Disaster!!

I was happily quilting along last night when my machine suddenly stopped and all the bells went off!  The balance wheel wouldn't turn at all and I had to dismantle the needle and presser foot assemblies to get the needle out of the quilt and the quilt out of the machine.  The needle wasn't bent or broken so it's a mystery why the machine suddenly stopped.  Probably the quilt was too much for the machine.  It's a 3/4 size computerized Brother that I bought for under $200 about 7 years ago....so I've had my money's worth out of it.  I thought no problem and this morning dragged out one of my vintage machines...a Morse straight stitch dating to the 1950's.

After some switching around of parts...it's got a knee lift and doesn't fit securely in it's table..I started my test piece.  Lots of smoke!  OK, it's burning the dust from the motor and the smoke soon stopped.  It still makes beautiful stitches but I could see lots of sparks from inside the motor!  Haven't had that happen before so I unplugged before I burned out the motor.

Next machine is a 1957 Brother 260 and I've quilted large quilts on it before...in fact it's my favorite machine.

Today, for some reason, it won't form a stitch!  I've changed needles, bobbins and rethreaded upteen times and still it won't cooperate.  Maybe it's mad because I haven't used it in a long while.  When I broke my arm, my little computerized machine was out and set up.  In January, when I started quilting again after more than a year away, I had a hard time even getting my left arm up to the table to hold fabric while I sewed.  Now I have much more movement in that arm and I credit sewing with that progress but my Morse weighs about 40 pound and the Brother is over 30 pounds.  I simply couldn't lift them!  I still have a featherweight and a Singer 99 but neither of them is large enough to finish my PLAY quilt.  For those of you who have followed along, here is the final final version.

Meanwhile, I'll be sorting scraps and cleaning house until I can get a new machine.