Today's Hat...Machine Maintenance!

4 August 2015

When I became a machine dealer two years ago, the two scariest things to me were machine embroidery and machine maintenance. Surprisingly enough, both things have been great! I love machine embroidery (which is another day) and I do actually enjoy working on machines!

Today, I had three machines to service, plus one "drop-in" look over appointment.

The appointment machine was a breeze and only required minor adjustments and reassurance to the owner. We updated her machine to the newest available software and I sent her happily on her way to a long weekend of sewing, on retreat with her quilting buddies.

Here's a quick peek of what I found when I opened up the first of the service machines:

 

 

 And the second machine was even worse! No matter what the brand, your sewing machine dealer is always going to be ok with you doing some basic maintenance for yourself. I always tell machine owners that they can do this:
                 1. Remove the needle plate and bobbin basket (drop-in bobbins)
                 2. Using tweezers, remove all loose lint balls and stray threads
                 3. Use a small vacuum to suck out anything you can't grab with the tweezers, I don't                recommend canned air anymore as it blows more trouble inside the machine!
Here's a peek at what I removed from the second machine. The lint was so tightly packed inside the machine that I am surprised it was sewing at all. Pin in photo is for size.

 

I was able to get two of the three machines serviced. One of the obstacles of a small shop is frequent interruptions from customers, friends and phone calls! I was pretty impressed that I got finished what I did!

Here's an after picture -and how your machine should look on the inside!

Hop on over to the 52Quilters profile on Instagram for a fun video from my service sessions from today! I'll see you again tomorrow to share with you my quilting heritage!

Thanks for reading!