Cleaning my Sewing Machine

I came across a blog post recently, outlining how to clean a sewing machine (which I can’t find to share for you, sorry!). I remember thinking — you need to do that? I’ve never done that!

This week, after I finished Izzy’s duffle bag and had decided to take a brief sewing break, I decided to try it out. Why not? Could be fun!

I couldn’t find the original tutorial I’d stumbled across, so I googled for a bit and settled on a Free Craftsy class called “Sewing Machine Maintenance 911“. There are some classes at the start about the parts of the sewing machine and how to start sewing, if you are a total beginner. I’m sure that would be useful to the right audience, but that’s not me, so I skipped to the end for the maintenance stuff.

I’ve never watched a Craftsy class before, but I think I like the idea! I still prefer reading a tutorial with lots of pictures, though. I certainly don’t always have time or the peace and quiet for watching videos!

This particular class had good advice on not blowing air into the machine with compressed air, which I had also read on my missing tutorial.  Okay, good to know. Also I don’t have any compressed air!

Here is what my machine looked like before I cleaned it:

Lots of old dust up near the thread holder

This doesn’t look so bad, does it?

Oh, oops.

And under the bobbin case. Okaaaay.

I used the lint brush that came with the machine, a pair of tweezers, and a few cotton buds with a drop of oil on to get the dust to really stick on. And I needed to wipe the machine down thoroughly, it was pretty darn dusty in all the places where I don’t regular run my hands over! I cleaned it while I watched the class, and with Evie watching “Monsters Inc.” and it probably took about half an hour.

Check out the result:

So this bit should be white, apparently!

The accumulated lint from about 15 years

I’m not going to say “Ewwwwww!” like a lot of these posts do, because heck, I just don’t find lint disgusting. But I’m sure it’s better out than in! 🙂