How To Thread a Sewing Machine

How to Thread A Sewing Machine

Today’s post is all about how to thread a sewing machine. This post is part of a series on Sewing 101.

While knowing how to thread a sewing machine is quite a straightforward process in itself, unfortunately it’s often also one of the areas where a lot of issues originate.



In order to know how to thread a sewing machine properly, please refer to your sewing machine’s instruction manual. However, all sewing machines follow more or less the same process, and I will elaborate on it a little more below:

Before You Thread A Sewing Machine

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  1. Find out where you put the spool of thread on your sewing machine. Also, figure out where the bobbin goes, how to open the bobbin casing etc. Make sure you have the spool stopper (you should have received one with your sewing machine) at hand.
  2. Wind your bobbin – usually one to two bobbins is enough, larger projects require more. If at all possible, wind all (or many as you can) bobbins in advance. It is incredibly frustrating to have to stop your entire project, unthread the machine and wind more bobbins.
    a. Your machine will most probably have markings and arrows indicating which route the thread must follow in order for the bobbin winder to work. Take the thread from your spool and thread it one bobbin winder bit.
    b. Take the end of the thread and wind it two or three times clockwise around the bobbin. Place the bobbin on the winder and engage the bobbin winding mechanism.
    c. Step down on the presser foot and watch that bobbin get full of thread.
    d. Once full, snip the thread, disengage the bobbin winder and remove the bobbin.
    e. Check out this video if you need more help:

How To Thread A Sewing Machine

Make sure your machine is off before starting this – you don’t want to accidentally put the needle through your finger or something like that!

  1. Put your spool on the special spool holder and secure it in place with the stopper. This will prevent the spool coming off the holder and making a mess.
  2. Follow the markings and directional arrows on your machine and guide the thread down to the needle.
  3. Once your thread is by your needle, you can either use your machine’s automatic needle threader (if you have one) or you’re going to have to focus intensely and get that thread into the eye of the needle. In contrast to my warning above, I like to turn my machine on here because the light by the presser foot helps tremendously in this task. Just be absolutely sure that your foot is far away from the foot pedal (unplug the pedal if you can).
  4. Once the thread is in the needle, pull it through behind the presser foot with a fairly long tail (10 – 15cm).
  5. Next, insert the bobbin. Most machines nowadays don’t require you to do much more than putting the bobbin into the housing (make sure you put in with thread running anticlockwise – there will be a little picture showing you which way). Close the bobbin case.
  6. Using a scrap piece of fabric, sew a few test stitches and all should be well. If not, unthread and try again.
  7. Here is another video to assist you:

Happy sewing!

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