Friday, February 13, 2009

Yippee!

Ok, first of all, I've had a blast with mom! And secondly, before I dig in, I just want to say I had one of the biggest "Duh" moments! It's one of those things...where you go, how have I lived 32 years and not known this, or rather been wrong so long? I have misspelled broccoli my whole life. How have I spelled it?? B-R-O-C-H-O-L-L-I! Why? WHY! I swear, I am normally a better speller than that, it was my favorite subject in school aside from choir and art! Is it because I didn't really eat broccoli until I was nearly 30? lol Anyways, I felt stupid. So the next time you feel like you're having a stupid moment, remember you are not alone my friend!

Now, ever since I bought my longarm, I have had issue, after issue with it! Tension, and thread breakage. I was told over and over that it must be me. That I was going to fast, or didn't know how to properly set the tension, blah, blah, blah! So, Mom and I thought of something today, we switch my bobbin case with a new one. Guess what? With a little of Mom's tweaking afterwards, the tension was perfect, top and botton, not even any little hint of the opposite sides thread popping through! O-M-G! You have to wonder why "machine people" never suggested trying a new bobbin case, don't you?

We still have thread breakage to find a solution to, however it is nice to have proof that the tension problem seems to have had nothing to do with the thread breakage issue! And we have narrowed down the thread breakage to a smaller area of the machine - somewhere between the pigtail guide on the side to down into the bobbin at the hook. This will be investigated tomorrow morning hopefully.

Honestly, I was in tears earlier today, when the tension kept refusing to be good! Thank you extra bobbin case! And thank you Mom for all your help in diagnosing the problems! Especially since I have a piece that HAS to be quilted on the longarm for the IMQA Machine Quilters Showcase in KC in the next month or two! Maybe I can get it done now with good tension, even if there are a alot of stop and starts. (Embellishments to hide them....?)

There is little that is more frustrating than having something you still owe a good deal of money on, refuse to work for you! So lets hope we can resolve the thread breaking issue! (It's not the tension, not the thread, and it isn't the way I sew (fast) because Mom is a much more patient quilter than I, (i.e. slower!).

Tomorrow morning Mom and I hope to putz with the machine a bit more, than I will be running her home around midday! :)

Hopefully my machine will be kind, an I can get some stuff on to quilt this week! :)

G'night, it's nearly 1 am here, and I ate a large family style Italian dinner tonight with wine. My body says, "SLEEP NOW FOOL!"

3 comments:

Bridget473 said...

Hooray for moms! That's great that the two of you were able to fix part of the problem. Enjoy the rest of your mother-daughter time!

Anonymous said...

Stephanie, I have a Gammill and often the needle size is not right or the upper tension is just too tight. Often it involves some tweaking before you can get it just right then adjustments have to be made if the kind of thread is changed. I took a maintenance class from Gammill and that was a life saver at times.
peg in mo

Debra Svedberg said...

Hi Stephanie,
My suggestion is when you get your thread tension correct for a certain thread, keep a diary of it so you have a reference.
for the bobbin on my regular sewing machine I think of the screw in terms of the face of a clock...moving it only '5 minutes' at a time to make adjustments.
deb