Damn Pesky Machines - Or why not to loan sewing machines to non-sewers

[PurpleHeather]

There are times when I hate my overlocker.

I loaned it to my mum to use. She dethreaded it, my boy fixed it. She tried to use it again, dethreaded it and gave it back to me, as I have many things to make with it before Christmas. When she returned it to me she didn't mention the broken right needle

Luckily I have spare needles, it's just a pain, when I decide the best thing to do is to rethread from scratch, and the lower looper & upper looper thread fine, so I go through all the thread guides for the right needle, get to the needle, turn the balance wheel up to bring it up, and woo - nothing there!  Mum's broken the needle & not told me   The biggest issue is that I don't know where the snapped off portion is - is it still in the machine, ready to gum up the works?

Joyous joy of joys.  The broken off stump of right needle wouldn't come out, so I've had to remove the screw totally, pull the stump out with a pair of pliers, and now I've dropped the screw in the machine. Twice. This time I can't see it.

...Later...

Fixed the overlocker. I found the little screw hiding in a corner, under some fluff. So I get the stocking I'm making^[1] sewn up, apart from the top 5cm. I'm making a stocking for a swap, with lace at the top.  I get out the sewing machine & change the red thread mum was using for the one I need my lace. I go to sew on the lace, and there's a horrendous clicking sound every time the needle passes up through the fabric.  Looking at the underside, the threads are horrendously loopy.  My mother has somehow managed to completely screw with the lower tension. I have no idea how.

When I lent it to her, the tension was a tiny bit off^[2], i.e. about 1 stitch in about 7 was a bit loose. Now every single stitch makes a loop about 3-5 cm long.  A friend had just fixed the tension two weeks ago, right before I loaned it out to the point where it was good. I didn't entirely watch how she did it, so I don't know how to fix the mess my mother has made of my machine.

I want to scream. It's just not worth loaning things to people. If/when I get my embroidery machine, non-sewing people aren't borrowing it. It's not worth the hassle.

Sorry this is a rant - I just needed to vent to people who'd understand.

[1] Which must be sent tomorrow, and I couldn't do earlier as mum had my machines
[2] One of my post Christmas jobs is to give both machines a thourough clean and tension check.

[Punker Chic]

oooooooooooooooo icky for you
my older sister (yes, older!) is trying to sew and is making me teach her. (she refers to me as 'sewing guru' hehe) she is innocenty making a weird bag (a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiittl e crooked) and i hear a horrible snapping crunching noise. she simply keeps sewing, humming loudly. i demand she stops. she groans, and stops at the end. my signature sewing style is 'the one stitch line', as in i sew everything together in one stitch (and I mean one stitch). so that's how i taught her. somehow she dug the needle into the bobbin (i didn't even know the needle went in that far) and basically pulled a hunk of the thread up and down, and she did this monstrocity at the beginning. it's sad she didn't noticed the horrendous tearing noise as her bag is utterly mutilated.
now the question-
CAN ANY OF YOU TELL ME HOW SHE DID THIS?
i am also mad because she used my favorite fabric.... sadness... but how in hell did she do this? HOW?!

[Crafty_Witch15]

Once I had a friend call me up, asking if we wanted to make stuff? She wanted to come over cause I had a sewing machine. Then she didn't even know how to use it! She didn't put the presserfoot down and then started sewing. Then she screwed with the tension ............ grr I hate that she used me for my sewing machine and didn't even know how to use it!!!!!!

[Inna]

nobody and I mean nobody touches my machine! I don't care how much you guilt me or how nice I am supposed to be to you! I will rip my own arm off with my teeth before anyone is allowed to see it let alone touch it!
My mother in law wouldn't talk to me for a year because I wouldn't lend her my machine.
When she asked to borrow it I did say "Are you ******* nuts? No way in **** are you touching my machine!". So yes, I was a bit rude, and yes, it was my 30 year old machine, but I don't care - it's my only sanity and I can't replace it easily, and she wouldn't have fixed/replaced it if she broke it.
I'd like her to ask me now, because I finally bought myself a brand new machine!!!!!YEAH!!!! And I have heard of some nice new words I would like to be able to use in a sentence!! 

[Sarahs_Crafts]

Luckly, my mom lets me use her old machine. And I have used her new snazzy one a bit.

She lent her machine to her sister, who is a sewer but could not afford a machine. And everything has been fine with shuffling this old machine around.

BUT, this Pfaff is really old. So about 10years ago my mom thought it should go get cleaned and checked out. As the store suggested.

$50 later, her machine comes back broken. The tension is completely off and will not go back to normal!
SO when she was buying her new machine last year, she told them about this and they played with it a bit. But the lower tension is still not perfect.

Saddly enough, she has learned never to trust a store with her machine.

[dogwoodbonsai]

A few years ago my housemate and I were getting ready for the local Halloween festivities that night.  She needed to sew something for her last minute costume idea.  Now she owned her own machine but it wasn't at our house.  I figured that she knew how the sew since she had a machine.  I was busy putting on make-up and what not when I noticed she was having some problems.  I went to help when I saw that she was PULLING the fabric towards her while running the machine.....Forcefu lly pulling it through.   Wholly jeez I'm still ticked off about it and baffled as to how ditzy people can be. 

[BelovedGoddess]

I neither lend or borrow machines, personal experience with both.

I lent a machine to a neigbour, we were in the process of moving and they asked nicely.  A couple of weeks later I tried ringing them but no answer so I drove over there to see if I could get the machine back - they had moved taking my machine with them. 

Mum lent my sister the overlocker, I was the main user of it.  Not long later my sister declared it was a crap machine, wouldn't sew properly so she pulled all of the threads out of it.  Wish she had of called me first because rethreading that thing was horrendous, she even fiddled with all the tension dials.  First thing I did was take the needle out and found it had a huge burr on it, no idea how she did that because I changed the needles constantly.  Changing the needle took about 20 secs but the threading and tension took well over an hour. 

When we turned 18 Mum bought us a sewing machine, there's 2 years difference between us and we got exactly the same model.  My machine was out of action one time and I needed to borrow hers while waiting for the technician to turn up.  I set up the machine and started sewing when the machine seized up, of course my sister blamed me for breaking her machine.  When the technican turned up he repaired my machine - a screw had worked it's way loose, then he repaired the other one.  I asked him what I had done, he said nothing - it had siezed up due to lack of use.  I paid for the repairs.

When I was dating my husband he took me over to meet his cousin, she had the identical machine.  I mentioned it to her and she told me that it wouldn't work properly, she had lent it to her mum and couldn't get it sew right when she got it back.  I offered to look at it while she made a cuppa, when she came back in with the tea, I had it fixed.  I opened the bobbin cover and could see a few threads behind it so pulled out the housing exposing the biggest mass of knotted thread I had ever seen. 

[girlypirate]

you know, i love my mother.  she and i have been sharing a sewing machine since i was knee-high to a grasshopper.  but there is no way in hell i'll let her near my serger, simply because she doesn't know how to use one.  i can re-thread the kenmore monster in less than a minute because of my own repeated foul-ups, but until the woman will sit down with me and demonstrate her competency in the joyous world of overlocking, she won't touch it.  i completely feel your pain, but now you know not to let people borrow cherished crafting machinery unless they're well-versed in their use.

[fluffyhelen]

My mum has lent me her old sewing machine (barely used) which she neglected to mention she didn't know how to use and had broken the last time she'd used it and has now lost the instruction manual for.

Argh!

[Inna]

quite a few instruction manuals can be found in pdf form online