I still have a ton of work to do on my wedding dress and I also have to alter my sister's bridesmaid dress.

The tension discs won't sit together properly. One of them keeps flopping to the side. Whatever was holding it either broke or got pushed out of place. I took a look inside and I can't tell what happened.

The good news is that there is a sewing repair shop nearby and I know several people who have sewing machines that I can borrow.

First choice is my sister because she's closest and her sewing machine is identical to mine so I just texted her.

Sewing machines always break at the worst moments

Haha, well I feel silly. Apparently the tension discs are supposed to open when the foot is up.

Derp.

However, the problem I was having before I noticed the discs and the real reason I started poking around was that my thread kept breaking. The tension was fine and I couldn't figure out what my thread was

catching on. The lady at the repair shop took a look and couldn't find anything either. However, when I opened up the side panel on the machine I did clean out a few chunks of lint.

That might have been the problem right there.

She said their tech is in on Wednesdays and if I keep having problems I can bring it in then for a ~$100 repair. Yikes.

I'm crossing my fingers that the lint was all that was wrong. The machine worked just fine for the lady at the shop.

newer sewing machines are pretty complicated and I honestly don't understand right away how to work most of them. When my sister bought one it came with a class to learn how to use it

Haha, wow. My sewing machine is actually nine years old. It's partially computerized but it's very simple. You program in the number of the stitch you want and that's about all it does.

oh, my sister's is one of those with nine zillion settings. The one I grew up using was my mom's, bought before I was born and it had no computer and was basically simple enough you could fix most things

yourself.

you adjusted stuff by turning a wheel on the side

Yup, mine's got a bit wheel on the side that moves the needle and a wheel for adjusting the tension. Pretty basic. And I learned how to sew on my mom's which is also older than I am, lol.

big wheel*

It's amazing how long they can last. I used it until wild rats got into the garage and chewed the cord up for some reason