Money-saving setbacks

My attempts to save my family money by sewing diapers and other things for the kids is not really saving us any money right now, at least not yet. It has been COSTING us money, plus my time and frustration.

I found a wonderful tutorial about how to make diapers from old t-shirts at the DiaperSwappers.com forum and thought it was something I could do easily. I went to my mom's and collected up some old flannel shirts, old t-shirts, and a sewing machine, which is actually a high end embroidery machine that belonged to my grandmother.

I made all of a half-dozen prefolds and a half dozen flats before the machine shut down after three days. I took it in to the shop and they discovered some nicks in the bobbin case. That's $85 to look at it plus whatever for a new case for a total cost of around $150. Plus the machine would be in the shop for two weeks.

A few days passed by and I was trying not to go crazy without a machine, and my mom didn't have another one to loan me. Plus I wanted a very basic one that I could keep on hand, since I'm giving my grandmother's back to her when it gets out of the shop. I went to Goodwill on Sunday and picked up a very basic old White model for $35. It's just like (or very similar to) the one I used to sew my clothes on in high school.

I got it home and it had no bobbin case!

I can return it within 15 days for an exchange but I WANT THE MACHINE, I WANT TO SEW! (Blast it all.)

My mom thought she had a bobbin case to fit it but she's 30 minutes away. I took it down to the shop and bought a case for $20. So now we're up to $55 on THIS money-saving deal.

I got it back home, put the case on it, and then the needle wouldn't go up and down! I didn't have that problem before I put the bobbin case in there.

I called the shop and told them what was happening, and they said it sounded like something (a belt maybe) could be slipping and to bring it on back so they can take a look at it! She said it didn't have anything to do with the bobbin case although the needle and everything was going up and down just fine before.

I took it back in to the shop, not very hopeful by now that I can ever get anything sewn.

It turned out that I had shoved the bobbin case in too hard and that was what was keeping it from working. The man at the sewing machine shop took it out and took the case workings out and put them back in and didn't charge me for it.

I brought the machine back home, plugged it up, and held my breath.

IT WORKED! IT WORKED!

The tension was a little bit messed up but was working.

I've made several more diapers since I got the last problem fixed. The tension problem seemed to have worked its way out.

I've still got a lot more sewing to do to make up for the $55 I spent on the machine. I know that's not much to spend on a working machine but I was thinking I could sew for free. (Silly me.) I am also going to try to see if I can find a better price on getting my grandmother's machine fixed.