An ongoing disaster

When I sat down at my sewing machine a few weeks ago, it didnt work. It hadnt been used for some months because of being away, I started researching new machines, costs etc. I decided before going and buying a new one, I would sit down and try to work out if I could do anything with it. Lo and behold, it worked, wow saving me about $200+. However, the bobbin rewinder still didnt work but I had plenty of wound bobbins so I didnt let that bother me. He about the house had offered to look at it for me, something for later.

I have been merrily sewing whatever my fancy takes me until last weekend when I had to put on my last bobbin of neutral colour, there were still a couple of blacks and navy blues but white or off white was the colour I mainly need to use certainly in the near future.

Put in my request for HATH (him about the house) to look at it SOON! Wednesday was the day (after I had greased the way with a yummy afternoon noon, I mentioned the machine. Right I'll do that right now.

HATH sits at my machine and needs instructions on what goes where and then when I turned away for a minute, the bobbin starts! I would like to say that hes a miracle worker but no, it was just that I had been trying to use the wrong button and of course it wouldnt go would it! Amazing what gets forgotten when something is not used for awhile.

In my defence, I'd like to point out that my sewing machine is a bit high tech (should be, I was urged to spend $3000 on it seventeen years ago by HATH)and it does not use a foot pedal. I was trying to use the straight stitch button instead of the go button which has an arrow on it and its red!

GF dropped for a chat and a coffee so HATH decided to clean my machine using the vaccumn cleaner (also to give us some chat time) and proceeded to pull it apart and defluff. Then he set it going and oh dear the noise it made was unreal. He emerged from the sewing room with a sheepish look and said I think you had better take it to somewhere for a service as I cant get it to go right.

I left it for a day and when he went out, I hurried into the sewing room to see what it was doing. OMG! the bit on the bottom was missing, therefore there was no tension. Again $$$$signs came up. When he returned I asked what he had done, at this stage, I didnt know that he had taken it apart. A little metal part was gone, we came to the conclusion that it had been sucked up into the vaccummn cleaner so we empty all the dirt and fluff onto a tarp outside and carefully go through it. No such luck, then HATH remembers that something had dropped on the floor so we go back to the sewing room and on all fours search on the carpet. Again nothing, a penny dropped, maybe it dropped inside the cavity of the machine so he unscrews the plate while I'm watching and then I see it, it was still there! just a quarter turn away from where it should be, took it out and replaced it in the right spot, screw plate back on and fingers crossed tested it. Sews like a new one, disaster averted again, thank goodness!