Machine record, stitch sample log and care log
Your machine's details, the settings behind every stitch sample you keep, a dated care log and the safety checklist. Seeded from your setup; everything you type stays in this browser.
For a first pass, the machine and the stitch sample log are essential: Your machine fills the first, Stitching and tension starts the second, and the other chapters add samples to it. The care log starts in Troubleshooting and care with one dated row. The safety checklist takes five minutes once. Skip the sample log and you lose the settings that worked, and Your project starts from them.
The machine
Fill this in from the machine and its manual in Your machine; the bobbin class and needle system come in Needle, bobbin and threading.
Stitch sample log
One row per sample you keep. Write the settings on the sample itself too, so the scrap and the row match.
Care log
A dated row each time you clean, oil (only if your manual says to), change the needle, have it serviced or hit a problem.
Safety checklist
Tick an item when it is true where you sew. A damaged cord or foot control, a burning smell, sparks or a shock means unplug it and take it to a dealer or technician.
How to use these sheets
- One sample, one row. Each scrap you keep gets a row with the same settings written on the scrap itself (a strip of masking tape works). The row records what you set and what you saw; the result column is what the stitch looked like, not a grade.
- Settings are your machine's. Tension dial numbers and some stitch-length dials are not a standard: a 4 on one machine is not a 4 on another. Write the number your machine shows.
- Date the care log. A dated row for each cleaning and needle change is what lets you see whether a skipped stitch came after a long run on one needle.
The starter rows are Dana's. Her first tension test on folded quilting cotton showed the bobbin thread on top at an upper tension of 6. She rethreaded with the presser foot up, turned the upper tension down to 4, and the next sample was balanced: two rows, two kept samples. Her care log has a cleaning row and her needle rule (a new needle for each project, and at once after a pin strike). Remove the starter rows when you add your own.
These sheets record what you set, saw and did. They do not diagnose a machine. A damaged cord or foot control, a burning smell, sparks, a shock, a hot motor, or a fault that survives the check order goes to a dealer or service technician; write their answer in the care log, and the answer is theirs.