The short distance between love and hate
Posted: September 27, 2013 Filed under: Gadgets & Gizmos, Janome Coverstitcher | Tags: Gadgets, Life 14 CommentsYes, I know I said I loved my coverstitch machine on Monday. And on Monday I did.
But I have been trying to do an alteration to a running top for my daughter and things have not gone well. At all. All I have made in all the time I have been trying to do this is a mess. The seams have all got skipped stitches. Not good news on a coverstitcher. I did think it may be a needle problem as the fabric is 100% polyester but with a good stretch, although I wouldn’t describe it as a jersey.
New needles were sourced and posted to me, arriving this morning. Not the needles – the machine is still skipping stitches with great abandon. I have given up for now and will try again next week when I have had a weekend away (with the daughter – I had hoped to take the top but it isn’t to be) and my brains cool down.
The Management is confident that once the pressure is off the problem will be easily solved. I wish I shared his optimism.
The Material Lady 
Re-thread all and pour yourself a drink…make samples if you can to get it back working.Sometimes using regular thread does this, it needs more tension and/or thread nets. Sorry to hear this has happened but you will figure this out when your back is not up against the wall.
It has been re-threaded several times so far but I will try the thread nets. I will leave it a couple of days to clear time, and then conquer this! Giving in is for pussies.
I agree with mrsmole, re-thread and it should work. They are finicky machines!
I have no idea what’s going on but good luck:)
Oh dear, afraid I didn’t know what a coverstitcher was until I looked it up! Good luck 🙂 PS. Watched Fabulous Fashionistas the other evening…loved it, very inspiring ladies!
Bad luck! I don’t have one of these machines, but skipped stitches … yuk.
Oh I hate reading this. The fix,.if not needles and rethreading is a PITA. I ve solved the skipped stitches with stitch length, differential feed and pressor foot adjustments. It s a PITA because I had to keep testing and making small adjustments. I ve spent so much time testing I could have stitched two rows of stitches at the SM and been onto something else. I ve felt your pain
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and good wishes. I will get back to this when I have some clear time and really get to the bottom of the problem. Just for now I am glowing with maternal pride – my darling daughter ran a half marathon in under 2 hours today. No wonder she needs the running tops reduced in size 🙂
It might be the thread. I’ve had problems when I’ve used poor quality thread. I took my machine back to the dealer think it was the machine. They changed the thread and the problem went away.
I have turned my back on it for now. I will go back when I am in the right mind!
I hope you get it fixed soon!
Don’t have a coverstitch machine so I can’t say what it might (thought I’d check the troubleshooting in the manual-you can prob. find the pdf version online if you Google it) or just call the service centre. I have, however, found 2 stretch fabric in the last 5 years that caused skipped stitches no matter the tension, thread, needles, etc used. The issue was that the fabric was trampolining through the hole in the stage (which allows the needle to pass through) thus not giving the needle enough time to catch the bobbin thread and putting the machine out of step so as to say. So I used a zipper foot that covered the whole almost completely, moved the needle out the way and it worked. Just needed to reduce the aperture of the hole so that the fabric couldn’t trampoline through it so much! Again, don’t know if this is something you can apply to a coverstitcher but that’s my 2 cents.
I plan to try again today. Your ‘trampolining’ point may well be right. The fabric is a technical sports fabric and not like anything I have sewn before. I suspect I am going to drive myself mad getting this right!
Thanks for all of your suggestions 🙂
You’ll be fine-you’re tough (and smart!) at worst I would suggest putting a semi stiff tracing/tissue paper under the fabric/between the layers (this should fix it but keep in mind paper dulls needles and blades so you may have to replace these more often)-or just use the L stretch stitch on your sewing machine and see if that works better. Best of luck!