Stitches Skipping

My delay. My sewing machine will not stitch my jerseys. I need topstitching without the skipping. If it was a look I want it would work perfectly, little dashes and dots along the edge of the t-shirt, the hem peeping up everyonce in awhile. I don't want the look. I want continual dashes of stitches along the edge, as ornery as it might sound.

A few things about my sewing machine and my skills:

• First of all, I must declare I am using a ballpoint needle for sewing the jerseys. The kind you should be sewing with. It might be too big though, I'll try a smaller sized needle.
• It might be bent a touch, I'll have to double check.
• My machine is second hand. I picked it up last year at the St. Vinnie's but it looked like it was used once, possibly twice. I gauge that by the two colours of thread I found wrapped on the bobbin.
• The machine sounds wonderful when it is sewing.
• The thread I am sewing with and the thread on the bobbin are the same.
• The threading of the bobbin is of good tension.

So I ask The Ladies for their oppinion, one houndred years of sewing experience combined. The Ladies, they are wonderful! If they couldn't sew up storms, they'd open a restaurant!

One suggested I change my bobbin case, that's what she did in her situation. So, the last time I visited my Mom's I ravaged her sewing machine and nicked her bobbin case. I did the ol' switcheroo and... nothing changed, not any better, not any worse. The same skipping. I'll be returning her bobbin case along with her table cloth, serving spoons, knife and fork... another story, another time.

Another suggested, "move the needle down a little-little bit". Bouncing her index and thumb awfully close to her nose.

You see, the needle sits in a vertical ridge secured by a screw to the item on the sewing machine that lowers the needle down through the fabric, the thread then wraps around the bobbin, catching the bobbin thread, and returns above the fabric, ensuring the threads are stitched. The bobbin remains under the fabric stitched, the needle thread is above the fabric stitched.

It is where it sits in the vertical ridge where I will gently release it and drop the needle a millimetre and sew and see. If that works, then voila! If not, I'll drop it another millimetre and sew and see. I'll continue until I am certain the needle won't plunge into the bobbin case.

If this one more trick doesn't work, I'm affraid I'll have to bring the machine into the shop and give it a once over.

I found a good site that is full of geeky technical information, American & Efird Inc. The selection I found is all about sewing machine stitches...

Then I'll have to bring my T-shirts to my Mom's and sew them up there. She would love it, as it would mean I'm "Visiting", that's another story, another time.