Don't Scare Me Like That!

October can be a scary month filled with jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and goblins. These fools are nothing compared to the fear and dread of your sewing machine (for the first time in your life) not working. Last week, I lowered my feed dogs to work on something and when I went to raise them, they would not come back up. I read my manual and did as it said. I lifted the presser foot, flipped the feed dog lever to its raised position, and turned the handwheel until I was supposed to hear the feed dogs snap into place. The lever didn't engage. The feed dogs didn't snap into place. Nothing was working.

When TK heard my moans of desperation, he came and asked what the problem was. Through my anger and frustration I tried to explain what was going on and that I needed the feed dogs to be in their raised position so that my fabric would be pulled through the machine properly. He proceeded to commandeer the machine's screwdriver and rip apart my baby.

I warned him repeatedly to not mess with the bobbin and that if my thread's tension was off or destroyed at the end of this, we would have serious issues. I have every confidence in my husband's ability with tools and his ability to discover the inner workings and mechanics of most things. I do. But there is a whole industry in sewing machine repair and I didn't want to take any risks, especially with several projects lined up in my sewing queue.

He persisted. And persisted. And persisted. In the end, I had a machine that was working, feed dogs raised, bobbin/tension intact, and a very proud and accomplished husband. Evidently it was a more complicated issue than just what I had thought, but my hero worked it out. Ye of little faith! I breathed a huge sigh of relief and immediately got to work sewing to make up for lost time.