The brush broke in half, and the top half of the brush fell into the black abyss inside my machine. I dug out my tweezers and tried to pry it out, to no avail. I busted out my vacuum and tried to vacuum it up, with no luck. Next, I took my machine to my sewing machine dealer, and spent over 30 minutes with their special teeny tiny tweezers, and still couldn't grab the brush, no matter how hard I tried. They told me I could leave the machine for the repairman, but that he would charge me $80 to open up the machine. My husband had a conniption and swore he could fix it.
And fix it, he did. It may have taken a tense 45 minutes, in which I paced and cursed myself for causing all this trouble in the first place, but my husband saved the day and pried that evil thing out of my machine.
The moral of the story? Never clean a sewing machine with a makeup brush. From now on, I will strictly use the vacuum to clean out my machine. Now on with the sewing!
39 comments:
I use the brush provided with the machine and a pipe cleaner looped inside a straw to clean my machines.
I also have the brush that came with the machine, but I can't imagine where I could drop it in my machine! Sounds like quite a hole your brush fell into. I would have been having a fit too. I hate when my 'free' time plan goes out the window. Glad you got it out!!
I totally didn't get how you could have done this until I realised that its a teeny tiny top part of a brush! I thought that picture was of a big blusher brush, and I was like, wow, does she have Mary Poppins sewing machine?!
Oopsie! I'm also lucky enough to have a wee brush with my machine, but it's a different design (maybe they had the same problems with a previous design!) Hope you get to sew today!
I'm glad your husband saved the day. I also use pipe cleaners to clean my machine.
Thank God for hubby's! $80 to open the machine...what a joke! you think they'd want to help you out...sigh. =(
Good news to have got it out. Do read up on the vacuum idea, when I was looking at doing that some people thought it was a bad idea but I cannot remember why. I think you can find little one piece brushes about (sewing store, hardware store) for a little price.
Glad you got it.I use a painter little brush.
Eeek! Thats totally something I would do, thanks for the heads up! Glad the hubby was able to save the day :-)
Oh no! I clean mine with a small brush, I'm thinking I should stop that pronto. So glad your hubby came to the rescue!
Thanks for reminding that I should clean my machine ... I haven't tried vacuum cleaner, I guess I do that. How great that your hb managed to fix your machine!
I use an odd variety of brushes myself, including make up brushes. I will be evermore vigilant~ thanks for the warning. Hope you get a better sewing day!
oh no! thank goodness for handy hubby!
Oh, dear!! I am glad your hubby fixed it! Yikes!
OMG! John saves the day! That is crazy that the brush broke off in there. My machine came with a little cleaning brush, but it's just plastic, it couldn't be any stronger than a make-up brush. Glad it ended well!
Ugh! My machine, is a newer Pfaff. Viking and Singers are all the same now. It seriously irritates me how I can't get inside the machine... And yes, the repair bill to take it all apart is absolutely insane! Glad you husband was able to take it apart. That brush that comes with mine is a total joke. Mine is shedding its bristles each time I clean, which is horrible. I use a small paint brush, or a q-tip, but I'll have to make sure it's secure, after reading your post :-O.
Oh, no! I use an eyeshadow brush to clean my machine, too. It never occurred to me to make sure the ferule was still on solidly. I think I better go check!
Hee hee hee. Sorry, but I know how you feel. I caught my 1-year-old shoving pins into the top of my machine. I had to pull it apart, use tweezers and magnets, and finally had to turn the machine upside down and twist and turn and perform sewing acrobatics to get the last one out. Oh, the adventures!!! Glad you got it out.
Yikes stripes! I will definitely be using the vacuum myself from now on.
Bugger!
Thank goodness your husband was able to retrieve it. My Pfaff came with a brush but like Becky it started falling apart after a couple of weeks and left bristles inside the machine. When I took ithe machine in for it's service, the repairman suggested that a toothbrush was the best implement to clean it. It doesn't get into all the tiny spots but if I clean the machine regularly it's great.
Oh no!! I felt myself cringe and tense up reading your post. I'm so glad that hubby saved the day, but MAN! Talk about traumatic!
oh no! lesson learned i guess! ;)
Ouch! See, that's what you get for cleaning your machine... Kidding! Have you tried one if the fluffy pipe cleaners (er...chenille stems)? Those work pretty well for me.
I'm glad it had a happy ending! I was picturing a totally ruined machine at the end of it all!
That is the worst though - when something is juusssttt out of reach. Hurray for Hubby!
Oh dear!! I'm very glad you were able to rescue your machine.
I dropped a brush into the "black abyss" recently too. I turned the machine upside down, shook it around for a bit and the thing fell out. I'm sure a sewing machine repair person would NOT suggest that method :).
Poor you! I can feel your hissy fit and totally understand. I have created many sewing machine crises and the frustration when you cannot fix it yourself is insane! I don't know why dealers don't allow us access to our machines anymore. Is it a conspiracy? It certainly lets the machine fixers charge a lot of money. Mine charges $95 for cleaning alone! I'm glad your hubby could fix it.
Thanks for the wonderful husband who saved your day. My machine came with a brush to clean, my older one did have such a thing, too. Maybe your machine dealer has something like this to sell.
Oh what a pain! So happy the Mr. could fix it but what a headache.
Here's to better and happier sewing experiences today!
Isn't it a shame that we have to learn the hard way? Sorry for your troubled day, but I'm sure we are all thankful that you had that experience, blogged about it, and now all of us out here are much the wiser for it!
Hooray for hubby!! I'm too lazy to clean my machine to start with...LOL. Hope you're getting lots of "make-up" time on your secret project - can't wait to see it!!
Oh, I hate those days! So glad you found out the problem and got it fixed without TOO much hassle.
Kudos for being diligent and cleaning your machine. So glad your hubby was able to fix it for you. Totally something that would happen to me...
Oh, I'd be stomping my feet and throwing a tantrum too! But I'm so glad to hear that in the end it worked out (and you weren't left without a machine for a period of time!)
haha that's such a great story... especially since it ended well! I once had to take the casing off of my old machine because a friend of mine (a newbie sewer) dropped the needle when trying to replace it... impossible!
Sorry for all the frustration and delay in sewing. Hoping things are humming along nicely now.
You need one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Vacuum-Attachment-sold-Miniatures/dp/B000BSJCLY
(I'm not sure if your comments will let the link through)
I got one from my sewing machine guy today!
If you vacuum, put something like an old pantyhose over the end. So if there is any loose screws etc they don't get sucked up! I use the brush that came with the machine and sometimes a large duck feather than can get into little places.
I use pipe cleaners. I bend the end so its curved and the metal point doesn't catch on anything. It works pretty good.
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