Providential Timing

Some time ago, I posted somewhere about my frustration with my serger.  I thought it was on the blog, but a crawl through the last couple of years of posts didn't turn up anything, so I either posted it somewhere else...like Stitcher's Guild...or it was longer ago than I thought (more likely).

I had gotten it seriously serviced back in early 2014.  It had some dull knives, which were replaced, a dinged up throat plate, which was also replaced, and I think one of the loopers was slightly bent.

It purred when I got home with it.  But on of the first projects I sewed was my Epic Trench Coat...and some of the seams that I ran through the serger were really bulky.  I remember that there were some klunky noises coming from it as it labored through those seams and...something happened and it never quite ran perfectly after that.  I should have taken it back to the local repair guy, but, you  know, it wasn't awful and I just kept sewing....

Time passed and it got to the point that the knives were chewing the fabric...especially knits. It looked like lint/thread was getting down between the upper knife and the housing and pushing it slightly out so that the knives weren't aligning right and when I cleaned it all out it perked up and was running ok...or at least tolerable...again. But the problem kept recurring; I had to keep stopping to clean it out.  Cut threads would even just bypass the knife and get sewn into the seam, which caused all kinds of weird things. I wondered if the knife wasn't properly set, or if it had gotten knocked loose or some such thing, because I'd never had that problem before. 

But recently it was getting bad again, and cleaning out the knife didn't seem to make a big difference.  I mean, the seams were dragging going through, which was distorting them and making for ugly sewing.  I realized that the problem was actually cutting into my enjoyment of sewing, even though it wasn't cutting fabric well.  My productivity ground to a halt.

Then a week or so ago, I serged the head off a pin that had been buried in the gathered middle-of-three layers I was serging on a Hot Patterns Fast and Fabulous Lastrada T.  I was sewing very slowy, because it wasn't cutting at all well anyway, and didn't even realize that's what I'd hit until I found the headless pin in the gathers.  That pushed it over the edge.  I tried some sewing the next day (Saturday the 13th) but it was horrible.   My local sewing repair guy retired a couple of years ago, and the nearest reputable repair folks are an hour and a halfish away.  Getting my serger repaired was going to be a serious undertaking.  Late in the afternoon, I finally commented to my Sweet Babbo that the serger needed to go into the shop.  I even admitted to the possibility of getting another one...this one is over 30 years old.  'Then I would have a backup,' I said, as I headed to the computer and logged in to check the weather.

I didn't even mean to click on Facebook, but for some reason I did.  Lo and behold, a friend who lives in the same hour-and-a-half distant town had posted a serger for sale.  Reconditioned, from the same reputable folks that I need to take my limping one to.  She'd just not used it as much as she thought she would.

She posted it exactly seven minutes before I logged on.

Y'all, that's what I call Providential timing. My Sweet Babbo agreed so I messaged her immediately and got the machine today when they came to town for an appointment.

It doesn't fit the serger table I  have (I can't pull the extension up; see the tiled background photos for how my old serger snuggled up in there),  I'm going to have to get used to the noise of the differential feed (my old faithful was branded New Home...and it was the last generation before DF was standard.  I *could* have gotten DF in 1989...for an extra hundred bucks...).  Got it scooted right to the edge so I can have a thread catcher bag hanging off the table but...IT SEWS.  It'll definitely do for a backup. 

Now I just have to find the time to drive Old Faithful to the west side of the state to get her restored... and make me some time to sew some stuff for the closet!