I exited the freeway this morning to see a bunch of cars bunched up on the feeder road (this is a Texas thing, apparently; out-of-staters may need to google it!), and I thought...
HEY!
Don't turn my Fri-yay into a ... Fri...NAY!
Morning commute traffic is the #1 culprit for doing this. Not a scientific fact, unless you count my experiences and those of my office mates (who are all scientists) agreeing on it.
Another thing threatening to ruin my weekend -
Helga needs a tune-up!
(Helga is my Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0, and my partner in quilting crime! [And in tuning up my arm muscles; she is HEA-VY!])
Sewing on Monday evening (yes, I sometimes leave the sewing machine in the living room and hop on after work for mindless piecing), the bottom thread tension was off, like lots, and on the normal setting. OOPS! This is totally my fault for several reasons:
1 - I yanked on the top thread near the spool when the needle was down.
2 - She's overdue for a tune-up (but only by like a month and a half).
Yes, Helga is overdue for her yearly tune-up because I needed her to finish the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee quilts! She got me through 60 melon blocks to finish off the final border of @sushi.farmer's quilt. Here's my pic, but you can go to Instagram to see her final white border on it.
@sushi.farmer's quilt
Here are the rest of the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee quilts and blocks that I worked on:
Little Bunny Alison's Quilt
I added the outer border of "Water Wheel" blocks to continue the Friendship Star theme.
Working with Bonnie & Camille fabrics was outside my print wheelhouse, but I really enjoyed all of the flowers and cute prints!
This is Hot Pink Quilt's quilt.
I added the melon blocks, log cabin, trees, and the star on the top left.
Her mountain scene with flying geese and stars needed some flowers and trees, a little cabin in the woods, and another star (because paper-piecing is fun! No, really!).
Some people just wanted blocks, and that was fun, too!
Blocks for Patch the Giraffe
with lots of yummy Alison Glass fabric!
Improv block with scraps from the paper-piecing!
And for @kcmquilts, these blocks:
Haven't gotten my quilt back yet, but I am excited to see it again after 6 long months!
This bee has been amazing, a bit scary (working with new prints, curved piecing, adding onto someone else's quilt), and has pushed my creativity and limits of what I think I can do.
A HUGE thank you to all of the ladies in the bee!
And Helga?
I called the repair shop and the turnaround time is 7 weeks.
Yep, nearly TWO MONTHS!
What will I do in the meantime?
I wish it was November already, and I could shop for a back-up machine at Festival.
I have an older Singer as a back-up, but she is not as nice of a piecer as Helga.
I'm okay using the Singer for charity work, but not precision piecing.
Wonder if I could try paper-piecing? It doesn't have to be as precise (like quarter-inch-wise).
So maybe by my quilting retreat at the end of September with the Yaya's, I'll have my trusty Helga back! In the meantime, I may just have to catch up on stuff around the house.
What do you do when your main machine goes down?
Do you have a trusty backup or a sketchy one?
Linking up with:
3 comments:
I love seeing all the pictures of our C2C bee quilts! I am so excited to get mine back soon.
I have actually never taken my machine in for service, so shame on me. I am actually going to try to have her service done while I am gone to Michigan on a quilt retreat (where I'll borrow one of my mom's machines) for a week.
I have an old singer machine I can use as backup when my Bernina goes in for servicing. But, I usually try to send it in the summer and work on hand piecing projects while the machine is gone. I had been taking my machine to a store that had an eight week turn around no matter when you brought the machine in. I've since found a store with more technicians and much shorter turn around. Since each store is about an hour and a half from me, the shorter turnaround shop has now become my favorite!
Oh, this is all sorts of fun! I love seeing all those yummy C2C quilt photos!
I've only taken my current machine in for service once, and she was only gone a week. She's actually due for another round of service, but since I've moved, I'll have to find someone else to work on her, and that just sounds horrible. I do have an old Singer (1953) that I used to piece stuff on, but I haven't used it as much since Stella came into my life, and I'm worried I won't be able to go back! :)
Good luck!
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