NEED SEWING MACHINE REPAIRED

Hola - Does anyone know of a reliable sewing machine repair service here at Lakeside? TIA, Barbara

Don't have an answer for you.

But since no one else does either, maybe go visit a local seamstress (Rosie in Ajijic on Ocampo is mine) or an upholsterer (Miguel on Pepe Guizar in Chapala) or the drapery shop (the one on Encarnacion Rosas, directly opposite Ajijic's Farmacia Guadalajara) or fabric store (sorry don't know any but there is at least one in Chapala) and ask them??

If you don't speak Spanish take a simple google translation IN WRITING and show it to them, though Rosie and Miguel and the staff at the drapery shop, speak better Ingles than they let on...I think they enjoy my feeble attempts at Español.

I have had all of them do work for me and I'm sure they'd give you repair info.

Thanks BisbeeGal!

I donated a sewing machine that was not working properly to a group in San Juan Cosala. The lady who received it, was able to repair it herself. These ladies are more than just seamstress'.

Sewing machines are pretty simple to repair unless they are one of the newer electronic ones.
I have looked at several friend's machines and often there is nothing really wrong with them but lack of maintainance and cleaning- they haven't been oiled in ages, underneath the hole in the needle plate is all clogged up with fuzz, and in one case, she had the needle in backwards.

I just can't see well enough to fix small things any more... and impossible to thread a needle even using the cheater. Such is life.

FYI, we buy either pre-threaded needles or self-threading needles. I still do small repairs like missing buttons. More than that, I take to Rosy.

Growing up my mother and aunt made all my clothes. I made my own skirts all through HS. And easy dresses.

I even won a regional Singer sewing contest in HS.

My mother and aunt found sewing relaxing....I never did and when I got a job and could buy my own clothes, I never went back to making my own.

Sewing was just one of those extras that we all learned way back when and involved making my own clothes. Knitting sweaters was my Nana's forte. I made ONE ski sweater for my hubby and never did another. My Aunt was an incredibly talented clothes sewer and my mum always made the curtains (pinch pleated and lined) for every home we ever lived in. I made the curtains for our home in San Pancho... seven x nine foot wide patio doors. I do not find sewing or knitting relaxing. It's just another job that has to get done.

I sew for a living and one day when I was complaining to a friend about how stressed I was because of all the projects clients wanted done yesterday , they said, "At least you have a job you love". I looked at them like they were crazy. They said, "You don't love sewing?" I said that sitting at a sewing machine all day cranking out the same stuff over and over again isn't something I love, no.

And weirdly, though I am 74, my up-close vision is excellent. They put glasses on me at the age of ten for distance vision, but I can read and thread needles without glasses easily.

Thanks MudGirl, The only thing wrong with my machine IS THE automatic needle threader. I am 70 and have a heck of a time threading it manually. I am both near sighted and far sided and also have a lazy eye. Would you consider helping me out? Barbara

I would happily do that, but I don't live Lakeside- I live in Sayulita, north of Puerto Vallarta! If it is one of those threaders that you push down to thread the needle and it springs back up again after, I have never had a machine like that, but my friend's had that feature. I'd assume that either the little spring is worn out, has somehow popped out and isn't there anymore, or maybe there's some bit of thread or fluff stuck in it.

Someone taught me a trick years ago for threading a needle- hold a piece of white paper behind the needle hole. It makes it so much easier to see. Although if your eyes are really bad, it might not help enough.

My brother has a lazy eye and no one realized when he was a child why he always squinted that eye- my parents thought it was just a cute little mannerism. By the time anyone realized it was because he could see better with it closed, it was too late- he weakened it by not using it and says everything looks like it's underwater with that eye, totally indistinct. Not corrrectable with glasses.

Thanks again. I will see what I can do myself.

Good luck. Hope it's a simple fix.