Wednesday

The latest update on my machine is that I picked it up last week and the guy wasn't very pleasant and definitely defensive. I was never rude to him or his staff- I just had to be "matter of fact" when it came to telling him that it appeared he didn't do what I had paid him to do. He blamed all of my problems on a bent needle. I didn't want to argue with him - so I just took my machine and got out of there. Today I brought the machine back to the Janome dealer who confirmed what I had tested at home: the 1/4" seam is now accurate (yay!) but only the straight stitch works - no zig-zag, no decorative stitches, no nothing. I feel like I have a big paperweight - even though I know that I rarely use anything but the straight stitch. I have to admit that buying a new machine has been germinating in the back of my mind for a while - but that is not going to happen until I raise the funds.

Anyway, like a lot of bloggers, my sewing and blogging tends to slow down in the summer - there's too much fun to be had when the weather is favorable. Still, I am attending to a few projects.

The last of my Hip 2 Bee Square blocks are trickling in, I can't wait to finish this thing. Cutting dresden plates for my Dotty for Dresden quilt has gone much more quickly than I had anticipated - thank goodness. My African Heart quilt needed 600 fans, this quilt needs about 480. Using the Nifty Notions wedge ruler really speeds things up.

It has been a real struggle to decide which fabrics to use for this quilt. I know it might sound pathetic, I am just SO in love with Sarah Fielke's original - that I almost wanted to do an exact duplicate of hers. But that's pretty much impossible - so I am just trying to mirror what she did. In digging through my stash, I have chosen green, blue, orange, purple, and pink fabrics that are (relatively) small in scale and have especially favored reproduction-ish fabrics like KJR and FMF. Fielke did not include purple fabrics in her quilt - so at least I am stepping out of the box a little.

After all of these, I still have about 100 left to cut.