Expletive!

Yesterday ended up being more of a run-around day than anticipated. While I was getting my hair cut, I got a message that Big Bertha was ready to be picked up. I needed to make a stop at a specialty grocery along the way, and then I headed across town to pick up my sewing machine. When I got her home and set her up, she was looking pretty good. No error code on the screen, and the green light there, just left of center indicated she was raring to go.

So I got to work sewing together the strips for the November Rainbow Jubilee blocks. I didn't really expect to finish them, but there they are. I'll be starting on the black and white ones...today, hopefully.

While I was sewing, I noticed the machine was making a new noise not heard previously. It's not that I'd never heard it, but it was happening every time I stopped sewing and then started up again. It was a mechanical noise...like a spring "spronging" (my word for the noise), every time the feed dogs re-engaged. I watched carefully as I took the first stitches each time, tried pulling out and reinserting the knee lift lever, turning the hand crank, cleaning under the stitch plate (although it was perfectly clean having just come from service), rethreading the machine, removing the bobbin case...nothing made any difference. It bothered my ears every time it happened, which was at the beginning of every line of stitching.

When Mike got home, I asked him to come downstairs and listen. He's pretty good with mechanical things, and so I thought he might even be able to fix it. When I turned the machine on (third time since I got it home), the error code reappeared. PUCK!!! Only, I was kind of glad it happened so fast because this is all fresh in everybody's mind now. I called the shop immediately and told them I want the circuit board replaced, and no more pucking around. So that's what will happen. I've turned the machine on and off five more times since then, and I'm not able to clear the code. I guess Pfelicity will be back in service faster than you can say "Bob's your uncle." The one positive in all of this is that it's no longer an intermittent problem, which is the most exasperating kind. Now it's consistent and persistent, and just maybe it'll get fixed.

So that happened.

The only other sewing-related thing I did yesterday was to get a start on Block 6 of Friendship's Garden. My first task on a new block is to use up the little leftover bits from the last time I worked on it.

Now my little floss bobbins are all neat and tidy, and I can start fresh with fresh floss. It's an OCD thing, if you must know.

Our temperatures haven't dipped below freezing yet, but it is decidedly cooler than it has been. Neither kitty is beating a path to the door this morning. Sadie is contentedly tucked into her quilt.

Smitty is on his pole next to the window. He isn't even looking out the window, apparently believing it's too cold even to cast his gaze outside.

I'll be getting my monthly pedicure this morning, and then I'll be heading for home. I'm hoping there will be enough time left in the day to get started on those black and white strips for the Rainbow Jubilee blocks. When those are finished, I'll be biting the bullet and starting to quilt Wind in the Whiskers. I've been dragging my feet for about two years on that quilt. Time to get it finished and off my mind. It won't be finished until next month, but once I get started on something, I can usually follow through to the bitter end.

There is some canning in my future too. I'm thinking this weekend, I'll be trying a new recipe for cranberry pepper jam. Also, I'll be pickling some beets and some brussels sprouts. There's never a shortage of things to do.