I explored tension levels 0 to 9 on my sewing machine. You can see as we get the higher levels (6 and above), there’s some breakage in the thread. I stepped on the pedal too hard and the faster pace of sewing caused the fabric to gather, Smoothening it out is what caused the breakage.

Here are my concentric square and circle. I absolutely love the fine-line look the straight stitch, setting 2 on the machine, creates. In creating the squares, I found that rotating the fabric while the needle was still embedded in a part of the muslin led to a smoother continuation. The second photo shows the straight stitch seam created between the two panels of fabric. The spiral was harder to create, as my pedal was lifted from the fabric so I didn’t feel as stable. I’m actually really into the wobbly line effect it produced, though, and I’d employ this technique again.

For my letter, I chose X. I learned that the stitches sometimes don’t exactly resemble the dial previews on the sewing machine, so I got to visualize how different settings looked when they were actually used in a stitch. This was another good opportunity for me to practice rotating the direction of my stitch while maintaining one continuous line.

It was awkward doing this in a house where I’m hyperaware of noise, but it’s 1 in the afternoon and I enjoyed dusting off my sewing machine!