Thursday, July 14, 2011

Ever had One of Those Days??

Ever had one of those days when you should have just stopped and gone for a walk? or baked cookies? or read a book? Anything but quilt??

Well I did!
Yesterday I decided that I had a whole day with no particular commitments, which doesn't often happen, so I would start the FMQ on Daydream..

I had just gotten "Jenny" (my Janome) back from her annual cleaning/check-up so I thought she would be excited to be back in action too.

I loaded up lots of bobbins, got my little quilting gloves on and sat down with my cup of coffee near at hand. Well, that was as good as it got!

My thread kept breaking...shredding actually. And it skipped stitches sometimes.  I have never had a problem with Jenny doing this before. I tried ever suggestion I could find.
  • I changed the needle, 
  • tried a different size needle, 
  • rethreaded the machine (like a billion times!!) ,
  •  tried cotton thread, 
  • tried poly thread, 
  • I tried flipping over the spool of thread so it wound off the other direction,
  • I tried adjusting the tension. (although the tension looked ok..no thread showing on top or bottom)
Nothing seemed to help. So I phoned the dealer (who had just serviced the machine) to see if she had any other ideas.  I must admit she gasped a little when I said that I always have done my FMQ without dropping the feed dogs....so I even tried dropping the feed dogs!

The only other suggestion that she had was that it could be the batting! She said some batting has little flecks of particles that may be causing a problem.  Have you ever heard of that ?? I am sure that I have used this batting before and have never had any of these issues.

And there is more....
I decided to try my old Pfaff, even though I don't like FMQ on that machine. Of course the bobbins from the Janome don't fit in the Pfaff! So I had to rewind some onto a Phaff bobbin. 

It seemed to work better,except for this little glitch..

but that was my fault, and we won't even talk about that!!
Then, can you believe it...I ran out of top thread (white !) REALLY!???

Oh, and there is still more...
If I hadn't been so busy re-threading my machine I would have noticed that I wasn't having to take out many pins as I went along....which I only realized after I took the quilt off to look at what I had done.... WOW!!!
I hadn't fully basted the quilt....I am sure that I must have run out of pins, and thought that I would come back and finish it when I had quilted something else and had some extra pins to use. Except, it has been sitting around so long that I forgot! What kind of idiot wouldn't check?? Well I guess I would be that kind of idiot!!
So now I have a WRINKLE in the backing!!! I have always been so careful, and have never had a wrinkle before. I am so "choked" as my kids would say. 

So after a moment when I decided that it was ruined and I should just give up on this....I took a deep breath and had a closer look...

OK maybe it is not totally ruined....

I picked a bit of the stitching out, and it helped smooth out the wrinkle a little, but because I was stopping and starting so much, the stitches are pretty dense in places. 
I re-pinned the whole quilt...now with a bezillion pins...boy is that going to be a pain in the neck when I get going on this again!!!
I went to the fabric store and bought several spools of white thread!
I put everything away....maybe it will work fine the next time I try this????  Or else this was just a bad dream and I will wake up and have a good laugh about it!

9 comments:

  1. I guess that yesterday was the day that everything that could go bad----did! I would think that something is just not right after they cleaned your machine. I wouldn't know what else to check. Your machine quilting is lovely, i like the butterflies-------very appropriate. You get an A+ for patience.

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  2. What rotten luck! My advice - wait for a day whe you have time, try again on something that doesn't matter - and if it is still not working back to the repair man. Just a thought,,,, could you need a new needle or maybe it is the thread! Good luck!

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  3. Sounds to like it is a result of the checkup. I have a Janome but i won't let anyone but Lyle (store off 22 st) work on it. I have had bad expereinces elsewhere.

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  4. O geesh so sorry about the issues.. sometimes when I have issues I have to step away and give it a break.. but it could be something with the servicing. the butterflies look great!

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  5. So sorry you had a hard time. I hate that when it happens. Usually I have to step away and come back with a clear head. But it will get better.
    Hugs
    donna

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  6. Suggestion - take a scrap batt (same as in quilt) and make a few practice sandwiches. Play with those on both machines - you then have a way to analyze what is going on - compare with both machines - and then have a 'eye' piece to show the dealer - there could be a problem with the machine. A lot of loopies looks like you missed a feed in your threading of the machine so it is not catching the bobbin assembly correctly.

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  7. YES - I have had about fifty seven days like that - last year. You remember!

    Penny (the horizon) wants you to know that Jenny needs a topstich needle for free motion no matter what... though she won't tell me why. They eye is longer and won't shred. She also needs that auto plate converter thingy engaged or else. And often I find myself re-threading without lifting the presser foot... 'cause the free motion foot looks like it's always up,and so I thread it up with the tension disks not the way they should be. ... know what i mean?

    also - roll that foot down enough so it's close, but not holding back the movement of the fabric of course.

    GOOD LUCK,
    Monika
    super-empathetic

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  8. Sorry about your machine ... I totally know how you feel because I've had the same problems with my long-arm. Tension is usually the problem, but my bobbin was also broken. I had a lot of problems for the first year and kept getting help from the manufacturer, but it kept messing up until I had to send it to them and let the mechanic take a look. He fixed it and it has worked like a dream since then! I also think your problem sounds like a bad repair job ... maybe they broke something they didn't even intend to touch.

    Your quilt is beautiful and well worth saving ... good luck!!

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  9. Mmm...what language is this in? FMQ? Daydream? Janome? Feed Dogs? LOL!! Sorry you had the bad day, now that I do understand!

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