Almost threw in the towel

I spent about an hour and a half messing around with sewing machines so I could work on the Halloween quilt. It is my own fault for not sending my original Pfaff 1475 to Jeff my sewing machine guru when I started having problems with my new machine. I would have had the original back by now, but it is what it is. Lesson learned.

I spend time oiling my original 1475 to see if that would help with the skipped stitches when I would get when I would free motion backwards. I tried and tired and was still having problems. I then thought I would try my Mom's 1471.

Well, it sews great, but there is no darning foot and no needle down feature. I tried sewing a bit with it, but it just wasn't going to work. This is when I almost gave up the thought of getting this quilt done and just throw in the towel. I thought I would try my 1475 again. Maybe the oil penetrated all the crevices by this time because if I went slow going backwards it wasn't skipping stitches anymore. I regrouped my head and am forging on with this quilt. I was up early this morning, about 4:30, and got this block done.

I have evaluated my schedule again and I will just have to quilt for three days straight and re-evaluate where I am on Monday.

Since I have the blocks on two sides done which means three corners are quilted, I am going to start sewing on the binding. Why? I have quilt group tonight and since I am on such a time crunch, I will do the hand stitching on the binding while at the meeting. I cleared off my table and found the fabric for part of the binding. I will work on sewing it on at lunch and after I get home from work before I head to the meeting at 6:30.

In the garage is my halogen work light and a small heater to try to keep the garage a bit warmer than outside. The work light throws off a lot of heat. We just need to get threw the next couple of days as it is suppose to warm up this weekend. Yes, I don't like leaving the heater and light on when I am not at the house, but one of the fellows at work assured me that there are safety features that will shut them off if they overheat. There is nothing in the garage near then that would catch on fire, but if it gets up to 33 degrees by lunchtime, I will shut them off and get them a break. The garage faces the south so it warms up pretty good.