It was a very nice day, and then I decided to sit down and sew. Only I didn't want to use the ancient, creaking Pfaff, I wanted the machine that I'm more used to, even though I haven't used it for about a year. So, DH got out my Bernina, and I sat down to sew up a seam on some jeans of his. This was a labor of love for the kindness he has shown me in letting me litter the house with my businesses and hobbies. And so, I could NOT remember how to reset the needle position on the machine.
No problem, get out the manual. Look it up! After owning this machine for some 14 years, I was about to discover two interesting things about this manual, and the first one was that it HAD no page 14, even though that page was in the index as explaining, IN FULL, exactly HOW to use the zipper foot. You know, the all important settings for not snapping three needles in a row in half as you tried to sew with a zipper foot. I had never used the manual because I had, ONE, sewn an awful lot before, and TWO, I had taken LESSONS!
The needle position problem was harder to solve. What it says and what it shows are on two pages, the all important page being the one NOT mentioned as a source in the back of the book.
Finally, after spending an hour getting the needle position correct, so that the needle didn't swing back and forth across the zipper foot, and very firmly sew IT in place, and also taking time figuring out how to raise the feed dogs again (which had gotten put down while I was fiddling with every KNOB in the thing) I was ready to sew. I am reminded of the story about, given enough time, and a type writer, a monkey could reproduce the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica. I think that Bernina should hire some proof readers.
Tomorrow, I will race through a half dozen pillowcases, box them up and send them off to this sweet lady, who is trying for a 1,000 pillowcases to send to the troops on St. Valentine's Day.
Happy Sewing!
Seems to me that by the time I get my fancy machine set up -- needle position, direction, stitch selection, etc., I could have finished the job on my old Singer 401. If I could get to it....
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth, Pogo. At least my brain freeze is over and the machine is finally going sweetly now.
ReplyDeleteI love the 401 and even have two of them.. long story. One is going North to a child soon, who is going to be very pleased with it I'm sure. I'd settle for being able to get to a treadle machine- used as furniture atm - to sew. But the Nina is a sweet girl when she is not insulted with conflicting commands. lol Yes, it was my fault. Operator error, ya know...