things 
that make projects look good, like pre-shrinking, lots of pressing, 
basting, nice interfacing, practicing stitching and details first on 
scraps," and providing lots of encouragement along the way.  Also,
the necessary wise choice of pattern and material; accoding to 
anecdotal evidence many beginners get overly ambitious!
     Books for beginners were also recommended: Singer's "Sewing 
Basics," Sandra Betzina's "Fear of Sewing," and Palmer & Pletsch's 
"Painless Sewing" (the last a more general reference).
     As for my search for a good source of high quality flannel, no 
responses so far!  But please post if you find one; I wasn't the
only one looking.
     Thanks to all who responded!  That heap of projects will come
out better looking now, and I think I'm better prepared on teaching
too!  :-)

--Eva

Eva Benitez
Dept. of Physics
Newsgroups: alt.sewing