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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The 'Nail in the Coffin' Quilt

This is the quilt that was the proverbial 'nail in the coffin'-for my sewing machine.
I had been saving this Busy Town fabric for about a year.  Our family loves Richard Scarry  and when I saw the fabric line based on his books I knew I wanted to make a patchwork quilt. 
When we returned to Bermuda in September I finally pulled it out and matched up scraps and precuts and began cutting and sewing.  The top turned out fantastically-despite my sewing machine's new formed habit of only accepting certain types of thread.  When it came time to quilt it, I decided upon a straight line pattern.  That is where the real problems developed.  I have straight lined quilted with this machine before--and I noticed a deteriation over the past year or so but I was still happy with the finished products.  Not any more.  Some of you see no problems with this quilt but upon closer inspection you will see all the blocks shifted so it has a wavy effect to it.  Everything which was once square is no longer :)



I have taken this particular machine (who I call Jan) to the shop two summers in a row to fix the same problem.  That problem still exists. I have had Jan for about seven years and  I have run her seven days a weeks for up to eight hours a day for the past four years.  She is tired and ready for semi-retirement.

And as of yesterday, she has been replaced by a Juki.  I am really excited {but please don't tell Jan because her feelings may be hurt}. 
And here is a question for my readers:  I would like to try and sell Jan for a minimal price--she still works but just not up to the standards that I am used to.  Does anyone have a suggestion for how I could word an ad that accurately and honestly describes her condition without scaring off potential buyers?
Any other Juki owners out there with a little bit of advice on my new machine? 
Have a great day!!

3 comments:

Kat said...

Do you have pictures of Jan? How much are you asking?

Mama Pea said...

Like you say, just be honest. Say you just had her serviced, that you find she operates best with X kind of thread, and you wouldn't recommend her for doing a lot of quilting...maybe a good machine for sewing clothing and/or for a beginning sewist (i.e., maybe a child; although you don't want the child's experience to be frustrating).

Books_Bound said...

I agree with Mama Pea--just lay it out there. You'd be surprised at what people are looking for in a sewing machine. Maybe someone who likes to tinker with machines finds it appealing. Maybe someone is just looking for a cheap backup. Maybe a school is looking for it for a Home Ec class. You just never know, and when you've been upfront about the problems, people feel like that is probably the extent of it. If it seems like you're being evasive, they may think things are much worse than they really are.