We return you to your regularly scheduled WEDDING DRESS TRAGEDY programming

Ladies.  If you have a sewing machine you love, I have two pieces of advice for you:

1.  Visit your machine often.  Even if you don't sew on it, stop by...pat it, check on it.  See how she's doing these days.  You can tell how long it's been since your last project by the level of dust you see on her.  You can also check her moisture level.  That's right, I said moisture level; as in...is she wet?

2.  Don't set up you machine(s) near a wet wall...or...underneath a room with a bathtub...or below any other room with the ability to explode or drip water in any capacity.

Before we talk about the recent tragedy, I need to share a little water-logged background with you.  This week, Craig had to replace a 16 year old water heater that went belly-up on Christmas eve.  We thought we were lucky when the water heater stopped working because it hadn't yet sprung a leak and flooded the house.  We were dry and unbathed, but happy.

The plumber came and went this past Tuesday (we were out of town until then) and we felt even luckier having the luxury of a new, working hot water heater once again.  We felt this luck until the next day when Craig's son went downstairs and discovered the basement was flooded.  The plumber's shoddy weld at the top of the water heater caused water to leak from it for a day and a half before we noticed.

As Craig was wetvac-ing the mess, I was in the office/sewing room discovering the bathtub above my sewing nook had sprung a leak.  For who knows how long, dirty bath water had been dripping all over my vintage bernina sewing machine (and possibly my serger and another vintage machine) and then flooding the floor around that area.  To add insult to injury, I'd left my new laptop next to the sewing machines.  Sigh. 

 All of this, water touched.













We were so bummed out over the soggy destruction that we sat around new year's eve and just felt sorry for ourselves in total silence...watching reruns of The Walking Dead in the dark.  And I cried a little.  Craig was afraid his leaky house broke me.  At the end of the night he asked if the engagement was off.

Today, Craig fixed the bathtub leak and cut a big hole in the ceiling to allow everything to dry.  Once the sewing area was back in business, I tipped my machine to the side and saw water running out of it (more than I'd seen yesterday when I *thought* that just the bottom of the machine had been sitting in a puddle).  And when I started to sew, my thread got bungled up and upon closer inspection I saw that the water inside the machine had rusted the bobbin mechanism and was affecting its ability to turn and stitch properly.  Triple sigh. 

Only two other people on this earth who know me can relate to all the trouble and angst a person has to go to in order to acquire one of these vintage Bernina machines...that sew like a Cadillac drives.  I may have to devote an entire future blog post to explaining just how special these machines are and how difficult it is to get one mailed to you by an Ebayer who may or may not know how to pack a heavy and delicate machine in such a way that it arrives in a workable condition.  I'm giving you that small amount of background in the hope you can understand, even a little, the devastation I will feel if my machine goes tits up.

I can only imagine that the metal gears will continue to rust inside as the machine dries out.  We are calling a dealer on Monday to see how much it would cost to have someone take apart the machine, sand off the rust, oil it, and put it back together.  I'm afraid it will take weeks to get the machine back if we go down that road, and I have 10 weeks left to sew the dress.  It also might cost more than I paid for the machine to accomplish its resurrection.

I DO have another vintage Bernina sewing machine, but it's older, and doesn't have certain features that make sewing a little easier.  So, as I'm feeling sorry for myself I know I have a back up machine and I don't absolutely have to sew on this (my favorite) particular machine.

Tomorrow I'll open up the other older Bernie and see if there's any water in that one.

I have struggled to get my sewing mojo back and this feels like a particularly cruel blow, though tonight I did have it in me to cut out the second trial bodice tonight.  I even sewed it together, though I left out the organza step and my sewing buddy, Denise, is going to ridicule me for that omission.  I also marked out where the boning will go; I think I'll get around to installing that this weekend.  I'm hoping this bodice fits much better than the first.  Denise helped me slash-and-fit the first trial bodice, which resulted in new pattern pieces I used to cut out this one.

Wish me luck folks...