Tutorial: Do you clean your machine?

Clean out the lintHow often do you clean your machine? I know I’m supposed to do it fairly frequently, but I usually forget. After I had a couple threads break this morning, I decided it was time to see what was going on in the bobbin area. Yuk! Look at what was down there.

My sewing machine has a drop in bobbin, so this procedure might be different than yours. For mine, I remove two screws to take off the needle plate.
Remove needle plate

Then the bobbin holder slips out. I know there’s always lots of lint under there.
Remove bobbin holder

Now I can use the brush that came with my machine to clean out all the lint. There was also a couple inches of thread down there, which may have been the reason I was having trouble.
Brush out lint

If it’s been a while since you’ve cleaned your machine, I encourage you to take a moment or two to do it before you start your next project. Get out your manual if you need a refresher on how to do it.