{"id":2134,"date":"2011-06-10T14:12:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T14:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?p=2134"},"modified":"2011-06-10T14:12:56","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T14:12:56","slug":"the-sewing-machine-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/?p=2134","title":{"rendered":"The Sewing Machine Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somebody told me a while ago that they pictured me as having an idyllic life. I would like to point out VERY LOUDLY that it isn’t idyllic. I have the same stress as the rest of you and what with the teenagers and their hormones it sometimes isn’t very nice round here at all (particularly on days when I’m told very firmly that I am the worst mother in the world). But then I guess a lot of you have days like that too.<\/p>\n

I do the same work, family, house, garden juggling as other people do – although I have the ‘luxury’ of working from home. Mostly this is a good thing, but it also means that people can always get hold of me and I can never leave work at work, if you know what I mean. That being said, life is on the whole good and without the downs I guess I wouldn’t appreciate the ups so much.<\/p>\n

One of my ups has however taken a gigantic nosedive. About three weeks ago I finally decided that the time had really come to invest in a new sewing machine. My trusty Pfaff has done valiant service on a daily basis for 20 years, but trying to machine quilt with it has slowly, but surely driven me totally bonkers. I spent weeks humming and hawing, weighing up the alternatives, contacting England about importing a small long-arm machine (Sweet Sixteen), deciding against, just because of the total impracticality of dealing with repairs and maintenance, not to mention the horrific cost of importing it. So finally, I bit the bullet and ordered this…<\/p>\n

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Pretty cool huh.<\/p>\n

The Bernina 820 – Bernina’s response to the wishes of European quilters – long arm base, special quilting stitches. This machine does everything except the hoovering. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I went to pick it up.<\/p>\n

I had a quick demo from the dealer and went home to play. I decided to work through the basics on my own and then go into the dealership in a couple of weeks with all my specific questions and queries.<\/p>\n

Playing lasted about…oooh, twenty minutes, after which the whole thing seized up and the spool case wouldn’t open up any more. I switched it on and off a couple of times and finally the spool case opened and spat out a small and very critical looking piece of metal at me.<\/p>\n

So the machine went back to the shop and the whole spool casing machinery needed to be replaced and it was a week before I could get it back again.<\/p>\n

Now I have it back and I’m really not a very happy camper. The tension seems to be all over the place. I’m piecing my Bliss<\/em> blocks and it most certainly isn’t bliss, I can tell you. There is a constant slight puckering and the tension clearly isn’t how it should be – following the handbook carefully seems to have made no difference at all. Warning messages keep flashing on – the thread bobbin is empty….er no….still about 800m on there by my reckoning…When it sews over a seam, more often than not, unless I sew at snail speed it skips stitches.<\/p>\n

I have started looking at 820 forums on the web – big mistake – masses of complaints about these machines, particularly as far as tension issues go….<\/p>\n

I’m starting to feel that I may have invested a lot of money in a big fat lemon.<\/p>\n

So I’m going back to the shop as soon as my mother has gone home after her visit and I’m going to smile cheerily, be very nice to the dealer, plead stupidity and hope to goodness, with my fingers and toes crossed, that they can sort this out. They are nice people. I hope they will.<\/p>\n

Otherwise I shall stand in the shop and sing the Sewing Machine Blues until they do something. If they throw me out I shall stand outside with a big placard and do the same.<\/p>\n

You see I have a strategy. It was developed during a very sleepless night.<\/p>\n

Helen<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somebody told me a while ago that they pictured me as having an idyllic life. I would like to point out VERY LOUDLY that it isn’t idyllic. I have the same stress as the rest of you and what with the teenagers and their hormones it sometimes isn’t very nice round here at all (particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQtrc-yq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2137,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions\/2137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}