Two weekends worth of not sewing...

Folks...many of you have noticed that I've not pushed out any new posts for a few weeks.  As you've suspected...it's true...I've not sewn in two WHOLE weekends.  Pretty ballsy for a gal who has to wear her own wedding dress creation in a mere eight weeks, I know.

A couple of weekends ago, I was starting to work on my dress with the water logged Bernina (1020), and my now-broken 1030 Bernina (acquired in Philly) sitting just off to the side of my work station.  The 1020 had been squeaking unpleasantly the past few weeks, but it still cooperated.  Well, that ended two weeks ago.  Mid-seam, the machine's needle arm refused to budge.  I took apart the bobbin and the bobbin rotary, hoping that it was just some thread in the wrong place.  Nope.  A few more stitches and no matter what I did that thing was frozen.  (Sad face.)

Undeterred, I lugged my last machine, a Bernina 830 (an even older machine), onto my work space.  I didn't have time for "down time" while I schlepped my machines to a repair man, so I was gearing up to finish the dress on my oldest machine.  I was changing out the needle to make sure every stitch would be perfect and the darned piece of metal that holds the needle in just crumbled in my hand.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

There was cursing. 

There was crying. 

There was moping. 

It turns out...I DO have time to take my machines in to be repaired.  Huh.

Craig, again, offered his credit card to me, which I turned down.  He did, however, look up a Sew & Vac repair place in Ellicott City for me and I took all three machines there a week ago.  They told me they could fix the machines so long as they didn't need any parts; they aren't a Bernina dealer...they sell Babylocs (which I will never buy because they are cheap pieces of plastic crap with horizontal bobbins...don't get me started on what a terrible idea horizontal bobbins are).

At any rate, my machines were out of commission for an entire week.  But, a cheery call from the repair man eased all my fears that I'd have to buy yet another machine; he said everything was easily fixable and no parts were needed (stuff was "stuck," inside screwy parts "wiggled out," and "jammed stuff").  None of this damage was attributable to water.  Hot damn!  He even said the water damage was minimal and mostly involved the rust in the bobbin's racer, which he would oil and run thread through to remove.  Ahhhhh....this man saved the day (and MADE my day).  They are good folks and I got all three machines back for around $300 this Saturday morning.

QUE THE SEWING!......nope.

Before I could really sit down and sew this weekend, though, I made Craig a lemon/orange/turmeric/ginger/honey/cinnamon concoction that you keep in a jar in the fridge and steep in a cup of water to make tea. 

It's supposed to help you over colds and we are going to try it this winter. 

 In the process of making this recipe, I handled real, live, raw turmeric...have you ever?  It turns your hands and anything else it touches a yellowish-orange.

It turned my hands orange.  It ruined my manicure; I looked as though I'd smoked 50 years worth of cigarettes in 20 minutes.  Worse yet, the stain didn't "stay."  It was slowly rubbing off on EVERYTHING I touched.  There was NO WAY I was getting anywhere near my off-while, silk dress!  NOT.  WITH.  THESE.  HANDS. 

The horror.




Would you believe people actually use this to WHITEN their skin and teeth?  OMG.

After seeing what it did to my hands and nails...I don't recommend it!





So, another weekend has come and gone, and no amount of significant progress has been made on the dress.  Next weekend, I promise.  Maybe.

I did make an appointment with Denise (my sewing buddy) for her to come up on President's Day and help me with the lace bodice.  Yay.  Exciting.