Friday, March 22, 2013

Sewing Machine from Hell

Last September I got a sewing machine from mom that she bought off of a friend who didn't want it anymore/moving out of state, I made the comment of wanting a sewing machine and so she gave me that one. I have regretted taking that machine ever since. The dang thing has caused me problems and frustration every time I have used it from the freaking get go.

The first time I used it, which was shortly after getting it I was practicing on a scrap piece of fabric to just get a feel of the machine I was able to do a line of stitching then when I went to do it again it jammed on me so freaking bad that I ended up breaking the needle to get it unjammed. I call up mom have her come over and she fixes the problem with the needle cause I couldn't get the old one to come out and runs fabric through a few times with no problems. I put the machine up cause it was best for me to just walk away from it for awhile because of how frustrated I was with it. So it sat untouched for MONTHS.

Flash forward to Wednesday of this week, when I decided to drag it out to make a small wall hanging quilt to get some practice in for making my brother his birthday or Christmas gift depending on when it gets done. I cut up the fabric all fine and dandy hook up the sewing machine and get ready to sew, get two pieces put together and sew to only have 1. the thread come out of the needle and 2. to have it not sew the first half of the fabric together. No big deal, I can thread a needle by myself after all I do it all the time while cross stitching. Wrong I can't get the thread through the needle to save my life. I try for what has got to be 30 minutes getting more and more frustrated as time goes by. I give up and at that point mom calls to say she is off work and on her way home so I ask her to come over and please help me. She comes over and in seconds has the damn thing threaded and working. She gives me a few tips on how to work with this very stubborn machine. The main one is starting in the middle of the fabric to sew then once done flip it over and go the other way so it can all be sewn together, the other is to have a longer then needed tail of thread so it wont come out of the needle again. I start sewing again and all is going amazingly well, until the bobbin runs out of thread. So I quit for the day, taking it as a sign and pack up the machine for another day.

I pull the sewing machine out today cause I'm bored and figure why not see if you can get the bobbin refilled and back in the machine and continue on sewing. I pull the bobbin out to find out that there was thread on it of a different color, that the previous owner just put a different color on top of it so now I don't have to worry about trying to put thread on a bobbin cause I can just use whats on there. I amazingly with just a little difficulty get it back in and get it how it's supposed to be and am now ready to sew. I grab my practice piece of fabric cause I don't want to ruin the fabric I'm using for the quilt  and get it set up to sew on. I put my foot on the peddle and start it up and WHAM instant jam. So I get the fabric unstuck with out breaking the needle and see if I can see what the heck the problem is, fix it or so I think and try again, BAM another jam worse then the first one, get the piece of fabric unstuck again and again with out breaking the needle. Take apart the machine to get to the bobbin area and see that the thread from the needle some how is getting caught up down there. That's it I have it with this sewing machine from hell. It obviously doesn't like me and wont work for me so screw it. I called mom at work and told her she can have the dang thing back I'm never using it EVER again.

I will finish up my project at mom's house on one of her other sewing machines, probably the one I have used before which is her older one. Which I'm fine with cause I know those ones actually work. But I refuse to let my experience with this one keep me away from sewing.

1 comment:

Deb Hardman said...

Why don't you bring it over here the next time your FIL comes to work on my kitchen, & I'll see if I can help you with it. Maybe at least diagnose the problem.