Open-heart Sergery

I've broken a few needles on my serger lately trying to substitute brute force for precision and sheer determination for knowledge, and I haven't located quite all the shards. Plus I was politely corrected over at Did You Make That when I revealed that I cleaned my serger by blowing the dust around the room with a leaf blower, I mean canned air. So I decided it was time for an inspection and cleaning. I was right about the cleaning, at least!



Yuck.

I wasn't (very) worried about taking the serger apart because it was half in pieces when I got it from Amazon. To be fair, I paid a bit less for it because the box was opened (and the tweezers were missing). I had to expose the motor, tighten up the electrical connection and put the belt back where it belonged to get it working, so I've been in there before. I removed all the parts of the plastic shell that I could, and brushed and dusted and (I admit) blew all the visible dirt away. Except for the shell, this baby is all heavy metal, unlike today's sewing machines which seem to be mostly plastic inside and out. Anyway, lookie how clean she is now!



Best of all, she still stitches. I feel so empowered!

And now to serge up some renfrews to wear with my still-hypothetical pants.

Scary September

BeaJay of On the Road to Sew Wear has challenged herself to step out of her comfort zone to make this month Scary September and I've decided to join her.



BeaJay, inspired by luminaries like Margy, Shams and JillyBe and by her attendance at a Fractured Knits workshop given by Suzanne Gray, plans to release her inner arty trendsetter and become more edgy and eclectic.

Me, I'm not so brave. Instead, I'm vowing by the end of September to leave the house in the daylight in a pair of pants I made. This was also my challenge for Me-Made May '13, but I didn't make any headway on it. I'm working my way through Sandra Betzina's two Craftsy Pants classes (Fitting and Construction*) and I have produced a muslin that fits very snugly yet lets me sit and bend comfortably, but I am NOT ready to go public with it yet. So, Scary September it is.

*Incidentally, Sandra Betzina's classes get a certain amoung of negative feedback because SB's delivery is a little jumbled--she rarely finishes sentences, for example. But I love them. Sandra Betzina has been sewing and teaching for a long time. Watching her sew and think about sewing conveys so much more information and wisdom than she could possibly cram into a scripted presentation that I don't mind having to rewatch bits now and then!