USE AND CARE OF SEWING MACHINE The Sewing position that is to be ocupied by the sewing machine should be where the light is the best in the room. It is preferable that the light fall at the left-hand side of the worker.
The woman who uses the sewing machine should know how to treat it if she wishes her machine to always run light, and to thus save herself from backaches.
Care of the Sewing Machine.—If a machine runs hard, one of the best remedies is to give it a generous kero sene or gasoline bath. Most of the linty accumulations are caught by the feed. These may be easily reached by removing both the slides and the feed plate, which is held in place by a sin gle screw. After these parts are re moved slip off the plate, turn back the head of the machine with a small pointed implement, and with a soft cloth carefully remove the particles of dirt.
To Clean with Kerosene.— If the machine runs hard oil it generously with kerosene, using from a half pint to a pint. Run it rapidly for a few minutes, then with a piece of new cheese cloth carefully rub off the kero sene and oil again with machine oil. The kerosene cuts away the gummed oil, and the machine oil lubricates the parts.
To Clean with Gasoline.—Nothing is better than gasoline to limber up a sewing machine. Apply the gasoline as above recommended for kerosene, after which carefully rub off and ap ply machine oil.
To Oil a Sewing Hachine. — It is surprising that some machines will sew at all, they are so seldom oiled or cleaned.
Put a few drops of oil in all the oil holes, run the machine rapidly, wipe off all surplus oil outside the oil holes, and the machine is ready for use. Two minutes will suffice for the
operation.
Sewing-machine Troubles. — The prevailing difficulty in using sewing machines is the breaking of the thread. Other disarrangefnents seem easy to adjust, even to a person who has used a machine but a few weeks or perhaps days. The breaking, which is mostly with the upper thread, may be caused by an imperfect adjustment of the tension; this is usually the case with new machines. But with those that have been in use several months the breaking (if the tension is right) is produced by the threads drawing into the guides, so that when a swelled place in the thread cannot pass the narrow groove, which is the exact width of the thread, it breaks. This break takes place anywhere from the point of the needle back to the grooved guide. As the breakage is usually near the needle, the real cause is gen erally overlooked. Many machines are laid aside on account of this continual breaking when, if the cause had been understood, the guide holes might have been smoothed with a small file and the trouble ended.
If a sewing machine gets into a " mood" and refuses to budge, no matter what the stuff is nor how it is presented, thick or thin, single or double, lay a slip of paper each side the seam, being careful to put it un der the presser foot, and sew with an even, steady force. The paper can be removed after sewing.