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POOR STITCHING

Some of the common causes of poor stitching with a sewing machine are :-
 

To achieve a correct stitch on any given fabric, the top or needle tension and the lower or bobbin thread tension must be balanced - this does not mean that they will both be the same 'pull' . The top tension will always be something like four to six times tighter than the lower one. If your machine has a removeable bobbin case then the tension should generally be adjusted so that when suspending the case by the thread, the case will not quite drop under it's own weight with a full bobbin.

The top tension - and you always test with the foot lowered onto the plate, otherwise the tension will be released by the foot lifter - should feel quite tight, a bit difficult to explain this one but you should only just about be able to pull the thread through from the tension (unthread back to the tension for this test) when gripping the thread between finger and thumb.

What you are aiming for is to have the two sides of the stitch on the material looking about the same, it's a good idea to use two different colours of thread top and bottom, you can see the different threads easier. Once you have the tension on the underneath about right as instructed above, you really only need to play with the top to achieve what you want. The stitch should be formed as in the cross section shown below :-


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