Monday, September 17, 2012

Well hhhheeelllooooooo Lucy!

After a few months delay, my new baby girl Lucy was finally set up in my sewing room the other day. Isn't she pretty? She waited and waited for me to unpack her from her lovely traveling case while I was finishing up all those other project deadlines. Now that those are all done, it is her turn for my attention.

I can't wait to see all that she is capable of. There are more stitches than I'll probably ever use, a very cool circular attachment for stitching 'in the round' and a bobbin works set. What I am most excited about is the automatic tension adjusting and the automatic height adjuster for breezing through thicker seams. The extra large extension table is nothing to sneeze at either.

Once she was set up, I dutifully cleaned out her bobbin race and then wound a brand new bobbin (that also runs automatically once the lever is set; very cool). But she threw a temper tantrum, a few of them actually. The bobbin thread kept getting tangled under the needle plate. Urg! Perhaps she was royally pissed at me for keeping her cooped up on her case so long?

I took everything apart, double checked that there wasn't anything in there that shouldn't be, double, triple and quadruple checked how the needle plate went back on and she still wouldn't behave. Not good, not good. As the thread came around from the bobbin, it was getting hung up on a bit of metal on the underside of the plate. I took out the extra straight stitch plate that came in the package and after careful examination of that one determined that it was made exactly the same so there is nothing wrong with my regular needle plate. I had no clue why the thread was catching and tangling up in such a mess.

After a bunch more fiddling around, I finally got the problem solved. How I don't exactly know, but she is humming along nicely now. I have a lot of projects that I want/need to get busy with and having a new machine that decided to play not nice just wouldn't do. Would not do at all!

Truth be told, I was worried that I'd have to send her in for service already and I would be in a huge pickle for the up coming hops that I'm committed to. But all turned out well in the end. And since you may be wondering why I just didn't use my old machine instead it is because she is out on temporary assignment. Remember my friend who has been shopping for her 1st machine since the spring which is when I saw (and later bought) Lucy in the first place? Well she hasn't bought her machine yet but her Basic Quilting class started last week and she needed a machine to use so she is borrowing my old Brother.

The coming weeks and months promises to be a flurry of creative fun. There are so many things I want to sew, just never enough time. So I'm off to my studio. Catch ya all later.



6 of you added your own colorful comments:

Melinda said...

Ooh, I'm jealous! My newer machine doesn't do nearly what I wished it did. I'd really hoped it would be at least as good as my old one with needle down position and an extension table to boot, but it it not so. I don't like the way it back stitches to anchor (it wads the fabric) and I can't get the tension to a place where I really like it. I hope you have better luck!

Rachel said...

Ohhh, what a pretty girl!! Welcome to the world Lucy!

Needled Mom said...

Welcome home, Lucy. I can see that you are going to be busy!!!!

Linda Lee said...

Awesome..and exciting. I am sure you and Lucy will become very close friends spending lots of time together!!

edyB said...

Hope that Lucy is behaving and stitching smoothly for you. I had similar problems with my Bernina and found it was the needle size and my choice of bobbin thread. My local service guy got everything under control. Yay!
Have fun with your new friend!

Gmama Jane said...

What model Brother is Lucy? I'm looking at buying a new machine and I love my current brother machine. very user friendly. Give me some advice please. I love your dotty blocks BTW
Gmama Jane