Learning To Sew With A Sewing Machine For The First Time

I never really thought I would be learning how to use a sewing machine. I have had a few crazy things I think about doing but using a sewing machine was never one of those things. It is definitely a learning process and I am the kind of person who always likes a good personal challenge to conquer and this is just another challenge.

Actually my wife is doing arts and crafts making little stuffed animals bears and I am helping her. She does such a good job and the bears looked so good we decided to make it into a business. She does them all by hand. And that is when I thought of buying a sewing machine so I could help make the bears.

I am learning because as soon business picks up we will have to increase the production. So that is when I decided to buy a sewing machine to help make the little bears. I figured by using a sewing machine that would speed things up. well I found out it is not the easy at first.

First of all I had to learn how to set the machine up with the thread, the upper and the lower which was a learning process in itself. Once I figured that out it would be a piece of cake from there, once again I was mistaken. Of course the thread kept getting caught and snagged so I had to figure out why and stop it from happening. I won't even get into all the different stitches, I am just using a straight stitch right now.

Next was actually doing the sewing which is easy enough if all your doing is a stright line. However doing stuffed animal bears there are curves not many straight lines. So that kind of sewing is very detailed and can't be rushed through, especially if you want a high quality product which is what we do. I am getting there and of course it takes time. I amd kind of impatient I want it now.

The final frontier with the sewing machine is controlling the speed with the foot pedal at least for me. It is kind of hard to get a slow to mediun speed for detailed sewing. Really fast sewing is easy just push the pedal all the way down. I am trying to get a somewhat slow medium speed and it is not that easy.

You would think after all the years of sewing machines being made they would have a pedal you can set for slow, medium and fast. Just set the spped and go. Or perhaps there is one out there and I bought the kind of sewing machine that does not have that kind of pedal. O well I will do a little more research. Until then I will just have to figure something out with the pedal I have.

In conclusion I will figure it all out so I can help my wife and get our business going. It is definitely a challenge I will conquer and master. Just takes practice and time. After I master the sewing of the bears. I would like to make my own shirt. Who knows maybe I can start my own clothing label making men's shirts.

Take care,


Ron Randall
Take a look at the little bears me and my wife do http://www.cookiebeargiftshop.com
I actually designed the website.