The Monday that wasn't Monday

For the first time EVER in 16 years (I think), I didn't go to Monday even though it was a Monday sewing day. Now I've missed days in the past when I was working or on vacation, but yesterday was the first time I stayed home.

I just didn't have the time. OH MY GOD - I never thought I would say that but the issues with the long arm and the level of frustration that had ensued - well I needed to stay home and focus.

Here's the definition of frustration.

Yep - that was me to a T and when I'm frustrated over a long period of time, I - well, I'm not productive. I was so far behind so I needed the day to catch up. And I did. I felt much better when I went to bed last night. I think I'm going to have to take classes on FRUSTRATION MANAGEMENT. OH - just checked the internet - can you believe - they have therapy for that? It's lumped in with Anger management so that's not good. The other thing I need to focus on is better scheduling of my commitments. While I'm not bad, I have a tendency to tell myself that it can wait for a day and then too many things need to be done on the same day. I'm not over-committing, I'm just plain lazy!

Ah -- frustration is good for us. We just need to learn to control it or NOT let it control us.

But enough of all that negative stuff.

Oh, shoot - I goofed yesterday. The TorontoLove project was to honor those victims who were killed by a van that intentionally went onto the sidewalk. I said it was a bus crash. Where was my head????  I've changed yesterday's post.


So let's have a look at what I bought the other day on my way home.

Here's the book I purchased at the Agnes Queen's Art Gallery. It's some of the quilts in their quilt collection. I love seeing and reading the stories of these old quilts.

Heritage Quilt Collection from Agnes Queen's Art Gallery

Here's my Row by Row purchases. I got the pattern from Stitch by Stitch - it's a cute little frog pattern and I got the kit from Wilton Creek Fabrics. It's very cute and will go with a couple of other kits that I managed to snag this year. A whole lot less snagging than in the past. That's because I'm trying to be a responsible adult.

Row by Row stuff

 I see they had a cute hanger for the Music Theme. I wonder where Marilyn purchased hers???

I was trying to decide what fabric to buy at one of the shops. But what? Beautiful Christmas fabrics and a Halloween border print to die for. But I don't need any of these. I have so much. I do not need a specific color either. Then I spotted this ball of yarn to make handmade socks. AHA - now I have to get my sock knitter going so I can make the socks. It's a beautiful soft yarn and would feel yummy on the feet.

Ball of sock yarn

At the other shop, I caved on the Halloween fabric, but I only bought 1/2 meter of one and then an orange coordinate to go with it. What will I make? No idea. Halloween???  I'm not even a big fan, but the fabrics are to die for. There were a few others I could have gotten, but why?

And then a couple of prints with words on them. Like I need more of that either.

Fabrics with words on them

My Dad is a tinkerer. He's been fixing things all his life - mostly out of necessity, especially on the farm, but he also does it to keep his mind busy. He's been helping me with the long arm. I was determined that yesterday I was going to solve this problem or bust.

We were both pretty much convinced that the motor was fine. So I changed the fuse. Nothing. Turned the fuse around - the needle now went up and down. So I got a wee bit more done on the apple quilt. Then everything STOPPED. I left it as I  was frustrated and that's not good. Back to the machine - I fiddled with the buttons on the front - the needle went THUNK and then it worked again. Hmmm - this is very strange.

I got a wee bit more done and then it stopped. So back to the back of the machine. I gently touched one of the covers that are NOT screwed in and the needle went wild. Up and down sewing like mad. Thankfully it was NOT parked on my quilt.

Back to the front of the quilt and I quilted for hours!!!!  As you can appreciate - I was very apprehensive and I'm sewing manually, not using the computer at this point.

The big news of the day? The apple quilt is off the long arm.

My quilt - DONE!!!!!

I was never so happy to get a quilt off the long arm as I was for this one.

It has to be a loose connection. I'm NOT touching anything - I have too much to get done. So this is what the machine looks like right now.

I replaced only ONE screw because I needed to put the thread holder back in place. There are strings to hold various bits in place. Don't worry - it's all good.

String to hold a box out of the way of the table

More string to hold a cable out of the way

The three covers are just sitting there

It must be all the vibrations from the machine that finally loosened the connection????  Has to be - but what a total pain in the butt. It was only by fiddling with the machine ON that I was able to solve this problem. Did I care? Not at that point. I'm sure the health and safety people would have their noses out of joint on this and never mind that my entire screwdriver collection is ON THE STAIRS! I don't care about that either. It's only me who goes downstairs and I'm super careful. I ALWAYS hold the handrail. I'll move them later.

The tool collection

 I will need them to put everything back and I have a couple of things to do to the machine as well that I've been meaning to do for a while. I can't do that right now - too many other priorities, but once my urgent quilts are done - I'll take half a day and get everything back in order.

I spent all day Sunday madly cutting, sewing and pressing and voila - the next magazine quilt top
is done and it's now loaded on the long arm. That HAS to be off today and the next one is already on the design wall. You see? If I wasn't so frustrated and wasted so much time with that silly machine, I wouldn't be rushing now.

Oh well. Let's just say that the next time something like this happens, I'll be doing my triage on the long arm completely different from what happened this time.

When I was working like a crazy person on Sunday to get that top together, I was listening to an audiobook. And I finished it in ONE day. Yes - I'm ripping through audiobooks like a maniac. I also put together my list of 17 books that I'm looking for. The library doesn't have them and that used bookstore in Orillia didn't have them.

I was at Value Village the other day and trying to remember which ones I didn't have. Their books are NOT in alphabetical order so it's a pain.

Here are two in particular that I'm looking for -

Black Dog by Stephen Booth
Exit Lines by Reginald Hill


If you have either - I'll buy, beg, borrow or steal them.

Oh yes - so there I was tempting fate yesterday. We had a MASSIVE storm in the afternoon. The rain was coming down so hard and the wind - it almost looked like a winter storm. Lightning and thunder. And I was on the long arm. HEY - I have a new motor if this one gets hit!!! Just can't get the old one off though! That screw is still stuck.

Then last night when I finally threw in the towel for the urgent stuff, I spent a bit of time going through the batting scrap bag and cutting 2 1/2" strips. The green bag is holding anything that is NOT 2 1/2" and will go for cat bed stuffing.

Bag of batting scraps to cut

So hopefully today - I'm back in business. Otherwise, I might be at yoga class learning to breathe it out!

This entire week is going to be silly but I'll get through it.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!