I put some fresh oil on top of the gunky oil and hand-cranked it a bit to try to work the fresh oil in...my theory is that this will make the older oil easier to clean out when I have some time (hopefully soon) to give it a cleaning. It's slightly easier to turn this morning so I think that's a good sign that it really is just oil gunking up the works. She's such a PRETTY machine - definitely the prettiest one I own! I love that she's just a little bit smaller than usual, makes her extra cute. Is it weird that I want to cuddle a sewing machine? LOL