Tension

I finally sat down this afternoon to address the issue of the new serger. I wrestled mightily with the problem and would like to declare vistory but – honestly – it’s a draw. The serger’s serging; it appears as my mother would have said to be “all in the way you hold your mouth”. It proved, in the event, to be more a question of tension than anything else but there are four of those so that’s not saying it was simple.

Even I, approaching the question afresh, could see that the jacket fabric, a heavy seersucker, was causing some problems of its own so I kept the heavy needles and switched to a lightweight canvas. The main problem all along was that the left needle wasn’t stitching. With four threads, a serger should wrap upper and lower loops around the edge of the fabric and secure them with two lines of stitching. Hence there are two loopers, two needles and four tension discs. The right needle was stitching along merrily but the left was dragging its heels and its thread, making no “stitches” at all. I put it back all the way up into it’s path where it seemed to want to be and where my first four-thread operated. I changed the needle. I reread the manual . . . and I started playing with tensions. Many miles of thread later, I got a decent result. One! It was several more miles before I could replicate the result and then had to change things again when I went back to the jacket fabric.

However, there does not appear to be anything wrong with the machine beyond the usual temperament that seems to be part and parcel of serging anything. I’m glad because I was really reluctant to return it to the shop and prove myself the incompetent I frequently feel. Besides I had the impression – at the time of the demo – that I knew more about sergers than the young woman clerk. She may have been nervous as her boss was there but he seemed a decent sort and it’s certain that I was using a serger when she was playing with sewing cards. Let us just say that I was prepared for frustration.

I shall continue meditating on anger and attempt to approach the serger with a calm demeanour, accepting that I will have to do samples and reset the tensions for every fabric. I really, really want to do some sewing so  I must work very hard at this.

Just so that I could have the satisfaction of finishing something, I hemmed my jacket, including the sleeves. I have not yet done buttons or buttonholes but I never do the things up anyway so it’s “wearable”. Someday I may even add buttons. I may even actually have some that would work well with the appliques. That’s for another day.

In other news the handy-dandy little mechanical “laminator” toy I picked up last trip to Michael’s doesn’t seem to work. It was balky from the first but I thought I’d figured it out. Now, however, it will not advance at all and I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t rattle. I didn’t keep the packaging but do have the receipt so I’m hoping to be able to exchange it. I agaonized more over that frivolous purchase than I did over buying my truck! Looked at it for months! Finally broke down and treated myself and what does it get me? Frustration . . . .  Should have been my middle name! Do they see me coming? Am I really an idiot? There are so many things I think foolish and don’t buy; some of them other people consider practically necessities. Why do so many of the few things I do buy disappoint me?

Is it possible that they just don’t make stuff like they used to? Not exactly an original thought, I admit, but it always sounds so old fogey-ish to say that or to complain about the quality of stuff made in China or Taiwan or Occupied Japan or wherever they’re exploiting labour this week. I am quite certain that North Americans are equally capable of producing junk. Of course, we don’t seem to actually “produce” anything anymore so that’s kind of hard to prove. And most of what is produced elsewhere is done for North American companies who are selling it in the wset, not to the citizens of the countries where it’s made. They can’t afford the junk on what we pay them! (Sometimes I think they’re lucky or smart or both.)

Honestly I have difficulty really believing that, even paying foreign workers a pittance, companies can have stuff made abroad and shipped here for less than they could make it here. And that’s not even getting into the issue of ones “carbon footprint” and how much fuel ought to be wasted providing western teeny boppers with their I pods and Gap jeans and whatver else they’re craving that I don’t know about (and please don’ tell me!)

Is it possible that they could pay workers a reasonable wage with what they spend on production and shipping and make a profit but only a little profit? Have you noticed how corporations get their metaphorical panties in a wad when their profits go down? I don’t mean when they lose money. No one can run a business and lose money. it’s stupid and I do wish someone would explain that to government but “profit” is what’s left over after all the expenses and it means you made money! If the Acme Disposable Buggy Whip Corporation made a little less money this quarter than last after they paid all their bills, pardon me if I do not weep for them.

Now, before corporate bigwigs jump all over me (in the unlikely event that they’ve ever heard of me), just let me say that I don’t have any sympathy for the unions either. I think they (or something) were necessary when they came into existence because companies were inclined to treat workers rather shabbily. (Now they just do it somewhere else.) But they got a little carried away. I think it has something to do with that “power corrupts” thing. Organizations of all sorts, after they have ceased to serve any real purpose, tend to continue operating to justify their existence instead of dissolving and going quietly away to plant pansies or something. Anyway, if everybody would just act like grown ups and decide what they really need to live decently, they could settle down and make stuff and feed everybody and have enough leftover for the occasional movie and popcorn (which could be just as reasonably priced as everything else).

I’m not quite finished ranting, either! (This blog thing can really get one going, sort of another instance of power corrupting, I suspect, but it’s only an illusion.) All the people who’ve lost jobs and the companies they don’t work for anymore complain and want someone to help them out. No one ever says, “Boy, did I ever screw up. I should have seen that coming!”

Now I’m living in the middle of a burgeoning wind farm. I think wind power is great and should never have gone out of use. I remember when farms all had windmills for at least some of their power use. They had to; even where power lines existed, the supply wasn’t all that reliable and the wind was going to blow whether you used it or not. Never stopped as far as I know. With improved technology, I don’t see why many rural areas can’t all run on wind power, locally supplied. it’s not practical in the cities but if they’re the only ones using “the grid”, there ought to be enough to go around.

Anyway, new or old, wind power’s been the coming thing for awhile now. Even I know that and I’m about as out of touch with current events and popular culture as your average earthworm. So can someone explain to me why – in an area that’s been “recessed”, “depressed”, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, damned poor, anyway (and I just sold a house at a tremendous loss so don’t argue with me) for quite awhile and complainin g loudly about it – no one has come up with the idea of building windmill components, transformers, generators and whatever else the industry needs? The components for one windfarm nearby came from Germany. The next batch are being shipped (on the water shipped) and trucked here from Denmark. How long will it take for the power generated to make up for the power wasted getting the stuff here. They tell me there will be 400 truck trips from the port in Windsor to our installation and every truck requires an escort with flashing lights and four police cars! and fuel for all of them on top of the fuel for the ships crossing the Atlantic.

Windsor’s an Auto town. Used to be the “tool and die capital of the world”. They can’t make windmill components? I mean you can make a functional windmill from old oil drums! Any tool and die company that’s lasted this long has gotten into robotics and that stuff’s reprogrammable.

Then there are the community colleges – two of them – and a university that used to brag about its engineering school. Couldn’t they maybe train people for the jobs related to the new industry? Could they have been doing so instead of watching people come in from all over everywhere else to build the things and run them for us? By the time they get it in gear, if they ever do, their products and students will be going away because the jobs will be done here and maintenance is minimal and remote.

All right. I’m done for now. Fix one thing and I start thinking I can fix the rest of the world. At that I don’t know that I’d be any worse at it than the people who have been messing with it lately. I’ve always said that the trouble with Cocker Spaniels (as pets) is that they want to run the world. But they’re actually pretty good at it so you can mostly let them. Maybe we could elect Cocker Spaniels to political office. I don’t see how they could do an awful lot more harm than the gangs we’ve had in recent memory!