Cleaning Your Sewing Machine...

How often do you clean your sewing machine?  I generally clean my machine after every big project. My last project was a trapunto project with a lot of free motion embroidery. I knew my machine was in need of cleaning.  So, here's my process:

Here's the area in question on my machine.  I have already removed the presser foot and the bobbin cover.

Here are my favorite tools. With the exception of the screwdriver, the basic cleaning tools are the same as when I am cleaning the serger.

With this picture, you can see how dirty my machine is.  I was actually a little bit shocked at how much fuzz was in the bobbin area. I have removed all the loose items from this area.  They will be cleaned separately.  When cleaning this area, I mainly use the natural bristle paint brush.  I can get into a lot of the little nooks and crannies by turning the fly wheel and then moving the paint brush into the machine as far as I can. I also go around as many times as I feel necessary which is basically until I'm not longer finding any dust inside the machine.

All the loose items.  The throat plate will be wiped down along with the little gray part.  The bobbin case will be carefully dusted and checked to make that there isn't anything hung up inside.  Don't forget to check the feed dogs.  They will get the fuzz built up also.

Just to give you an idea of how dirty my machine was after a day of doing free motion embroidery.  That is a lot of dust.  In fact, this makes me want to have my machine serviced.

All sparkly clean and ready for the next project.

So, does this mean that you should take the time to clean your machine more often when doing free motion quilting?  What do you think?

Remember to clean your machine often.

Happy Sewing!