Sewing machine woes

Hello everyone!

It has been a busy time over in my little corner of the world.

P's Parents came to stay for the weekend. I do enjoy them coming to stay. There's loads of chatting and catching up. Loads of laughs too!

Sometimes though, I worry if I am being rude. Like when I wash up or pop off to make the beds. I think it is probably just me. I do have a tendency to worry. Even if I haven't got anything to worry about, then I worry that I have forgotten something. Go figure!

Anyhow. P's mum has helped me a huge amount with my sewing machine.

I've hardly used it over the last few months. You see, everytime I used it, the fabric would pucker, bunch up, and jam up the works. After using the trouble shooting pages in the manual, I found out that tension was the most likely problem. So I followed the instructions, and nothing changed. Next stop was Google. I must have looked at 10-15 different sites about how to fix tension problems. Sill no luck.

Stitch stitch stitch, bunch, pucker, bunch,

FROWN. SWEAR. FROWN.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

So I put it in the storage cupboard under the stairs. (With the cobwebs)

I very nearly put it in the bin. The ONLY thing that prevented that from happening was if there are cobwebs in the cupboard, then it stands to reason that something made them. Something I have no desire to see or be near thank you!

Now though I am happy to say that the machine and I are pals again now.

Would you like to know what the problem was?

I'm embarrassed to tell!

THREADING!!!!!!

Each time I have threaded the machine, I have wound the cotton around the little thing that you only use to keep tension whilst winding a bobbin. Effectively double the tension. No wonder it was all puckery and bunchy!

Before help

After help

I don't think I would have ever guessed that threading would cause such a fuss!

Now the machine works like a dream. I think I need a lot more practice though.

I'm quite pleased with this little pin cushion I made this morning.

I also wanted to quickly show you the progress on Granny stripe MK2.

It's 43" wide by 22" long. I'm very pleased with it, even if I not overly keen on the colours!