9/14/2014: Geometric Zipper Pouch and Emergency Machine Repair

I have actually sewn something recently (surprise surprise), and quite quickly too. My lovely friend Gina is getting married on Saturday and her bridal shower was today. I decided to make her a cute zippy pouch to take with her on her honeymoon to hold little travel whatsits or whatever she needs. I am quite pleased with how it turned out:

I used this tutorial by Sew Delicious. I added the border and the handle. Her bag also used a 6 inch zipper but I needed to make it a little bigger, hence the border and an upgrade to a 9" zip. I used flannel rather than batting between the lining and outer fabric because it is so much cheaper. It is really quite sturdy. She loved it! Sorry I don't have a better picture… I was in such a rush to sew it and I had already filled it with everything I was giving her. Two minutes later it went into the gift bag. Included inside was a travel lint roller, travel spray sunscreen, travel lavender vanilla bath and body works aromatherapy lotion (amazeballs), lavender hand sanitizer, chapstick, and some perfectly matching undies that I happened upon at VS. I want to make myself one, and now all my friends want one too… ahh well.

So my machine has kind of been making this noise, which I have been sort of ignoring because I didn't have time to take it apart. It was also dropping the tread from one of the tension loops it has but the is not usually a huge problem. While I was sewing the bag, suddenly my machine started eating the fabric. Basically the fabric was getting pulled down into the throat plate and munched on. Not good. I got home from work on Saturday at 11:45 pm and started taking my machine apart. Mind you I was not done with the bag at all. Just one row of squares was sewn together. I have never seen the inside of my machine. It was actually pretty cool:

 I quickly figured out the problem was not on the top, so I had to take out the bobbin case. After turning the hand wheel multiple times, it was like magic. I found the little asshole that was causing the problem:

But seriously, this piece of thread was wrapped around and around and I had to keep spinning the hand wheel to see it because it would disappear. I used tweezers to extract various pieces and I am pretty sure I got all of them. I cleaned everything out - there was so much dust and fuzz - I think this was the first time it has been cleaned ever. After putting everything back together, I had to make adjustments to the bobbin case placement. It is slightly looser than it was before and it makes a little clicking noise when it moves around, but the machine sews like a dream now!! 

This is such good news because I have to finish sewing Butterick 6025 by Saturday. Here is a preview:

I lurve it already :)