Time for a Cleaning

I took the Viking in for its annual maintenance last week. Well, OK, I missed last year’s annual maintenance so that makes it what, bi-annual? I have good intentions toward getting it in every year but I will admit, it doesn’t always happen.

It seems Mr. Serviceman was appalled at the condition of my machine. “Doesn’t she know she’s supposed to clean it out?!!” He was even so kind as to save all of the lint and fuzz he pulled out of it and return it to me in a baggy. Thank you, Mr. Serviceman. 🙂

In my own defense I must say that I do clean out all of the parts that I can get to. The deeper more remote parts are beyond my reach because I do not have the special tool required to remove the covers. My son suggested I could probably get one of those tools on EBay. Then I could just take care of it myself.

To top it off, Mr. Serviceman did not replace the back cover correctly. Since I do not have that special little tool required to remove and do it right, it I had to return it to the shop again for service. Now leaving the machine in the shop for a week, more or less, shouldn’t be a big deal. But the bindings are piling up on the table waiting to be completed and it is beginning to irritate me.

So I am wondering, dear readers, how much of your machine maintenance do you do yourself? Have you purchased the special tools required for basic cleaning? How often do you take your machine in for maintenance by a certified technician? And how many of you have a back-up machine to use while one is in the shop?

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Christmas Quilt

One of my customers made a comment to me about her Christmas quilt that she said I had.

“I don’t have any Christmas quilt of yours,” I replied. “I only have that yellow green quilt that you gave me last week.”

“Yes, yes, that is it. That is a Christmas quilt.” She said.

As soon as I got home I took a look at it and, sure enough, it has Christmas trees on it. I’ve always thought of Christmas green as a dark green. I guess I need to think outside the box more!!

Christmas quilt or no, it is a lovely quilt!

No More Plastic

Ursula had a great question for me in response to my post on plastic shopping bags. She asked, “I’m curious, what do you use for garbage bags? I use the plastic bags from the store…”

Ursula, that does make a lot of sense. Why go out and buy bags for trash when the stores give you a bunch of them every week? Using the bags that the stores give you makes a lot of economical sense.

But my goal is to reduce the amount of plastic that I contribute to land fills in order to reduce my own impact on the landscape. That is why I have opted to buy reusable bags to use while shopping- and I might add I have been successful with that new habit. My next step is to figure out what to use for trash bags and I am still working on that. I have a couple of options that I am looking at and am planning to do further research into other options.

There are bags available that are biodegradable. Ecosafe biodegradeable bags and Biobags are a couple of the options I have looked at but I have no recommendation yet on which would be best. I have heard that there are some problems with some of these biodegrading before they reach the curb for pick-up which renders them of very little value. So I plan to test out some of these new products and will hopefully find one that is useful and not too expensive. I’ll let you know  when I come up with something!

On another train of thought, have you seen that Quilter’s Dream has a new batting out that is made 100% from recycled plastic bottles? It is called Dream Green. I have not tried it yet, but I have a sample here and it is surprisingly soft and cuddly. It is available in the select loft, which is a fairly thin batt. Next time I place an order with Quilter’s Dream I’m going to try one.

In the meantime, I hope that you are enjoying your corner in nature.

Staying the Course

Remember this quilt?

This is the quilt that Rian pieced, Debra embroidered and I quilted. Well, we are so excited because it has been accepted to the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, California. Woo-Hoo!! Dates for the show are October 16 – 19. Here are some close ups.

Wedding Quilt

A friend of mine actually cut up a wedding dress to make this wall hanging. I don’t know that I would have the guts to cut up a beautiful wedding dress. Take a look at the details.

Good job Karen!!

Elegant Baby Quilt

I quilted this baby quilt this week. All of the fabrics are black and white except for the center squares of each block and the inside border which is a very light pink polyester that looks like silk dupioni.

Cutting Table

Over the weekend I built myself a new cutting/ironing table. My dad had a piece of plywood that he didn’t need so I drug it home with me from Indiana. I picked up a couple of bookshelves from Target for a base. I screwed the plywood to the top of the bookshelves and then covered the plywood with batting and Kona Cotton. Viola! A cutting/ironing table.

I used it while I was doing some hand work today. It was so nice to have an area to spread my goodies out.

It’s not Koala, but it didn’t break the $$ bank either!