Deep Clean

I was playing with my new Handi Felting Foot recently and decided I needed to do a deep clean before I go back to regular quilting. Haven’t heard of the Felting Foot? You can see it here.

A deep clean is something you should do every so often. Not like the normal maintenance of clearing out lint from the bobbin area and a drop of oil that you do each time you put in a new bobbin. I’m talking deep clean, like actually move the furniture when you vacuum kind of deep clean. Depending on how much you quilt, you might want to do this about once a month. Or if, like in my case, you were working with particularly linty materials.

Remove the throat plate

Warning: if you have an Infinity you might not want to remove the throat plate. There are some parts attached to the bottom of the Infinity’s throat plate. Consult the manual.

You will need a short, flat-head screw driver to remove the two screws holding the throat plate. You probably have one of these that you use with your domestic machine.

The little pink one is magnetic which is a plus because the screws will stick to it.

I like to start by removing the needle and the foot. You will need your small hex tool that came with your machine to do that. Then I remove the throat plate. Mine has extra holes meant for the Felting foot.

Put those little screws in a safe place!

Use your small brush to clean the exposed area. Also, turn over your throat plate and you’ll likely find some lint stuck to the bottom.

Here’s a tip: Plastic mascara wands work great to get into tight places. You can usually get a whole package of them for $1 at the dollar store.

If you have an Amara or Forte or Infinity or Moxie you may use canned air. Just remember: 1. Do NOT shake the can, 2. keep the can upright, and 3. use short, quick bursts of air.

Once it’s all clean and shiny under there, replace the throat plate, the needle and the foot. Place a drop of oil on the bobbin race and you’ll be ready for the bobbin case. But before you put that back in you’ll want to

clean under the bobbin tension spring

Small goobers of lint can accumulate under the tension spring on your bobbin case and cause all sorts of havoc with your tension if they get into the wrong place.

My favorite tool for this little job is the corner of a business card.  The tension spring is the flat metal piece on the outside of your bobbin case.

Start by putting the corner of the card under the tension spring close to the screw you turn to adjust tension.

Then slide the corner of the card under the spring to the other end. You might get a tiny little lump of lint out. You can do this motion a couple of times.

I don’t like to use a pin for this procedure. You will risk getting a minute scratch under the spring which could over time develop into a burr that will shred your thread.

If there’s lint on the inside of your bobbin case use your brush or canned air to clean it out.

That’s all there is to it! You are now ready to finish that next quilt. A clean machine is a happy machine. And a happy machine makes for a happy quilter.

by Mary Beth Krapil, the happy quilter 🙂