May 2009

Three years ago, we gleefully moved into our new house.

We purchased a state-of-the-art Kenmore Oasis home washer and dryer, along with a three-year full-coverage maintenance agreement from Sears.  From the first day, the dryer has proven troublesome, producing various errors, running for hours and failing to shut off, shutting off before timed cycles were completed, and shutting off the automatic cycle while clothes are still soaking wet on nearly every cycle, requiring two or three cycles on average before clothes were dry.  We’ve had roughly a dozen visits from Sears service personnel, who have replaced nearly every part in the machine (one twice!) — everything from sensors to control boards to wiring harnesses.  We were told that there is nothing wrong with the dryer and it must be the house vents.  Nope.  Then I was told I don’t know how to do laundry and I’m sorting and loading incorrectly (even though I’ve been doing laundry since I was tall enough to reach into the tub).   I followed his “how to properly do laundry” instructions and the clothes still came out soaked.

The washer has behaved even more poorly, consistently failing to get clothes minimally clean (often failing to even get them wet), making them smell worse than when loaded into the machine, never staying balanced no matter how you load it and rusting from the inside out.

A couple weeks ago we were told by the latest repairman that there was nothing he could do, since they’d already replaced all of the parts and he couldn’t figure out what the problem was.  We went around and around with customer service and in the end because Sears had taken such an astounding number of visits and had failed to fix the problem on each and every visit, it was now our problem.

Sears so generously offered us a 25% discount on a new dryer if we just wanted to give up on this one working.  I dragged Liam to the mall and we went up and down the aisles searching for machines that would just clean and dry our clothes.  They tried to sell me an Oasis.

In all my reading of trying to figure out what was wrong with the Oasis I learned about other machines that actually cleaned clothes.  Fabulous.

Then we found of that they are only sold at independent dealers.  And Raleigh didn’t have a dealer.  So then I dragged poor Liam down to Selma (where?) and happily purchased a washer and dryer.  A couple days later they arrived.

Four minutes after the new set was installed the laundry marathon began.  EVERY stitch of clothing in this house has been re-washed.  And it all smells fantastic — it’s all clean — and dry!

The bad part is that who ever plans to have to replace a horribly expensive washer and dryer three years after purchase?  So the much needed replacements were not quite something we had budgeted for.

Enter the quilts.  I went on a quilting marathon in hopes that some will sell and help offset the cost of the replacement machines.  I made ten Scrappy Circles quilts for the shop (get the funny part?  Washers and dryers spin in circles … scrappy circles… get it?  HA!!).  The fun starts today and they’ll all be up by the end of the week.  Five with Amy Butler, two with Heather Bailey, two with Sandi Henderson and one with Mary Engelbreit.  Phew.

And if you’re thinking to yourself, ok, she hates her sewing machine, she replaces the washer and dryer… is there anything she doesn’t have problems with?  Why, yes, there are many things that are perfect.  iPhone, Insight (and the fabulousness of Bluetooth!), Linux, my desk and drawers, the other sewing machines, the new washer and dryer, purse, strollers, Britaxes, etc, etc.  So don’t worry, I’m not this grumpy about everything!