Food and the sewing machine

I would guess that there would be more than a few people out there, if asked to make a list of the top ten things in life that they enjoyed most, SEWING and EATING would be on that list?  Out of this group of people, there must be a hand full that have decided that eating while you sew, or sewing while you eat is a good thing. I can tell you from experience, that they don't do well together. 

I recently had the pleasure of servicing a very nice, just over a year old, machine that had a problem. My newly acquired and limited knowledge of the sewing process pointed me towards a "Tension" problem. Here is a picture of the stitching from the back of the fabric.

I usually go through and totally clean and oil/grease a machine first. In a lot of cases, this will take care of most problems. I immediately started running into some problems. The needle plate looked like something had been spilled on it.

The little spring that holds the bobbin window shut was completely corroded. No more spring in it.

The bottom cover on the bobbin assembly looked like a dirty plate after a good spaghetti dinner. Ok, maybe not that bad but not normal for a sewing machine. I did clean it up in the kitchen sink with dish soap and hot water.

The bottom of the machine was not looking good either.

I got all of this cleaned up to my satisfaction and proceeded to go through my regular routine of service. I knew the tension was messed up but hadn't found a reason for it so far. I grabbed a piece of thread and ran it through the upper tension slot with the presser foot down and tension knob cranked up to 9. NO TENSION/resistance what so ever. The upper tension wasn't working at all. No difference between the presser foot lever being up or down on the tension. The linkage between the presser foot lever and the upper tension was stuck. Oh No! Not more spagetti sauce. And if that wasn't enough, the tension knob had been "tightened" so much that it actually went beyond it's limits. Pictured below is the keeper that has slipped off the tension adjustment gear. The arrow shows the keeper and it should be up on the white gear.

Please forgive me if I don't use the correct names for all these parts. I tend to make up words whenever I don't know the name of something. I am still learning. The good news is, I actually got this machine back up and running great. This is a picture of the back side of an initial test sewing after all was cleaned and repaired.

So,
Untill they start making "Dishwasher Safe" sewing machines, it would probably be a good Idea to keep the sewing in the sewing room and the Food in the kitchen. I actually know this will never happen. Even my wife has
"Sew while you eat-itus".