Tuesday Tutorial: Clean Your Machine!

If you sew on a regular basis, or even occasionally, you can appreciate the value of having your machine running smoothly. Proper maintenance is crucial to your machine's health, and routine cleaning with a periodic oiling will keep your machine happy and humming along.

Every machine is different, therefore you must refer to your owner's manual for specific instructions. f for some reason you don't have a manual, you can usually google search for a copy of one. For illustration purposes I'm going to show you how I cleaned my machine. Please don't take anything on your machine apart unless you know what you're doing! (That, dear ones, is my disclaimer. You dismantle your sewing machine at your own risk.)

How often do you need to clean and oil your machine? I think you should clean it fairly often to prevent lint from building up. Oiling should be done less frequently. On my Bernina, a little oil can indicator comes on my screen every 180,000 stitches, so I would say that if you do a lot of sewing, every month or two should be sufficient.

How to Clean and Oil a Bernina Aurora 440QE

First, gather together your owner's manual, lubricant (I used what came with my machine), a small brush, and a microfiber cleaning cloth.

Make sure your machine is turned off and unplug the power cable. Remove the presser foor and needle.

Remove the stitch plate by pressing down at the back right corner. The front will pop up a bit so you can remove it.

Eeeewwww!

Use a small, soft brush to remove the lint from the stitch plate area. Some of it will fall down into the bobbin area; we'll get that in a minute. Use your microfiber cloth to gently wipe off the inside of the stitch plate, and pop it back into place.

Give your entire machine a good wiping with the cloth. The Bernina owner's manual says to use a damp cloth, but I found that my dry cloth worked just fine.

Now open the bobbin cover. Remove the bobbin case and set it aside. Let down the locking lever and the black hook race cover by pressing on the release lever that is to the left.

Remove the hook. Clean it off with the dry cloth. At this point, I also dusted a wee bit of lint from the black hook race cover. Replace the hook and close the hook race cover. Be sure the locking pin engages with a soft click. (You'll feel it more than you will hear it.) Turn the handwheel to ensure everything is in place.

 
Now you can oil your machine. Squeeze one drop of oil into the black hook race. That's all!

The manual says to run your machine a bit without thread to prevent oil from soiling your fabric; I prefer to thread my machine and stitch for a few minutes on scrap fabric. If there's any oil residue, it will be worked out pretty quickly.

All finished!

Don't forget to enter this week's giveaway of a Kona Cotton Color Card (maybe two if enough people comment). I think I made this one a little too complicated. You don't have to do much. Just comment on the giveaway post and you're entered! Earn extra entries if you wish, but they are optional.

Happy and smooth sewing!

Sue

Comments

[Jocelyn]

Great tutorial. I have a Bernina, although not the same model. One time when I removed the stitch plate, a little part broke off and had to be replaced :-( Have you ever used the little vaccum attachments to clean the insides?

[Tricia L.]

Thank you for posting this! I know my machine needs it so I'll be doing this soon.

[robin(rsislandcrafts)]

Ewww, that's yucky lol. Mine gets that way pretty fast too. Especially with red thread.

[Simone]

What a great post. Really helpful! Have a lovely weekend.

[Monica]

Thank you so much for posting these instructions. I don't have my user's manual with me and yours is the only site that has great lubricating instructions! I couldn't even find something on the Bernina website!