Our Do It Yourself Fixit Story

For a few days now my Singer sewing machine kept 'squeaking' while running.  I knew it didn't sound good, so we tried the obvious things - a little machine oil and a new needle.   That didn't do it.  The squeaking actually got worse.   It's not a real expensive sewing machine, just a thrifty-priced Singer I bought at Wal Mart about 8 years ago.  I knew that taking it to a sewing machine shop would cost me about $50-$100, and I only paid $98 for it in the first place. 
     So, we spread newspaper on the table, turned on every light we could, got a floor lamp in position for more light, and started to take things apart.  Harold figured if we break it, we'll just buy a new one (i.e. another thrifty model Singer).  But we gave it our best.  In a short while we had tiny screws everywhere, plastic housing parts all over, metal parts scattered.   We cleaned, we oiled, we used a can of air and blew out 'stuff', and Harold inspected every working part.  We cleaned parts with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips.  After all this, it STILL squeaked!   Harold kept muttering "Man built this thing, man can fix it."  Finally after about an hour and a half, he put a small brush attachment down into the machine and pulled a tiny piece of lint off of a plastic part.  We put things back together enough to test the machine and ........voila!  NO squeaking!!  We got it!  Who would have thought that a tiny piece of lint on a little plastic ring would cause such squeaking?
     We put everything back together, but for some reason we lost a screw that helps to hold the top housing.  It fell somewhere on the floor while we had the  mass of parts on the table.  Well, no matter.   The machine runs fine without it, and everything works great now - smooth and quiet.  And we saved a lot of money!   The moral of the story:  don't be afraid to fix things yourself.   We watched a couple You Tube videos on sewing machine repair (you can learn just about anything on You Tube), and just tried it.  Sometimes you get lucky and fix things!   And if you don't succeed, you can always take it to a "professional".
     All in all, this was a successful day.   Harold cut a load of wood, used the newly fixed snow blower (he fixed that, too) to move more snow, found his tire chains for the pickup (that he thought were lost).  I finished a craft project, cooked 3 great meals today, and did some housecleaning.   Fixing the sewing machine was just a good end to a very productive day!  Now I can continue with that quilt I was working on..........