Terms, privacy & accessibility

This manual is offered free, as general education. In plain language: use it at your own risk, we collect nothing about you, and we try to make it usable by everyone. The details follow. Last updated October 15, 2026.

1. Terms of use and disclaimer

By using this site you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use it.

Educational content only

Everything here is general information, written for hobbyists and self-taught beginners. It is not professional, medical, legal, financial, engineering or safety advice, and it is not a substitute for the judgment of a qualified professional for your specific situation. Materials, sites, climates and people vary; results will differ from what is described.

Personalized content

The "Your sewing" boxes, the calculators and the seeded sheets are generated automatically from what you type into the setup form, using published conventions and a few labelled assumptions of our own. They are planning estimates, not guarantees. Check every number against a sample on your own fabric, your machine's manual and your pattern.

Safety

• Unplug the machine. Unplug the sewing machine when you leave it, before you clean it, and before you change a needle, foot, bobbin or needle plate; turn the power off to thread it. Plug it directly into a wall outlet, as the makers' manuals we cite say.
• Damaged cords and hot machines. Stop using a machine or iron with a damaged cord, plug or foot control, or one that sparks, shocks, smells of burning or runs hot, and take it to an authorized dealer or service technician. Do not tape or repair a cord yourself. This manual teaches no electrical repair and no work inside a machine or iron beyond the cleaning and oiling its own manual describes.
• Recalls. Check a used, borrowed or inherited machine or iron against the Consumer Product Safety Commission's recall list before you use it. Some recalled machines have no remedy and should not be used.
• The needle. Keep fingers away from the needle while the machine runs. Guide fabric; do not push or pull it, which can bend or break the needle. Remove pins before the presser foot reaches them.
• Pins, needles and magnets. Never hold pins or needles in your mouth. Keep pins, needles, small parts, buttons and magnetic pin dishes away from young children. Swallowed sharp objects and magnets need medical care right away.
• The iron. Never leave an iron on and unattended, keep it and its cord away from children, and let it cool before you put it away. Steam and hot water in a steam iron can scald. For a small burn, the American Burn Association advises cool running water, not ice, butter or oil, and medical care for a burn larger than a hand or on the face, hands, feet or genitals.
• Rotary cutters. Close a rotary cutter's guard every time you put it down, cut away from your body, and use it on a cutting mat. Store blades away from children.
• Cleaning and oiling. Clean and oil a machine only as its manual says. Some machines must not be oiled by the owner, and some makers advise against compressed air.
• Burn tests. A fiber burn test involves an open flame. If you do one, use a few fibers held with tongs over a metal or ceramic dish, keep water nearby and tie back hair; working with ventilation is our own precaution. The fiber content on the bolt end is the reliable source.
• Sewing for a child. Do not put drawstrings at the neck or hood of anything for a child, and keep waist drawstrings short with no knots or toggles, following the federal limits for children's clothing sold in the US. For children's sleepwear, use snug-fitting styles or fabric sold as flame-resistant for sleepwear. This manual does not say whether anything you make meets a federal standard; those rules govern items sold, and selling is outside this manual.
• Posture and breaks. Set the machine up at about elbow height with your feet flat and light on the work, and take breaks. If sewing causes pain or numbness, stop and see a doctor.
• Manuals come first. Your machine's and iron's manuals, and any product's own instructions, take precedence over anything on this site.

Third-party links and products

The site links to tutorials, suppliers, books and other resources we found useful. We do not control those sites, do not endorse or guarantee anything on them, receive no payment or commission from them, and are not responsible for their content, availability, accuracy or practices. Product and brand names mentioned belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify them.

No warranty; limitation of liability

The site and its content are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Field Assembly LLC, Reassembly and the people who made this site are not liable for any loss, injury or damage, direct or indirect, arising from your use of the site or reliance on its content. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of this may not apply to you.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising from the site or these terms will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Massachusetts, and you consent to their jurisdiction.

Changes and availability

We may change, pause or remove the site or any part of it at any time without notice. We have no obligation to keep it available or up to date.

2. Privacy

Short version: this site does not collect, store or sell any information about you. If you choose to email us, we receive your address and your message.

• No accounts, no sign-up. You never need to give us an email address to use the pages. There is nothing to join.
• No analytics, no tracking, no advertising, no cookies. The site sets no cookies and includes no third-party scripts, pixels or embedded content. Fonts are served from this site, not from a font service.
• Your setup stays on your device. What you type into the setup form, and the progress checkboxes, are saved only in your browser's local storage so the site can show them back to you. They are never transmitted to us. Clearing your browser data, or using the "Clear my setup" button, deletes them.
• Share links contain your setup. The "copy a link" feature encodes your answers into the web address itself so you can open them on another device or send them to a helper. Anyone who has that link can see those answers. Do not put anything in the setup form that you would not want in a link you share.
• If you email us, we use your address only to reply, and we do not add it to any list.
• Hosting logs. The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which, like any web host, processes technical request data (such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested) to deliver the site and protect it from abuse, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. We do not use that data to identify or track visitors.
• Links to other sites take you to services with their own privacy practices.
• Children. The site is not directed at children under 13 and we knowingly collect no information from anyone.

3. Accessibility

We want this manual to be usable by everyone, including people who use screen readers, keyboards, magnification or high contrast. The site is built to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA. Specifically:

• Semantic HTML with headings, landmarks, lists and tables with header rows; a "skip to content" link; visible keyboard focus on every control.
• Every form field has a label; checkboxes and radio buttons are labeled; the menu button reports its state.
• Text and interface colors meet contrast minimums in both light and dark modes; information is never conveyed by color alone.
• Text resizes with browser settings; layouts reflow to narrow screens; no content flashes or moves on its own.
• Diagrams have text descriptions; icons in the navigation are decorative and accompanied by text.

Known limitations: wide reference tables scroll horizontally on small screens, and printable pages depend on your browser's print settings. If anything on this site is hard for you to use, please tell us through fieldassembly.net and we will try to fix it.

4. Copyright and sharing

© 2026 Field Assembly LLC. The text, structure and code of this manual are copyrighted. You are welcome to use the manual for your own sewing, share the link freely, print pages for personal use, and quote short passages with attribution. Please do not republish the manual or substantial parts of it, sell it, or present it as your own. Linked third-party material belongs to its respective owners. The self-hosted fonts (Cormorant Garamond and Inter) are used under the SIL Open Font License.

Built by Reassembly for Field Assembly LLC.