Safety First

Well, I have a whole new reason to wear safety glasses while sewing. I know we've all heard or experienced the dreaded needle break and fly. Personally, while I've broken many needles, I have never had one fly at me. But I have no reason to doubt those who claim it has. Especially after today. No, nothing sharp and scary like a needle. This was in innocent and benign spool of thread. Black. Not a cone, just a spool in plastic. About 1/2 full. The larger size, not the tiny one. I was making a bobbin on my Singer 201 and had the spool on the bottom spindle beside the tension wheel. You can see it in the picture, just below the serial number on the bottom right. My bobbin was in place, the wheel clicked down and the needle disengaged. Just like I'm supposed to do. And I got started on this, pushing the knee lever for all it's worth and the bobbin's winding like the wind. Um literally. It started going so fast that the spool spun itself off the spindle and flew right up and hit my granny, um safety, glasses and ricocheted across the room. I was stunned! Unhurt, but shocked! And, no, the thread didn't break, it just kept winding (a little wonky now) and there was thread all over the place. Looked like a cat went crazy in there. But, if I had been young with good vision and didn't need Target glasses to see my fingernails I'd likely have a black eye. Okay, at least a mark.
The only thing I can think is that the spool is (a) larger than Singer designed these for. Most of the old old spools were small. (b) lighter than Singer anticipated. The old ones were wooden. This was plastic - I just bought it at Hancock's a couple of weeks ago. I also have some Styrofoam ones from the 70's.

In case you're wondering, I was working on yet another pair of BWOF Marlene slacks (Yawn, I know, but the FIT). I've got a business trip coming up I want them for) The flying spool trick was only one of many incidences designed to prevent me from finishing these by tomorrow night.

Update on the sick Pfaff: I heard back (once) from Pfaff. There recommendation was to send it to them (I pay postage and insurance, of course) and for $30 they would evaluate it. Not fix it, not promise to fix it. No promise to honor the warranty. I think it was a canned response and they hadn't even really read my message. I wrote them back that I was hoping for a more proactive, customer oriented solution and recommended they work this out with my dealer, their authorized representative. We'll see, but I think it's a goner.

And in that vein I drove down the Sun/Sew/Vac store. They were having some kind of embroidery classes and the place was packed full of women eating their lunch (Five Guys) all over the machines. So that was a waste of time. **sigh** Pfaff/Bonny's has a week to work this out before I pull out the big guns (a.k.a. DH).

And as a consolation prize I ordered my subscription to BWOF today. Some things just can't be helped. And keep those safety glasses on!