Little bits of household sewing

I have to say that I have been thrilled and tickled pink at all of the nice comments.  I thought no one would be hanging around after all my absences.  Thank you so very much.

I have not made much progress since yesterday, managing to successfully avoid trying on tops and tees today.  But I did finish up the second of those minor household sewing tasks I mentioned.  I was a little reluctant to start any real sewing for me, as my Bernina had a minor meltdown on Friday, which seemed pretty major to me at the time, and I wanted to be sure it ran well before plunging into a garment.  Wouldn't that be just my luck.  I have a note on my Elna -- "jammed" -- dating from last time I sewed, so I know I have to figure that out, hopefully it is minor or there will be a trip into NYC for repair as no one locally will service it.

But the Bernina!  That really came close to upsetting my plans.  I was doing a little mending for G, and had really been sewing only about 20 minutes, mostly straight stitch and a little zigzag, and I did have to sew some elastic, but nothing complicated.  Suddenly in the middle of my last repair the machine stopped and a message appeared on the screen:

Motor Failure

I pressed the okay button, and more messages appeared.  I didin't write them down but they were something like this.  I do remember that these words appeared:

Danger! Excess power failure.  Motor Failure.  Danger. Danger.  Excess power for motor.  Do not operate machine.  Danger. Excess Power.  Danger.....

So I pushed the okay button again and the same message reappeared.  I shut down the machine and waited a few minutes, then turned it back on again, and the same message appeared.    I didn't know what was going on, but I was worried.  It reminded me of that old series "Lost in Space" where the robot would roll around flashing its lights and crying "Danger Will Robinson".

It was 4 PM and I called my local Bernina dealer, where they told me they were closing at 5 for a week.  So I got myself together, crawled under the table and unplugged the machine from my UPS/Serge Protection System, packed it up and drove over to the dealer's.

Mr. Bernina dealer said he had never heard such a message, although Mrs. Bernina dealer said some of the original Arista 200's had had motor failures, but she thought it was only in embroidery mode.  They plugged it in and the message reappeared.  Mr. Bernina dealer turned it off and took the bobbin out and turned it on again.  No messages.  Mr. Bernina said that removing the bobbin often helps.  Who knew?. They threaded it up, got a piece of fabric and it purred along like nothing had happened, so I brought it home.  But still I was worried.

I made pillow cases on Sunday for these tiny pillows we got years ago and both find necessary to a good night's sleep.  They travel with us as well, which is why I stopped cutting up white pillowcases to match my bedding to make small cases for these pillows.  It is much too easy to lose a white pillow in a hotel bed, but not one covered in some wildly colored cotton.  EAch pillow takes about 3/4 of a fat quarter of quilting cotton, giving me an excuse to accumulate pretty fabrics.

The first one is mine.  This second one is G's.  Once I figured out that fat quarters worked so well, I started making them different which is nice also.  Both fabrics are cottons from Kaffe Fassett.

Today I worked on another 10 minute project, sewing loops on some kitchen towels so they could be hung up on a hook.  For years I hung my towels on the stove handle which is a good 12 feet from the sink and lived with it.  Our kitchen cabinets have those invisible pulls that are hidden under the drawer or door, so there are no handles to hang towels on near the sink, and no place to put up a towel rack either.  

This year, with G helping out with the dishes, it finally occurred to me to get one of those stick-on hooks, and put it on the side of the cabinet right next to the sink.  I didn't have any white ribbon or twill tape, but I had brown petersham, which matches the towels.  I pre-washed the petersham a couple of times so it doesn't bleed on my towels and sewed up a set of 7. I should have done this years ago.  Sometimes I think I am pretty dense.

Comments

[Liana]

Glad your machine was such an easy fix. At least we hope it's really fixed. Sometimes I think they just want attention or something. I love your pillowcases! I have a tiny pillow that I can't sleep without. I made a pillowcase out of a heavy linen drapery sample, and it was washed until it was white (started out blue/white print) and finally wore out completely. I've just been using a large pillowcase and folding it around the pillow after it's in, but this looks great, and it's always fun to get to use the pretty fabrics!