New towels in the shop

I spent a little time at the embroidery machine this weekend getting some towels done and up in the etsy shop. I'm actually a bit ahead of time for Valentine's Day - what a novelty!

I had a crisis Saturday when the machine decided to go wack-a-do. The needle would get stuck down, the machine would shutter and shut down. I got it running again to finish up the towel I was working on but when I started the next towel it happened. I love this cheap little Brother machine, it's been great, no trouble at all.....until yesterday. I called Sam to the rescue. He did what we should never do - he opened up the top of the machine, studied it to figure out how it works, cleaned and oiled it but it was still hanging up. Then he brought out the canned air and started shooting it in there. He spotted half of a very thin washer sitting on top of a gear.......but where was the other half??? More canned air and the other half fell down into the bobbin case. No way could he figure out where the washer was supposed to go but being so very thin it doesn't do much other than to act as a spacer.........and the machine is working perfectly again! Obviously that little piece of washer was sitting somewhere it shouldn't have been causing the problem.  I've put the washer in a zip lock bag so whenever the machine needs to go in for service I can bring it along. So Sam was the hero yesterday........what does one do if they don't have a handy husband/partner???