Ok, ok! I will spill the beans.
Remember that my wife and I are theorizing this situation, so it may or may not be totally accurate. Here’s the scenario:
It’s the weekend. She has a whole stack of Mugg-Rugg tops pieced, has her batting cut to size, and has her backing pieces also cut. She wants to get some FMQ done, and though she’s a safety pin user most of the time, these little items will go together much faster by using a basting spray rather than pinning.
Ok, many of you are already seeing the basting spray as the problem, but it wasn’t just the basting spray that was the entire problem. It’s how she used it. Remember that I said that she had a whole bunch of them to do? Well, she got in a hurry slapping them together. The spray instructions say to allow the spray to dry to tacky (a few minutes), but she put them together wet, and immediately began quilting them with FMQ.
We believe that what happened was that sewing went fine until the spray built-up in the long groove of the needle, then it started missing stitches. Changing the needle solved the problem until it too got built-up with sticky spray. Changing to a third larger needle size solved the problem for a longer period of time, but eventually it too got a build-up of spray. And all the while she was changing needles, ripping stitches, and scratching her head trying to figure out why her machine was acting up, the spray on the items waiting to be quilted was drying little by little, making our “fixes” look more like they were doing some good with each fix.
It wasn’t until beginning to change the large needle that she got a good feel of the sticky goop on the needle. She hadn’t noticed it on the smaller needles.
Solutions:
Next time, allow the spray to dry more before sewing, especially on small projects that go together quickly. The large quilts that she’s had success using basting spray on in the past were sprayed, assembled allowing the spray to dry more, and then put away for a period of time before sewing, allowing the spray to dry even more.
When the first missed stitch shows up, stop and clean the needle.
Clean the needle periodically while doing FMQ using basting spray.
This morning when I was making one of my trips through the sewing room for another cup of coffee, I noticed her Singer 301A propped up on its cabinet with the needle plate off and the hook assembly partially disassembled. Late last night, she’d gotten a thread wrapped up in the hook and wasn’t able to get it out easily. Do you suppose that the hook is covered with sticky goop as well? I guess you know what I’m going to be doing today....
Thanks for playing along with my guessing game.
CD in Oklahoma