Bent Needles :-(

For the items coming to my Etsy shop March 1, here’s the hint of the week: They’re kawaii!! (Google that!)

A friend’s mother once told me, “Shakespeare wrote two kinds of plays: comedies and tragedies. In a comedy, everybody gets hitched. In a tragedy, everybody dies. But up until the end, you can’t tell the difference.” On that vein, here’s the story of the week…

My sewing machine is a Janome Memory Craft 9000. I sewed along quite happily until, sometime late last year, the thread began tangling in the bobbin case so badly that I would have to cut my needle out. I tried changing thread and changing the bobbin, to no avail. Finally, my husband (!!!) suggested I change the needle, so I did.

Oh, happy day! Sewing again!

And then this week it started tangling again. This being a hand-me-down machine, I only had three needles to start with, so I quickly tested all three and had the same experience with all three. I did lots of research online, but I guess people who sew (I initially typed “sewers,” lol, but then thought people might not appreciate being compared to a receptacle for human waste) are relatively low-tech because the resources were pretty awful. Basically, it took forever for me to find that the most likely cause of the tangling is, in fact, a bent needle, as I had previously suspected.

So I tried to find out what needles are recommended for the Janome MC 9000 and could find no such information. However, I know that the type of needles I inherited along with the sewing machine were Janome brand needles, and the user manual says I should use ball point size 75/11 needles for the type of fabric I’m sewing with, so I tried to find Janome ball point 75/11. Unfortunately, they can only be purchased in Britain. O.O

So I called my handy Willets Sew & Vac store here in McKinney. I suppose you could say I’m posting a shameless plug, but they were very helpful. They explained that sewing machine needles are pretty generic, that you don’t have to buy Janome brand needles for a Janome brand sewing machine, and that all I have to do is make sure I’m buying the right size.

All of that to say that the onesies and pants are on hold for now. Again. 😦

じゃあまたね

Jaa, matane!