If you have some experience sewing in the past, you may know how annoying wrong tension of the machine can get. If you want your work to turn out perfectly, fixing tension of the machine is of foremost importance. Proper tension ensures that thread flows easily through the fabric as you sew.
Procedure:
- Tension Components – Basically, all sewing machines have four components or devices which ensure proper flowing of the thread. These are; tension discs, thread guides, tension regulator responsible for upper thread and bobbin-case spring responsible for bobbin thread. They ensure that the same amount of thread is flowing from the needle and bobbin at the same time. This produces a symmetrical stitch.
- Recognizing Tension – Tension problem occurs when the top thread is either too tight or too loose. This results in bobbin thread appearing at the top which shouldn’t happen. This can be solved by either loosening the top thread if it is too tight and vice versa.
- Adjusting Top Tension – After determining which thread is tight and which one lose, you move on to adjusting it. If it is the top thread, then you must locate the tension regulating dial on your machine. If you don’t know which knob it is, check your instruction manual since it is in a different place in every machine. It has numbers on it which can change to increase or decrease tension. If the top thread is loose, you must turn the knob which would increase the number and thus, increase the tension. If the top thread is tight, turn the knob in such a way that the number decreases which would result in decreased tension. Do this process and observe to check if the threads are balanced.
- Adjusting Bobbin Tension – Although it is preferable to adjust the tension using the top thread adjuster in most cases, sometimes that is just not possible. In such cases, one has to adjust the tension on the bobbin thread. There is a bobbin case screw which can adjust the tension on the bobbin thread by loosening or tightening the screw. If you require to test whether the bobbin thread needs adjustment, take the thread hanging from the bobbin case. If the thread unwinds during the process and drops down a few inches, you would know that the tension is perfect. If the thread is not unwinding, it means the tension is too tight. If the thread unwinds easily and without any effort, it means that the tension to too less. This would help you to cure tension imbalances in your machine.
It’s a very easy but still very important task to adjust the tension in a sewing machine. Whatever type of fabric you are going to sew or need to put on some embroidery on it, you will have to set up the tension applied on the thread in order to get a clean and smooth stitch that would increase the value of the sewing work being done.