Brother SQ9185 Sewing Machine Part 1

Pic 1

Welcome to my second blog post about my sewing machines. This one should be a lot easier to write about than the last one (Brother LS2350) because I use this one a lot more. What is there to say about this machine except that I absolutely love it!! The Brother SQ9185 Computerized Sewing and Quilting Machine was the second sewing machine that I got, after my LS2350, in Christmas 2013. I got this one because I really wanted to try and free-motion quilt and my other machine just wasn’t cutting it. There is only one itty-bitty thing I don’t like about this machine, but I’ll hit on that later on.

Pic 2

The first thing I love about this machine is the cluster of buttons and their duties on the front of it. There is the Start/Stop button, Needle Up/Down button, and the Backstitch/Reverse button (pic 2). I love the Start/Stop button and this is what I use when I sew – mainly because I have no idea where my pedal went.  The arrow pointing up is the Go arrow – when you push this button, it is the equivalent to pressing the pedal with your foot, until you press again which is when it stops. The curved arrow is the Backstitch/Reverse button. You hold this button down as much as you want to backstitch and when you are done, just release it. The third button, which looks like a pen and paper is the Needle Up/Down button. This button is surprisingly helpful. The fact that this machine is computerized, it will always end sewing with the needle in the down position. This is helpful for if you want to change directions when you are sewing, you can leave the needle in the down position, raise the presser foot, and then rotate your fabric and you never lose your place. When you are done sewing, just press that button and it will raise your needle for you to release your fabric (you can always twist the knob on the side of the machine to raise the needle as well).

The arrows that are above the cluster of buttons with the slide underneath is the speed for the sewing machine – > is the slowest and >>> is the quickest (pic 2). This is a neat feature because you can have the slide under the > (1 arrow) and press the pedal down as hard as you can and you will never go faster than that particular speed. I typically keep the slide in the middle, unless I am sewing basic fabrics for a short distance, then I may speed it up just a tad. I never sew with the slide under the >>> – it feels like the sewing machine is going to take off and fly out the window.

The next thing I want to talk about is the screen (pic 3). This screen can tell you lots of information and the possibilities are endless for what stitches/lengths/widths you can do!! First off, the letter “J” that is shown above the “00” is the foot that is to be used for that particular stitch. If I remember correctly, that is the basic foot that you use for most sewing. Each foot that comes with the sewing machine is labelled with its own letter and depending on which stitch you want to do, you may have to change that foot.

Pic 3

The 4 buttons under the “00” let you pick which stitch you want to sew with (stitch listings are shown in pic 4). The 4 buttons act like up and down buttons – the 2 top buttons are the up buttons for the ones and tens place and the bottom 2 are to go down in the ones and tens place. If you wanted to sew a blanket stitch (12), you would hit the top left button once to give you and 1 and the top right button twice to give you a 2.

 Pic 4

As mentioned before, about the 1 downside to this sewing machine…. if you will look at the picture of the stitches available, you will see that “00” has the stitches on the left side and the “01” has the stitches in the middle. I find it very odd that the default location for the needle is on the left side and not centered. The main time this causes an issue is when I turn my sewing machine on and I have my 1/4 inch foot on (shown below). The 1/4 foot has one tiny hole that the needle goes into ensuring that you have a 1/4 seam allowance at all times, but it requires the needle to be in the center position. About 95% of the time (when I’m using this particular foot), I forget about this default setting and start sewing and my needle gets stopped by the metal foot, causing an awful sound and an error message on the screen. Basically how I fix it is just change the stitch to “01” and then start sewing again. Below (pic 5) you will see how the needle completely misses the hole.

 Pic 5

The other group of buttons is the stitch length and width. The “2.5” is the default length which is a good average length, unless you are basting something (pic 3).

So I really didn’t think I was going to have to split this up, but it’s looking like I’m going to. Don’t worry, there is still plenty of stuff to talk about in the next post, like the drop-in bobbin, thread cutter (not automatic), and the feed dog drop.

Until then, enjoy this 900 word post about my very dear sewing machine.

-Brittany