And Here We Go

I am here. I count. This is what I think. This is what I do. Its always been about choice. I think the word "choice" is my most favorite. I like how it feels in my mouth, and I like how it feels in my life.

With a little over a week without the machine, I had a chance to take several of my projects to the next step. I wasn't born to sit around, so having that To-Do list on my sidebar helps me see what my plan is, and what comes next in each plan or project.

Thread loaded in the machine and several projects were moved to their next steps right after bringing it home. As I used fabrics that were given to me over the years, I created a lot of scrap quilts. This morning, I finished the back seams on three of them, pressed and folded them with their tops. They are in a bin waiting to be basted. Its interesting how this group uses up a lot of the fabrics in the same colors. Tops really look different.

I have a Tuesday appointment to baste the Blue J&J quilt. Each time a quilt gets basted, there are leftover sections of batting to join. My sewing machine repair guy said the machine is skipping, and so I used a thread that showed up enough on the batting for me to see what he meant.

When I thought about choice this morning, it was because he (machine repair guy) told me that most appliances, including sewing machines are built to last about 5 years. He said he got it as timed as good as possible, and that it will do fine with straight stitches for joining and struggle more with the heavier sandwiches of actual machine quilting. Mine is going to be 5 at the end of this year. He said its at the end of its life, so I have started looking for a replacement.

I closed seam on the first Pet Bed. It has scraps from January and February and is a king pillow size. Its heavy. So the machine struggled with it. I did make three passes with the closing stitches, so there are threads to clip and its ready to ship.

All the choices I make for right here and now need to focus on what can be done. Everything I am working on that involves simple fabric joining without creating stress on the machine, has risen to the top of the To-Do list.