Humming Along

Things are humming along in The Strawberry Patch, and not because I have forgotten the words, either, oh no... the machines are hummin'! Four sets of towels that have been "in" for monogramming are done, at long last. Check them off the list. Sundance is humming a sweet tune over the surface of "Patriotic Pizazz" today. (Click photo below to enlarge) The pantograph? It's "Waterworld" by Willow Leaf Studio, isn't it great? This old quilt top can soon be moved to the "done" list too! But, you should know, humming along doesn't come without it's own pain; sometimes the road to harmony is a rocky one. During the monogramming session my thread somehow wrapped itself around a thread guide and abruptly put the brakes on the process halfway through a hand towel. Let me tell you this, picking dense threads out of terry cloth ain't no fun, no sireee! I was energized after the towels were finally done and more than eager to begin on this quilt; new panto, new thread choice: "Freedom" (variegated colors, # 919) King Tut cotton thread (40/3) by Superior. It was my initial foray into combining differing thread weights, top and bobbin, on Sundance. Initially, it was a huge disaster, a complete and total thread tension MESS! A word to the wise... don't make more than one change at a time when you're trouble-shooting a machine, it's hard to know what has worked and what hasn't! Arrggh. My husband intervened and calmed my nerves. He mentioned how often, when working with machines, we (as humans) don't always work in a calm and logical step-by-step manner. He was right. Hadn't I only just caught the nut off the end of the tension spring, in my hand, when I hastily over-loosened it; out of sheer exasperation? This was a life lesson: how often do we over-react, making huge and dramatic movements when smaller, more refined, subtle movements would be so much more effective? With little to no other apparent success I defiantly reached for the owner's manual. The handbook mentioned treating a cotton spool with liquid silicone, i.e. "Sewer's Aid"; really? I could do that, I actually happened to have a bottle lurking in the cabinet. The results were simply amazing, it was just the miracle juice I had been searching for. I "drew" a line down either side of the spool and proceeded, slowly and cautiously... the thread behaved; no snags, breaks or hateful and unsightly thread "nests". The stitches, pictured above, are the proof. Before I knew it Sundance and I were once again in perfect tune, humming right along.

Life is Good!