I hope that the original thread jam has been cleared. The bobbin area of a Featherweight is intimidating but not difficult to take apart and put back together, fortunately.

As one of the younger members here, when I learned how to sew in 1990 on a new Elna I was taught to always hold the threads at the beginning of the seam. It was almost the only thing I did remember when I came back to sewing machines. I was surprised to find that it is apparantly not a Thing That Must Be Done anymore and people who learned to sew before I did and who have kept on sewing but are trying out vintage machines are caught by this. It is just one of those odd things, I guess.

As one of the younger members here, when I learned how to sew in 1990 on a new Elna I was taught to always hold the threads at the beginning of the seam. It was almost the only thing I did remember when I came back to sewing machines. I was surprised to find that it is apparantly not a Thing That Must Be Done anymore and people who learned to sew before I did and who have kept on sewing but are trying out vintage machines are caught by this. It is just one of those odd things, I guess.[/QUOTE]

It depends on the machine. My 1973 Elna is very insistent that the threads be held. My 1956 Singer 301 doesn't care.

It never even occurred to me to try not holding on any of my machines. But that classroom Elna hated me anyway. I cleaned a lifetime's worth thread jams out of it and was convinced that I had a sewing machine curse.*

*Because I do have a dot matrix printer curse. I can make one jam just by being near it. This was far more relevant in 1990.

I do hold the threads. If I'm remembering correctly, I believe this jam started when a thread broke during sewing.

Concerning holding the threads back: the neighborhood girls I have helped with sewing actually think the bed joining area crack that runs all the way to the back of the machine is the place where you are supposed to slip your thread tails before starting to sew. It wastes a bit of thread, but that sure beats thread jams and also the problem of the needle coming unthreaded because of forgetting to leave the take up leave all the way up.

The manual for the Singer 160 (2011) even says that. I used to wrap the tails around the presser foot screw at the start of a new piece of sewing but with modern snap on feet the screw is not big enough for that.