May 24, 2010

Today was the holiday Monday, Victoria Day. There was no celebration for me today; I celebrated on Saturday with my family who came up for dinner in my apartment and we went to fireworks then.
I decided to sit down with the awesome sewing machine my grama sent up to me from her house because the old singer

I bought ages ago from VV never worked :

And I struggled for four hours with the top thread breaking pretty consistently. Finally, I finished the four lines it took to sew to make this hammock with such a cute fleece pattern, for my ratties.

Then I called my grama and asked for her knowledge in the subject. She responded with some advice, and I went away from the machine, frustrated, as the thread continued to break.
After struggling* with my borrowed barbecue which had housed mice in my dad's shed for at least two years:

I blew it up a little, singeing my arm hairs off in patches.
It was not a pretty smell, and now I have uneven arm hairs. How nice.
Then my boyfriend helped me to light it, decided it wasn't safe to light what with the pink panther insulation all over the innards, and then put it back out. Now I am tasked with removing the rust and cleaning it out before I can barbecue... but I will be able to barbecue eventually, and that makes me (almost) forget my singed arm hair.

Then I decided to go back to the sewing machine, which though continually breaking a thread, never blew up.
After stitching an easier trial fabric that wasn't fleece, I realized it had little to no problems, except it would occasionally catch a whole whack of thread in the bobbin area and I'd have to stop the machine, unlatch the bobbin casing and pull all the thread bits out.
Then I dangled the bobbin like my grama suggested in order to test the tension of the bobbin case, and I realized that the actual bobbin was moving in the wrong direction when the thread was pulled.
I had, in my hurry to begin sewing, put the bobbin in backwards.

How intelligent.

But now I have half-finished curtains. The bright pink ones that go underneath the white ones haven't been hemmed yet because I am lacking a bright pink thread, and it is a major holiday. Convenience stores also do not sell thread often. Just a note-to-self. Went to:


And so I shall finish them, and start a bonnet for either me or my cousin, depending on how the first one turns out :D


*In my defense, I have never, ever lit a barbecue. Still haven't. It went out as soon as it was on. I think it was because the lid was on. Come to think of it, my brother's eyebrows were removed once due to this same issue...