Thursday, April 26, 2007

feeling greasy

unbecoming photo of my imploded sewing area
If you haven't oiled your sewing machine recently, go do it right now. I just finished doing mine and, holy moly, what a difference! I can't believe more people out there aren't touting the benefits of a lint-free, lubed-up, well-maintained machine. And you should clean the shuttle too. I think that's key.

Last night, my good 'ol Kenmore, c. 1973, was starting to chug as it stitched along. I thought oiling it might be enough, but no, the shuttle needed to be cleaned too. The last time I tried to clean the shuttle, I somehow ended up lowering the feed dogs, which you supposedly can't do on my machine, and I couldn't get it back together again. So, machine and I took a trip to our friendly neighborhood sewing machine repair man and paid him to do it. But not tonight! Tonight, I stared down that shuttle and cleaned it good.

It's moments like this that make me want change careers and open a little sewing machine repair shop in my back room.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am supposed to oil my machine? I am a disgrace! You rock!

8:03 PM  
Blogger Zann said...

Dorie, you just crack me up. I love that you use an old Kenmore, because I do, too -- bought it at Sears when I was a new, clueless mom many yrs ago. Recently, I got a new, cheaper, plastic Viking as a gift, but it's just very gutless. And my Kenmore is actually made of me-tal. Okay, so now I feel totally guilty. I had the Kenmore over-hauled, the works, about a year ago but I know there's lint & grit in there now. It seems most of my life is about maintenance anymore. But thanks for the reminder!
Z.

8:17 PM  
Blogger sarah said...

Okay, I'm laughing! I swear, the first thing I learned about sewing was: clean and oil your machine for every EIGHT hours of sewing! You crack me up!

8:07 AM  
Blogger Zegi said...

I took mine in for a tune up after 11 years of me just oiling it now and then. When I got it back it purred like a kitty! But now less than six months later it is starting to sound sort of clunky. I wonder if they didn't do as good a job as I had thought!

9:25 AM  

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