Monday, September 28, 2009

Repairs made - time to resume sewing

I've been using my mom's old Singer 774 for the past 4 years for the majority of my sewing and quilting. From the information I found on the internet, it seems mom's machine is from about 1975, which makes it about 5 years older than me. A few years ago, mom & dad bought me my very own sewing machine at Big Lots and it sews OK but it's a brand I haven't heard of and only came with a few accessories. Plus I learned to sew on mom's machine and it's what I am confortable with. Mom won't give it to me, even though she bought a newer & fancier Singer about 10-15 years ago. So I borrow it for awhile until she says she needs it back. Then I borrow it again the next time I visit :-)

Mom's machine started skipping stiches recently. It started when I was working on Piet & Kate's wedding quilt but I was zigzagging through several layers of fabric at the time. I tried everything I could think of to get the zigzag working so I could finish sewing down the binding for that quilt ( I was about halfway through when it started acting up) but I ended up having to rip out all the work I had done and stich-in-the-ditch since I wasn't happy with my hand stiching.

A couple weeks ago, I was making a quilt for a silent auction for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and it started skipping on the straight stitch too. At times, over an inch of stiches were skipped. I texted mom and she asked if I had oiled it. That was the one thing I hadn't tried yet so I got some sewing machine oil at Joann's and now we seem to be back to normal! It is still making clicking noises on the zigzag but the stitch itself is coming out OK. More time with the oil & Qtips and hopefully all will be well. Otherwise, a trip to the doc might be in order for mom's machine.

So now it's time to start making those Christmas gifts and making things to get my Etsy shop up and running!

No comments: