I bought a new old sewing machine, but haven’t actually tried using it until now. Today Ingrid wanted to hem a pair of jeans, and I realized I didn’t even know how to thread the machine.

Just winging it based on past experience didn’t work. Compared to Eric’s old Bernina, nothing quite works the same. But – thank goodness for the Internet – I could buy a PDF scan of the original user’s manual for 75 SEK, and that finally got me sorted.

I got nice and tidy seams with ordinary sewing thread, but didn’t manage to get the tension right with a thicker polyester thread, no matter how I adjusted it. The top thread was always too loose. Turning the tension knob towards “looser” made it noticeably worse, but tightening did not make it better. Maybe it would work better with a thicker fabric to match the thick thread?

Anyway, getting a handle on the basics took me so long that Ingrid had already finished hand-seaming her jeans hems. I guess I’ll just stick to normal thread and normal fabric to begin with, and tackle this again later if a need arises.