This is a good time of year for following the Sew Mama Sew blog. Last month they reviewed purse patterns daily. Now it’s on to a month of daily projects for gift giving. They have quality free tutorials and patterns and lead you to really good sites.

Do you have an automatic threader on your sewing machine? Do you yell at it often and rarely use it? Well stop yelling at it! That isn’t at all nice or productive. Take a close up look at what you’re dealing with here. It’s a teeny wire hook on a wobbly arm – trying to fit through an equally flexible and often moving teeny hole. It can do the job quite nicely, but the moon and the stars must align in a harmonious state.

If your threader is not working well, gently guide it down to the proper location and (again, gently) wiggle it into position through the needle hole. Do that a few times. It’s like a retraining and alignment. This may help. It also helps to be gentle and flexible when you do get it working again. Some work better than others too. My older version works much better than my newer one. One version also works with the needle at any height, and the other likes the needle at the top of its cycle. Go figure. However it does pay to have it working when you need it, so put the effort in.

And if you’re trying to thread a size 9 needle you need to think again and put away the wacky tabaccy. Maybe with a really fine thread, but even then people – I don’t think so.