Oh my. My machine was dirty!

I recently bound 100 quilts. In doing that, I was often changing bobbin colors.

Often.

I used maybe 25 bobbins! Maybe more.

Today I started doing something on that same machine and I started to change the bobbin thread color. Then I stopped myself.

“Becky, Pull out that bobbin case holder and CLEAN IT OUT!”

It’d been a while.

So, with fear and trembling I took off the throat plate, pulled out the bobbin case holder and was shocked. It was awful!

Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised, anyway!

It’s been a while since I cleaned it out. But even at that, this was worse than I had thought it would be!

it was dirty underneath! I mean, not DIRTY - as in sandy or dirty. But a lot of lint.

Lots.

And so I began to clean it out.

 

I dug out a lot of lint and got it all nice again. I used tweezers to find long pushed away pieces of lint and pulled them out. I put a drop of oil on the wick in the middle of that metal round thing.

And we’re back to work again.

I should not have waited so long! Seriously.

It’s a bad thing. I’ll admit that sometimes I don’t clean it out as often as I should, but this is the worst I remember. Ever. It’s actually a wonder that the machine continued to work okay.

Yes, it is. I guess it is a tribute to the hardiness of this Janome 8900.

(NOT sponsored, naturally - as I doubt I would be a good rep for them even though I’ve spent so much money on their machines which I do like - but I also like my Juki machines! And in Florida I have a Baby-Lock which is also quite nice. My sis has a Brother which sews just fine and I grew up with Singers.)

I know that with this photo, it appears I need to get a nice soft cloth and actually wipe it down. I can see more in a big photo like this than in real life!

I guess I was so focused lately that I just didn’t take the moment or two it would take to clean it out properly.

I find that with this kind of machine (top loading), it tends to collect far more lint than the kind that has the bobbin that you put in from the side.

Do you have a timeline for cleaning out under or around the bobbin case?

For example.

  • Every other or every third bobbin change?

  • Every project finished? I guess this is what I was doing here as the “project” was 100 quilts.

That was a bit too long! (slight understatement!)

So how often do you clean out your machine?

I’ve watched some videos on You Tube about how to clean your machine and the examples don’t even need cleaning! :) But I get it. They are good machine owners.

Now that this machine is no longer under warranty, I need to learn to take the bottom off and actually get to cleaning out FROM the bottom where there is probably even more lint.

So how about you all? Tell me how often you clean out the machine under where the bobbin is. I’m all ears. Also…do you do a complete tear down or just surface clean.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading!

Becky Petersen5 Comments