HOL

I've just bought my very own sewing machine! It's a small travel size one since I don't intend to use it a lot but didn't want to hand sew all of my daughter's Halloween costume. The instruction manual is..... Well, first of all it spells instruction wrong! I haven't used a sewing machine since 8th grade, which was.... 16 years ago?!

Luckily I've got lots of scrap fabric to practice on, but any tips would be awesome!

One of the things I found very helpful is to make sure that the thread I use is good quality. It really makes a difference because the machine will feed it through far more evenly than the lower quality ones. So even if you think the lower quality ones are fine strengthwise when you've used them to sew by hand, they might very well not be as useful when using a machine.

Also, holding together the fabric with needles: Make sure that they are either placed at a 90° angle to the direction of the seam (That way you can sew over them and have a very small risk of hitting them with the needle of the machine) or place them along the line of the seam with the tip of the needle facing towards the machine and the head towards you. This way you can remove the needles as you go without having to figure out how to now get the head moved towards the place where the machine's foot and needle are.

Also, indeed, test on the fabric you intend to sew each time to make sure the tension is correct.

If you sew stretchy fabrics, use a zig-zag stitch (or a stitch specifically designed for this type of fabric, but many smaller machines don't have this) even for straight seams. This will allow the fabric to still stretch without tearing the seam.

Zig-zag the edges of the fabric to keep it from unravelling.