A new tool:

I've wanted to learn to sew for years, and finally got a machine! 

 Very second hand, it's circa 1972-1974. And now that I know how to thread it correctly, it's working beautifully. 

I took it to be serviced, and it kept "malfunctioning". 

I brought it back to the repair shop three times, and they kept replacing parts. Turns out I was putting the plate on backwards- that little divit just below the presser foot belonged at the opposite end, and was causing the thread to catch and come out in globs. Whoops! 

After the last service trip, I was still having trouble, which thankfully my husband was able to help me work out- I was also mis-threading through the tension disks. Now that those two errors have been corrected, it's working perfectly. 

The shop  was amazing, and hopefully this machine will be serving for a lot of projects.