Holy smokes, Batman!!

I had to sew the binding on the tee shirt quilt, so my sister and I decided to watch TV while I worked down in the studio. She brought a quilt to be done, too, so I loaded it on the APQS and began quilting. I finished the binding about halfway through quilting her quilt, so I settled in to watch Miss Marple solve another murder on TV. We were enjoying the show when my sister suddenly says "Hey Susan, there's smoke coming out of your machine!" Yikes!! I jumped up and stopped the quilting, but the machine kept humming angrily. I ran over and unplugged it, then looked at the machine to see what happened. The thread had broken and the end had been sucked into the take-up lever slot. Time for Mr Wazoo to work his magic.
He took the side panel off and the thread was wound all around the shaft, and had melted into a hard knot of red. It took him about half an hour to cut it off and carefully pick it off with a carpet knife and hemostats. I gave it a good blow out with canned air and oiled all the joints.

Oh no! This is not good...

Cotton wound poly thread melts!

Working with the cutter to get the thread free from the shaft

Mr W is not amused...

Halfway through the task. Geez, that's a lot of thread!

Finally clean, and well oiled before putting the plate back on.

Here is part of what he removed.

With the thread back where it belonged and the machine reassembled, I was able to finish the quilt for my sister.

My sister's quilt, all finished and ready to go.

Panto: Cherries, to compliment the cherry fabric

A peek at the back.

All's well that ends well. Miss Marple solved the murder mystery, I finished the quilt, and my machine seems fine. We'll be cooking out again tonight, and watching the Packers game. Life is good!