Crash!
I've spent the past 2 days working on my machine! My machine works great 99.9% of the time. When it doesn't work well, it's because of operator error :(
I was quilting on the Serenity Beach quilt (the one in the header of my blog) and quilting away through the palm fronds, loving the way it was turning out when all of a sudden:
PING! CLUNK! RATTLE - RATTLE - RATTLE!!!!!
I was quilting through the center section where all the leaves come together and the needle refused to penetrate all those layers of fusible web and fabric! HOW RUDE!!!!!!!
The needle didn't break - it bent into a fish hook shape-ugh! Of course that knocked the timing on the machine completely out of whack. That took an hour to fix, but the machine still wouldn't work right. I had 1/8" loops of thread on the underside of the quilt with every stitch!
So I took everything apart.
I cleaned every moving part, retimed, retimed, retimed! Still no luck.
Changed the bobbin, the thread, the backlash spring - no luck.
Now it's 5 1/2 hours later and my family thinks I need to cook dinner!
Machine waits until morning to be looked at again.
I send a message to my longarm list asking for HELP!!!!
This morning I get suggestions - some of which I've already tried, but finally found one I hadn't. Check the rocker arm!
So I take the machine apart again - the bobbin section that is. I had retimed the sewing hook, but not the rocker arm. Of course if you don't know anything about how a sewing machine or quilting machine works this makes absolutely no sense to you, but believe me this has nothing to do with music!
But, retiming the rocker arm is a pain in the neck, so I try a few other things just in case, hoping that the machine will work with these few fixes.
I change out the check spring on the rotary tension - it's old so it could use a rest anyway. I change out the thread guides above the cone of thread. Actually I just switch them from one side of the machine to the other. One gets used more than the other so it's tired too ;)
Of course, these changes don't help :(
There is nothing left to do but retime the rocker arm. I test it out and of course it is out of sinc :(
SIGH
I take a deep breath and dig in.
It only takes 30 minutes!!!! Yippee!!!
Now why didn't I try that first?
I let the machine rest the remainder of the day. I'm exhausted, I can only imagine the machine is too.
Tomorrow I'm tackling that palm tree again. Only this time, I staying away from the center of the palm fronds :D And I'm never using that many layers of fusible web again!!!!
Susan
I was quilting on the Serenity Beach quilt (the one in the header of my blog) and quilting away through the palm fronds, loving the way it was turning out when all of a sudden:
PING! CLUNK! RATTLE - RATTLE - RATTLE!!!!!
I was quilting through the center section where all the leaves come together and the needle refused to penetrate all those layers of fusible web and fabric! HOW RUDE!!!!!!!
The needle didn't break - it bent into a fish hook shape-ugh! Of course that knocked the timing on the machine completely out of whack. That took an hour to fix, but the machine still wouldn't work right. I had 1/8" loops of thread on the underside of the quilt with every stitch!
So I took everything apart.
I cleaned every moving part, retimed, retimed, retimed! Still no luck.
Changed the bobbin, the thread, the backlash spring - no luck.
Now it's 5 1/2 hours later and my family thinks I need to cook dinner!
Machine waits until morning to be looked at again.
I send a message to my longarm list asking for HELP!!!!
This morning I get suggestions - some of which I've already tried, but finally found one I hadn't. Check the rocker arm!
So I take the machine apart again - the bobbin section that is. I had retimed the sewing hook, but not the rocker arm. Of course if you don't know anything about how a sewing machine or quilting machine works this makes absolutely no sense to you, but believe me this has nothing to do with music!
But, retiming the rocker arm is a pain in the neck, so I try a few other things just in case, hoping that the machine will work with these few fixes.
I change out the check spring on the rotary tension - it's old so it could use a rest anyway. I change out the thread guides above the cone of thread. Actually I just switch them from one side of the machine to the other. One gets used more than the other so it's tired too ;)
Of course, these changes don't help :(
There is nothing left to do but retime the rocker arm. I test it out and of course it is out of sinc :(
SIGH
I take a deep breath and dig in.
It only takes 30 minutes!!!! Yippee!!!
Now why didn't I try that first?
I let the machine rest the remainder of the day. I'm exhausted, I can only imagine the machine is too.
Tomorrow I'm tackling that palm tree again. Only this time, I staying away from the center of the palm fronds :D And I'm never using that many layers of fusible web again!!!!
Susan
Comments