Machine troubles

My friend Judy brought her friend over yesterday.  Her friend just got a new quilting machine that is similar to mine and she wanted to see how it worked.  The best way to learn is not to read about it or even watch videos, but to actually get to play yourself. I had this quilt loaded and they watched as it stitched away.  I have my hand it heart quilt design on it and things were going along fine.  I showed them many of the tricks Carla showed me, how to start in the middle of the design, how to change the bobbin, how to set the design and advance the quilt.  It was nice playing teacher on something I love.

Once this quilt was finished, I loaded a new quilt and started it up.  After a couple rows, the machine stopped.  I changed bobbins and the needle went down and got stuck.  Turned it off and on and nothing.  That's my usual fix for most things.  When in doubt, turn it off and on.  Since it's a computer, that usually fixes most things.  Just give it a restart and most things reset.  I couldn't get the needle to come up, so I took the needle out.  It took some wiggling and I had to remove the bobbin in order to get the needle to finally come out.  Still, the shaft that moves the needle wouldn't move.  The wheel that moves the shaft up and down wouldn't budge.  The motor would spin, but the gear wouldn't engage.  I took the plastic housing off that covered the gear and belt and watched as the poor motor tried to get the bobbin area to spin and nothing.  Off, on, off, on.

I worked on my machine for about an hour to try and figure out what was going on before deciding it probably was just tired.  I've been working really hard trying to get my numbers up this weekend.

Then, my new friend called and said her machine was doing the same thing.  How weird is that?  Her brand new machine was stuck with the needle down.

So, I decided I would take a look again and see if I couldn't find the trouble.  I looked again at the bobbin area and could see the bobbin area was stuck.  There is a little metal piece that holds part of the bobbin area and keeps it from spinning and allows part to spin.  Well, the screw was loose and the metal part had slipped and was preventing the whole bobbin area from spinning.  After taking the whole bobbin area apart and putting it back together, the machine works again.

I tell you, if you get frustrated easily, quilting is not for you.  It's just a giant puzzle that needs solving and is really good for the brain.  You never know what is going to present itself on a daily basis from thread tension to strange noises to machine issues to math calculations, quilting is good for keeping you on your toes.