I’ve been giving my sewing machine the evil eye from a distance, it sits on my dining table & its been playing up from the day I got it (its less than 6mths old).

You see, the tension has never quite been right no matter what I did to it, so I played with the tension – no luck.

Put it back on the table for another week & deconstructed it & managed to fix the needle position which was also never correct (roll eyes), it was constantly hitting the foot & it wasn’t bent needles… the I played with the tension & whoopee! it worked just for all of an evening!

Last deconstruction – so I try to put the little lever behind the tension dial in a different position - when I pulled it apart slowly the first time I saw how it came out & put it back the same way – but I put it back together & set all the tension back to normal & we have perfection!

The darn stupid people who put it together put the tension arm in incorrectly at the factory – what happened to QC??!! 

I really hadn’t wanted to have it sent away because a) I figured they’d find a reason to charge me for a service or b) it would be gone for some time & I needed to get things done.

Thankfully I used to watch my dad do allsorts when I was a kid, so have a little mechanical inclination

I made these up for Ashtons stocking, but they still are not complete over a month later but thats really only because the little bells I brought aren’t very loud, so I’ve been looking for more to go in there. I even managed him a little rugby ball!

ETA: 25 Aug ‘08:

Well… I never got the chance to take a photo of these, but recently completed them & gave them to my SIL as part of her Baby Shower gift – she was embarrased to ask what they were    no-one knew what tag balls or blankets were, but they all were quite impressed by the nappies I gifted her!