Good news and bad news
On the good news side, hubby has just phoned from Japan to say that he'd made it OK. Connections had gone smoothly and he'd been upgraded to First Class so the horrible long flight was way more comfortable than he'd expected. Obviously my advice to dress nicely and not look like he'd just staggered, stoned, off a beach in Jamaica paid off! It's sad he's not going to get much of a chance to have a look round while he's there. The inside of one hotel is much like any other whatever country you're in.
On the bad news side, there's something wrong with my sewing machine. The Brother one, not the new Pfaff. I had half an hour to spare and so I was sewing a couple of Mended Heart blocks while I had a cup of tea. The satin stitch just didn't seem to be feeding through properly and I was getting the stitches piling up on top instead of laying next to each other. I thought maybe the walking foot was faulty so switched to the wide one but that did exactly the same thing, then I tried with an ordinary foot and it was still doing it. I stripped the machine down but there wasn't much in the way of fluff and lint and everything looks like it's working fine. I suppose I'm going to have to take it in to be fixed. MIL is away for a week so I might 'borrow' hers while she's away.
The block I was trying to sew is a complete mess but here's a couple that I did earlier. :)
posted by Dormouse @ 2:16 pm
5 Comments:
Clever and effective block design - like it, don't you just hate machines wen they go wrong - and of course I just realised your new machine is a straight-stitch only - tried one at Weston Quilters show, impressed, wish I had a spare few hundred quid I could squirrel away for it :o)
Did you check for lint or threads in the tension disks? I had that problem once and there was a thread in there that held them apart so there was not enough tension. I love your quilts and truly envy your Pfaff quilter.
Anne, they were my 'learn to free-motion quilt' pieces. The squares are layered with batting and the hearts just satin stitched on and then quilted. When you've got two you just chop them in half and close zig zag them back together. They're only 8 inch squares so they're really easy to manouvre. I've got a box full, one day I'll do something with them.
Joyce, I went back and had another check and sadly there's no sign of anything. Thanks for the tip though, I'll remember that.
The Pfaff is wonderful, I love it to bits and don't think I could use the Gracie Frame with a smaller machine... but it WAS expensive. No birthday or Xmas presents for me for a while.
I like the one on the bottom left, it almost looks like the mouse is peeking out.
Hare you checked the feed dogs are fully up and moving? Turning the wheel by hand without thread or fabric makes that easy to check.
Other thing I saw for the first time recently was the bobbin thread cutter not retracting properly. If you have one try activating it with the covers off the bobbin area (and fingers well clear) see if it is moving and then getting out of the way.
If you want to, feel free to call me (my number is on my Ferret Fabrications site) and I will see if I can think of any other tests you can try.
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