Sewing has always been a skill I am really glad I have. I’ve went through phases of doing it as a hobby or doing it as a way to make extra money. These days a lot of people are pulling their machines out of the closet, dusting it off and putting it to work. But, and there is always a but, some of those machines have been sitting there for years and that means, before you use it, it needs to be cleaned and oiled! In a regular situation, you would take it to a sewing machine repair person and have it done, but in times like these, you are going to need to do it yourself. Additionally, you really should be cleaning your machine every time you use it.

Now, before you start yelling at me, there are three levels of cleaning. The every time you sew cleaning is basically blowing the lint out of your machine and can be done with canned air. I do right before I sew. All kinds of lint from your thread and material get inside the presser foot and throat plate and bobbin case and can cause issues.

Then there is level two. In this level, you remove the presser foot and throat plate and the bobbin case. You again give it a good cleaning with canned air AND oil all accessible moving parts with sewing machine oil.

Level three is when you take it in for yearly maintenance.

For level one and two, I am including links below for tutorials on how to do it yourself. Everyone’s machine is different and because of this, please also refer to your machines manual. If you don’t have the manual try looking for it via google. Unless your machine is a hundred years old, then… I don’t what to tell you. Though in those cases, it will likely be a treadle machine and I know there are specialists out there for that too!

This is a great step by step article. https://www.mybluprint.com/technique/clean-your-sewing-machine

This is an older video, but a really thorough one on how to clean and oil your machine.