Yippy!!

Look what came home yesterday!

After a very depressing phone call on Tuesday, I didn’t expect to see it for quite some time. My very nice repairman told me “oh, we are not doing well, at all.” With much trepidation I asked “why.” Well, he said that he and the main repair person at Brother had decided that one of the problems I was having was that there was thread still wound around the wheel, deep inside the machine. He also said that he cannot just take the wheel off because it is part of the “drive shaft” and if he takes that out I would have to have a new drive shaft (about $400). So he is doing what I did back in June 2009: please go see http://gariquilts.blogspot.com/2009/06/one-of-those-days.html before you read any further.

I knew I had not gotten it all out but I had taken out all I could reach. He said that he works on it in between other jobs, about an hour at a time is all he can stand, and I just need to be patient.

And then yesterday morning he called and said it was ready. When I went to get it he started describing how he got the thread out and it was exactly what I did back in June 2009 except that he had sharper and thinner tools to work with. The procedure is “cut threads, pull threads out, sometimes one at a time.” It is a very tiring procedure and here is what all he got out of her.

Anyway, she is home and we spent several very productive hours working on our Christmas projects.

Prior to that I had to make a block for the guild swap and I had to make it on a machine I have never tried to do a quarter inch seam.

I did a pretty good job anyway and it came out measuring 12 ½”. How about that!

And yesterday I also got some of the sashing cut for my Christmas project.

Although it doesn’t show very well, this 100% cotton fabric has a metallic finish so it really does look like gold. I spent a great deal of time looking for it (fabric shopping, what a shame) because I had thread just the shade/color I wanted and nothing else would do. I was so excited when I found this.

And to top off yesterday’s good news, DH invited me out to lunch and then later DD invited me out to dinner. One can’t do better than that.

I think I have a pretty good life (and family).

And, speaking of family, earlier this week DS#3 called to invite us to his and DDIL's house for Christmas. Now, normally I would love to be with them at this special holiday season. However, many years ago we were on our way to the DC area to be with my folks for Christmas when we hit ice on bridges in Atlanta. We watched the car in front of us do 360s and then we "crept" across (on more than one bridge). After snow on the way back I vowed I would never go north again in the winter.

Then many years passed and DS#3 invited us to spend Christmas at a timeshare in Virginia, just south of DC. I told him of my concerns and he assured me the weather was going to be fine. And we have a beautiful drive up there but when we woke the next morning everything was covered in a very thick layer of ICE. It stayed all the time we were there and was with us for half of the slippery drive home. Needless to say, I was not happy to be out of the deep south.

When the same DS#3 called for this invitation I reminded him of all of this history and he assured me that because they had experienced such a bad winter last year (driven out of their house becuase of no heat/electricity after a BIG snowstorm) this year would be much warmer and that it never snows before February (a big fat lie, by the way).

So, I am confronted with a dilemma. I really want to go to MD to spend Christmas with my son and his wife. I really do not want to go north at Christmas. What's a mother to do?

One Of Those Days

Did you ever have one? Well, Friday was one around here. I had the day planned and got busy laying out three different projects to work on: doing the backing for the Puppies charity quilt, start the hand sewing on the Jazz binding, and a new project called Quilt in a Cup. I sewed three small orphan blocks together and prepared to do some simple quilting on my straight stitch DSM. As I was attempting a practice piece (haven’t quilted with a DSM for three years) it seemed the machine was slowing down. I tried it several times and it got even slower. So, much like raising the hood of a car, I looked around the machine. And what did I see? Thread hanging out of the wheel:

lots of thread. It took the rest of the morning, afternoon and this morning to dislodge almost all that thread.

There is still some in there but it is not binding anymore. It seems that when I leave the bobbin thread on the second spindle it works itself down the side and get caught onto the wheel.

Anyway, this afternoon I finally got one project done.

It is a perfect use of orphan blocks or scraps. The cup comes with a piece of batting which I used to make a template so I can make different “quiltlets” to change out for holidays and seasons.

After one successful project completed I decided to not take any more chances and spent the rest of the day reading. There is something very restful curling up with a good book.

EDIT: Cups can be found here. They also have a list of retail stores.