Well, while working on a cute pillowcase dress for Zoe (with a lot of help from Mark’s mom), my sewing machine started skipping stitches. I thought nothing of it until Mark’s parents left last weekend and I tried to finish up the ribbon embellishment I was doing on the dress. It started skipping stitches and then stopped stitching all together. We were all at a loss! I called my MIL and my mom to see if they could help troubleshoot. We gathered several ideas to work on when we had the time and we also had the option of having it serviced (at the cost of $55). So, I was going back and forth with either having it serviced or replacing it with a newer model (mine is over 10 years old and extremely basic).

So, last night Mark took it completely apart and checked all the belts and whistles and then lubricated everything. This morning I tried it with different thread and it still didn’t’ work. So, we took the bobbin case out and cleaned out all the lint and it still didn’t work. I called mom to see if she had a clue as to what I should do…service it with no guarantee it would be fixed or purchase a newer model…mom was for the newer model but suggested I check the sewing machine website and see if they had any troubleshooting ideas.

Lo, and behold, there was a question about skipping stitches which stated that the needle was incorrect (I had checked and made sure it was correct for the fabric I was using). But, it also said that the needle needed to have the flat part facing the back…which mine didn’t! Duh!!

Tada! It’s fixed! Such a simple solution…at least we didn’t pay the service charge to be told I couldn’t install a needle correctly!