Surgery

At work I have -so far- found 7 different kind of sewing machines abandoned under the tables, on the shelves or in dusty corners. Some of them have been labelled broken and recycled. So far I have serviced and fixed 4 of 7. Three of these seven are actually so broken that they need a professional service with new parts.

See the cracked white part which has lost half of it. The lost half is mostly behind the part but you can notice it on the pic. I actually found two similar Bernette so we'll see if we can fix them both at low cost or make one whole of these two. These are old proper sergers from early 90's so they are worth of trying.

More about servicing your own sewing machines you can find on these posts:

Emerald 118

Serger Care

Dusting my Helga

Remember: Opening the machine breaks the warranty, you do it in your own responsibility, always plug off the machine from the power before opening it (turning off is not enough) and take pictures by your smart phone from every step you take because it helps you to put it all back!

UpToCleaning

If you have followed MyBlog for a longer time you know I've made also some kitchen towels every now and then. For ages the towel for MyMop has looked awful but I have not been quite sure how to replace it.

When I did TheLaptopCase I knew immediately the padding was excellent for MyMop also. I was a bit worried how difficult it is to neaten by MySerger but it all turn out surprisingly easy. Now I am satisfied with Me&MySelf. I used old but still proper towel and left over padding. That is again one more step taken to SaveThePlanetEarth.

CoverSiiri

Siiri needed a cover to hide Her when She has a free time. So I designed and sew Her a pretty case.

It is made of a piece of plastic fabric which I bought years years years ago at a sale. The piece had still the price on it. It had cost just 2€ and it all was just enough for Siiri's Cover. Really, there was not many square cm pieces to left over to be thrown away.

I used another bargain to sew the seams. I bought 25m of red-white bias tape on the autumn 2017. It all cost just 5€ and I really didn't use even half of it for Siiri's Cover.

Siiri has a handle to carry Her around so I needed to make also a practical cutting for it.

Siiri's pedal got also a case designed especially for Her by Me. ❤

I feared to fasten it to the CoverCase because it is plastic so I was afraid of it might rupture during the time. So I designed a separate case which I could fasten to Siiri to be carried with Her.

You can close it up by velcro. Now we both - I and Siiri- are very happy.

Singer 14SH645

May I introduce Singer 14SH645. She is MyNewSerger. You may remember I already have Brother. But He is old, over 17 years old by now and He is still working quite well. But in My use life is quite hard and demanding for Him. For several years I have been thinking He should get retired. I also have been thinking will I buy another serger or not. The final answer is "yes", it is so practical machine. Especially is you sew a lot.

Siiri (that is Her name) was on a good sale. She feels proper machine and ready for heavy duty. I wondered why She was on such a big sale. But now I know. She had just a few items with Her. But that's all we need. Exactly enough. She has the most important features: overlock and differential feed. That is all you need from a perfect serger. Everything else you can do by a good sewing machine. Brother had a huge pack of different kind of items with Him which I -honestly- have never needed. I can do it all just with the basic equipment (but I studied textile and cloth designing -including sewing- for 4½ years at the college). For Siiri I can buy everything separately if feel need to but I already know all I will need in the future are needle packs.

You should not fear sergers. I know they have 3-5 threads and it may feel complicated. They also are fast and have a cutter. It may increase your fear. Remember you can control the speed!

Today in every modern serger has a fast guide inside. Besides today internet helps with threading. The manufactures load up videos at their homepage or on YouTube to cope with it all.

But what happens to MyBrother? He moves out to have lazy retirement days at DearMrW and BeautifulE. I will make Him a medical investigation and full cleaning operation. I have already bought pack of basic threads for His retirement. At the end of May He will move to their NurseyHome for ElderySergers.

HairBow -tutorial

I was asked to make pretty hair bow from a fabric we found when going through some old stuff with my mom. I used my serger to neaten up the edges. Then I tied up the bow to simple elastic hair band. Very easy, fast, cheap and practical to make hair decoration to match your dress!

(I used pink elastic hair band only because this is for tiny princess who thinks there is no other color than pink in the world. Otherwise I had chosen white!)

SergerCare

I have talked a lot about Helga but only now I realized you have not seen proper pic of Her. She is Husqvarna Viking Hyskystar E20. I can not remember for sure when I got Helga because the dramatic lost of Poor Iris was so overwhelming that exact dates got lost in my mind. Anyway She is hardly 10 years old. As you know I have not been as satisfied with Her as I was with Poor Iris. But for some reason since Helga heard about Anne of Green Gables She has been doing so much better.

Today Husqvarna Viking sells My Hyskystar is H Class E20 machine but it seems to be the same; a bit improved model I guess.

I have also a serger. He is BrotherLock 929D. He doesn't have any special name because "brother" means "veli" in Finnish. And "veli" is actually official first name used in Finland. So we call Him just Brother. :) He is old too; about 15 years. He too has been hard working but during the past two years He has started to think about the retirement.

I like Him a lot and He is easy to use. I have been a bit sad when thinking about letting Him go.

Once more I tried to cheer Him up by dusting, proper cleaning & oiling.

For the first time we ended up opening Him all naked. Don't try this at home if you are not sure what to do. Opening the covers fades away the warranty. I do this only when MyMachines are too old for the warranty.

I was happy to notice there was no dust inside. It proves I have been taking good care of Him. But we oiled all the moving parts which contact another part. And TheMiracle really happened. Today He sounds like a young virile man!

Today I am very happy with MyMachies. Now when I got my first ever treadle sewing machine Anne of Green Gables with Her strong power, managed to tempt Helga to continue Her career and rose up Brother's manpower back to its magnificent level; I can do what ever I desire... in sewing! Not to mention about saving about 600€ when I didn't need to buy new machines. The service of Anne cost 70€. I needed to drive to Arctic Circle to get Her home but I was smart and arranged it to happen on our Theater Night so it didn't cause me any extra cost because we anyway had drove there and back. (She got in the service car in MyCity Kemi.)