Another new purchase from the refund

 Elaine and I went to Spotlight yesterday and, apart from polar fleece, I bought us another new sewing machine. Luckily Elaine noticed that the one I picked up had been opened so I quickly swapped it over. 

This morning I opened the box and got the machine working.  I was packed with a piece of brown paper under the sewing foot and that had obviously absorbed excess oil. I've sewn a tiny bit with it and it sounds fabulous. This one actually purrs. I hope it keeps working well because I am well sick of machines that do not work.

I even checked the foot pedal of the old Bernina this morning too before I give up on it completely - it is completely clean so that is not the issue. I will donate that to Stephanie's other group who may have someone who can fix it for them or can use it for parts. What a pity.

The new purchase returned and money back

 Early in May I bought us a new sewing machine, the same one Stephanie bought a few years back from Aldi. While hers works like a dream, ours had intermittent faults and was driving Kerrie and I mad while we had a day of sewing last Saturday. As it was still within the return time I drove up today and did so.

So that is now back to 3 sewing machines that work. We might have to start using my treadle machine if things get tight. I still have Stephanie's machine set to my blanket stitch needs for my hexies but I guess I can change that.

A new purchase

 A week ago, after a very frustrating time with faulty machines at our last gathering I happened to be walking through Aldi buying something quite mundane when I saw they had sewing machines for $129 and it seemed to be the same one as Stephanie bought some time ago and is quite a good machine.

So our group now has a new machine.

After gently testing it I discovered that something must have worked loose in transit so I took it apart in the bobbin area. I had to take Stephanie's apart to check just how it was supposed to go back together. I eventually got it running smoothly and made our next block using it.

It is quite noisy and had a slightly different foot pedal feel but once you get used to that it runs well.

Then I had to test Stephanie's machine to make sure I put it together again correctly but as I had set it up for my hexie flower project I did not want to alter the settings. It is doing just as I need it to.

So I remember the settings on it I have taken a few photos so that if we need to change them I know where to set it to keep the hexie project going between times.

We now have four sewing machines that work. That is until something else goes wrong.

Machines that purr

 I recently had two of my machines serviced by a man who does mobile servicing only - Ludwig Castillo - 1300 124 122 - Castillo Machine Repairs . Stephanie came to mine and we watched the magic happen asking lots of questions and getting lots of tips. 

Here are the component scraps from the donated machine that started smoking.

It came from the huge mother board in the electrics of the machine and it turns out it is not needed these days anyway.

I would recommend Ludwig's service to anyone who has sewing machine issues. He is so thorough and willing to explain things as he goes. He demonstrated the final sewing and would not leave it until the stitches were perfect.

My other machine also had lots of issues even though I had kept it relatively clean where I could get to.

One thing I did learn about was his fabulous screw driver. None of the screw drivers supplied with machines fit under the machine properly to remove the screws in the bobbin plate but he had a short stubby one.

I'm now going to find the one he had which has interchangeable screwdriver inserts.

On Friday I'm going to give myself a sewing day with Elaine.

While I could not get on with sewing upstairs I finished the jigsaw that Janice lent me when she visited a few weeks ago. I is a lovely one.

The part I liked most about the mobile sewing machine service is that in a few hours you could watch ALL parts of the machine being serviced and know that in the end it was done thoroughly.

Thank you Ludwig.

Tread carefully and clean your machines now!

Last week Kerrie donated her mother's old sewing machine to us. It is a really good Bernina. But as it had not been used in some years I decided to give it a clean before I tried it.

Following the instruction booklet I set to and found...

Again, following the instructions I proceeded to take all the bottom section apart and got my trusty computer vacuum cleaner attachments out and really went to.

An hour later I put it back together again and plugged it all in.

Straight stitch was lovely then I changed to zig zag which seemed OK until I heard terrible noises and the electric section started smoking.

 I did not get a picture of the smoke billowing forth because I was in too much of a hurry to unplug it all and open the window so I did not have smoke alarm hassles.

I think it will be a really good machine but I think I'll leave the electrics to a machine man. 

More news to come on our new Bernina.

So on your next free day clean your machine and change the needle.