Modern Conveniences

Well, it only took a few hours on Saturday for me to be ready to get back to my modern conveniences in a sewing machine. While the featherweight is a great machine and will certainly do for travel and classes, it lacks so many things I've learned to take for granted, like needle up, and a foot pedal that uses more than just my big toe, which incidentally, gave me a foot cramp and was very hard to use in tennis shoes. But, it runs like a silent trooper. It does have a slight click, but I suspect that, as the new oil works its way through the machine, that will resolve itself. And, after I used it for a while, it developed a slight musty smell that it didn't have when I bought it. I suspect this is old lubricant in the electrical motor and hope that it will go away soon as well. I checked the other things I found on the internet that would cause a smell and that is the only one I couldn't really do anything about.

I worked on the Indian Orange Peel quilt some more this weekend. I've only got 34 more small arcs and the corner piecing to finish and then it will be time to start the assembly. I think I'm going to take next weekend to work on some other things. My BOM's have gotten way behind and I'd like to applique some blocks for the cmas quilt that I was flying through before I started this. It's coming along nicely and I have all the fabrics that I'm going to need to finish it. I've started to send strips back to my mentor so she can have that variety to finish her quilt. I'm also hoping that she'll save all the leftover strips for me to use in some of my other scrap projects. I'm going to very presumptuously propose that soon. I've been saving all the little bits that I can cut 1.5" or 2" squares from, but based on how much fabric is in the boxes I'm sending back to her, there's going to be a lot of leftover. I think she cut too much for two quilts.

If you're looking for a good movie, we watched two this weekend. One was Inkheart, a lighthearted adventure about people that can read aloud and actually bring the characters to life as they do. Of course, what do you do with those characters once they're alive? And, we watched a Sally Fields movie called Two Weeks, about a mother dying of cancer and her 4 children who are caring for her. A tear jerker for sure, but a wonderful story, and about the most real movie about dying that I've ever seen. And, there were a lot of funny moments in the movie that showed how, even in the face of something terrible, funny things still happen. Having been at more bedsides than I care to think about, the movie really spoke to me.

Y'all take care and enjoy your Monday. I'll be planning our family "vacation", which we're going to take as a series of day trips. One place we're planning is to visit a natural cave, just south of here. And, I'm sure we'll do a little antiquing while we're out. See ya'. Lane