Still a Patient

I haven’t returned Edie’s serger to her yet. I asked her if I could keep it for a few days to make sure that everything was working well. The cover over the tension disks comes off, so I removed it and vacuumed that area thoroughly with my mini hose attachments. I unthreaded and rethreaded the machine several times to make sure I understood the thread path. Unfortunately, the slider that threads the back of the lower looper is no longer reaching that area—for whatever reason—so in order to thread the back of the lower looper, I had to remove the throat plate. That’s not a huge problem, just an extra step.

During subsequent tests, I was still having an intermittent problem with the dropping left needle thread. I now suspect that the machine does need to have the timing adjusted, but Edie can use it even without having it fixed. The machine makes a three-thread wide stitch with just the left needle (top swatch). It makes a three-thread narrow stitch with just the right needle (middle swatch). Both of those stitches can be used for edge finishing and for construction. In fact, some sewists (sergists?) prefer three-thread stitches for construction because the seams are a bit less bulky without that fourth thread.

I can get it to make a four-thread stitch (bottom) with both needles installed, but it’s not reliable. It seems to be something about the interaction of both needles that is causing the problem.

I’ll return the machine to Edie this weekend and make sure to explain all of this.

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Yesterday was “tackle the punch list” day. October has been an insanely busy month with lots of moving parts. We sold my FIL’s house, the kids bought a house, I’ve been teaching quite a bit, and the husband has been working long days trying to get some big concrete jobs done before the snow flies. I teach today and tomorrow and am playing for a memorial service on Sunday afternoon. I could not shoehorn anything else into the schedule and I needed yesterday to deal with all the tasks that still hadn’t been crossed off the list. A couple of them have deadlines early next week.

[The day started off with a bang, literally. I was drying my hair in the downstairs bathroom when all of a sudden I heard a very loud pop and saw sparks flying out of the outlet. The power had gone out in the bathroom. I went and got the husband, who checked the panel and saw that the breaker had tripped. He asked me how old the hair dryer was. I told him I think I got it when the girls were in elementary school, and they are 33 and 28. He said it’s time to buy a new one.]

I completed all but two of the items on yesterday’s list, and they can be done this morning before class. Oh, and I have to stop somewhere after teaching today and buy a new hair dryer.