Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Wednesday WOW–September 18

I started out today all ready to re-stitch the seams that had gone wrong last week.  Thank goodness, I decided to check after just a few blocks.  They had the same problem!  Some were even worse!!!

Not a great way to start out, but at least I have the whole day to figure out what’s going on.  Following the trusty TNT Rule (thread, needle, tension), I put in a new needle, inspected and rethreaded both top and bottom and tried adjusting tension.  No improvement.  While checking the bobbin (again!) I noticed a little lint in the bottom.  Hmmm. I wonder how long it’s been since I cleaned this machine.

Now, one clue would be that I had to get out the manual to find how to remove the plate and access the bobbin race.  Uh oh.

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Oops!  I guess it’s been awhile.  That may not look like a very large ball of lint, but it has been gathered up and compressed, so – yeah – that’s a lot of lint!

I guess I need to change TNT to CTNT – clean, thread, needle tension!

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After that exercise, everything is back to normal and I finally got past that first seam!!

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I’m now at the halfway point on these blocks.  Not as far as I would like to be, but considering the bumps in the road – so to speak – not bad at all!

I think I’ll go clean my other sewing machine now!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it any consolation I have seen worse ... and thankfully the worst I have seen wasn't in my machine, and it would make that little clump of yours look like a pea in the potato pot!

Gina E. said...

LOL! Years went by before I cleaned my old Singer machine, as I got it to make clothes when I was a teen, and then only used it for hemming or other mending from time to time. But when I started doing patchwork I thought I'd better change the needle and pull the covers off to see what was underneath...a broken needle, a few pins, and lots of dust bunnies!
I've learnt my lesson and have already cleaned the lint from my new Janome once :-)