sewing machine maintenance

Mt Washington Quilting Bees had something different at the meeting last week.  The folks from Moore's Sewing Center came to our meeting to give us a lesson on sewing machine maintenance.

The two gentlemen who do repairs at the shop, Eddy and Steady Freddy, gave a short and funny talk.
One of them said an easy way to clean the space between your machine's tension disks is to fold a dollar bill and slide it through the opening...if you want it really clean - use a five dollar bill, ha ha!

Many of us brought our sewing machines to the class to follow along with the step by step cleaning instructions.

First, they had everyone refer to their machine manuals and remove the needle plate to clean underneath as they walked around the room to assist those who needed it.

Those who didn't bring their machine stood by to pick up some pointers.

Busy Bees!

That's Jan seated there in the middle. She made the arrangements for the lesson and supplied everyone with brushes and pipe cleaners for cleaning lint out of our machine.

A couple of the ladies brought their vintage Singer Featherweight machines in.

I didn't bring mine  but brought my 1984 Kenmore in instead.  It looks like I should have brought my Featherweight...Steady Freddy got totally involved with showing Linda how to maintain her machine and she got a free cleaning and in the process.

You might wonder why we have salt and pepper shakers on the table. It's because the tables at the Senior center where we meet, are always set with the shakers and centerpieces for the senior breakfasts they have there weekly.

I'm not sure who this machine belongs to - but Eddy now has it running smoothly - clean and adjusted.

We also received some hand out sheets with information about using good quality thread and choosing the correct needles and being sure you have them put in the machine correctly (they said the number one problem with machines brought in for  repairs is that the needle is turned the wrong way). 

Afterwards we had show and tell. Some of the members brought in these "Monster Bags"...tote bags that they had made in a class they had been to.   I really like these!  It made me remember that I have a pattern for a really big tote bag too - different than this one.  I need to get it out and sew up a bag !

Our new president, Jackie, gave out a bunch of door prizes. My name was drawn (yea!) and I got this cute pincushion that Jackie made.  I really like the long rectangular shape.

Fun meeting!