How to start and stop the machine With your machine unthreaded and the presser foot raised, it is ready for you to start. Place your right hand on the balance wheel. (It will help you to start the machine in motion.) Keep your left hand a distance from the needle to avoid this— [Illustration: WARNING] How to speed up and slow down Place your foot or knee on the control or treadle. See how slowly you can make the needle go up and down. If the machine runs too fast for you, you can press your right hand against the balance wheel to slow it down. Practice until your foot or knee can control the speed evenly from fast to slow, without using your right hand on the balance wheel. How to stitch correctly Slip a piece of material under the presser foot. (Your leader will have a piece for you.) Lower the needle into the material by rolling your right hand on the balance wheel until the needle goes down as far as possible. Then lower the presser foot onto the material. Let the machine run without your hands touching the material. You will notice that it will slip and slide in many directions. To guide the material, hold your left hand on it with your fingers curved as if you were holding a ball in your hand. If you hold it gently, you can guide the material as it slips under your fingers without interrupting its movement as it is being sewn. Try it! [Illustration: {Guiding the material}] Your right hand will also help you to guide the material. As soon as the machine is in motion, take your right hand off the balance wheel. You will soon discover that you will have to practice the trick of sewing straight. [Illustration: Do not run off the EDGE of material.] Slow down your speed when you near the end of your material so that you can stop when you reach the edge. Roll the balance wheel to raise the needle—then lift the presser foot to remove the material. How to use the stitch regulator If your sewing machine has a lever which makes it sew backward, try to use it now. Move the stitch regulator up as far as it will go. As you start the machine you will see it moving backward. In order to stitch forward again, push the lever back down as far as it will go. As you will learn in your projects, you will always have to sew very slowly and carefully when you sew backward in order to do it nicely. [Illustration: {stitch regulator}] Another reason the stitch regulator is on your machine is to make the stitches larger or smaller for you, whichever is best for the material with which you are working. [Illustration: 8 STITCHES] Some machines have numbers next to the lever to tell you the number of stitches per inch. If your machine does not have such numbers, you will be able to tell the number of stitches per inch by putting a line of stitching into a piece of material, and counting the number of stitches sewn in a one-inch space.