fix my sewing machine

but, I need to fix it. Money has been really tight lately, and all of my clothes are either too big or falling apart. Years of employment at JoAnn Fabrics left me with rather extensive sewing knowledge, and fixing/re-designing/tailoring the clothes I have would be a great way to save some money and improve my wardrobe. Now, I can only hope whatever’s broken is something I can figure out how to fix myself.

My mother-in-law (to be) came over, and took a look at my sewing machine. There’s this wheel marked “width”, which she told me would make the needle zig-zag if it wasn’t set to zero. The wheel was set to 2, but the stitch was set on a regular, straight stitch, so it was mucking everything up.

I hadn’t noticed this, because I didn’t know what that wheel was for, but apparently, I had moved it at some point, and it was throwing everything off. I set it back to 0, and tested out the machine, and it worked! Yay!

Now I can go back to making dolls. I think I will make an abominable snow girl, for Christmas. :)

itself? turned it on today and it worked.

so I can’t take any credit for this task.

but for now, it appears to be complete.

...

tried to turn it on one day. and…nothing.

it’s harder to sew when the machine isn’t working.

the old man fixed the thing right there in front of my face! he took the old cord off the pedal and put a new one on. And he did it for 7 dollars.

The reason why sometimes it wouldn’t work is because the foot pedal cord has a really poor plug in connection to the machine. I found myself holding the plug to get it to go, which of course means only having one hand to stabilize the fabric.

I won’t be able to work on any big projects until I find a new power cord. I managed to finish off some shorts the other day, but I put things away before I had the chance to get started on a t-shirt I want to re-size.

it gets fixed. and what is wrong is that the bobbin thread isn’t pulling through—- you get a chain of stiches at the top with a straight, unstiched thread on the other side.

All I had to do was fix the wiring, which merely involved electrical tape. On the first try, I crossed the wires and short-circuited the wall. On the second try, the machine worked, but the two separate plugs for the light and the machine were in the wrong outlets. (It’s an old sewing machine that has two of it’s own outlets connected to the power cord.) I switched those up, and the machine works perfectly.