My Guilty Conscience and the rather dull story of a workhorse.

I have been neglecting my blogs recently and feel bad about this.  Silly really as it's conceited to imagine that anyone else might have noticed; but I have received a couple of emails/messages recently which has upped my conceit considerably!  It's always nice to be noticed and even nicer to be complimented! 

Not a lot has been going on here but I have been incredibly busy.  I wish I could say I have been over-run with work but needless to say this is not the case.   I have a sneeky feeling that when money is tight the roof tends to take precedence over the old chair in the corner that is probably ok for another couple of years anyway.  All the same I do have a couple of chairs awaiting clients' fabric and six cushions which are all but finished.

These cushions have been giving me nightmares all week.  The client had bought about six metres of fabric, I think in a sale as it wasn't on a roll, and wanted six boxed cushions, piped and zipped, for her dining room chairs.  Normally six metres would be more than enough but this fabric has a stripe pattern in both directions.  She told me she didn't mind at all if they didn't match but I knew if there was any chance at all the stripes WOULD match, thank you very much!  Let's face it - her friends will see these cushions and they might need some work done;  so yes, I'd sort out the stripes!

However, the only solution was to cut out all the pieces and then cut out the piping (again, this had to be cut along a stripe rather than on the diagonal as the latter would have looked dreadful).  Normally, I cut out and make up one cushion to check the fit and anything I might have overlooked but this time I didn't have that luxury and there was no room for error.

So on Wednesday of last week I cut it all out having triple checked my measurements.  Then I cut out the 22 metres required for the piping.  Then my machine died on me.  Oh ****!  Not a good moment!  I had made up just enough piping for one cushion when I realised the strange noise was indeed coming from the machine and not the radio.  I took it straight in to the shoe repair man - who just happens to be the local contact for the sewing machine repair man - and he reassured me he would get it fixed and I would have it back in no time...after Christmas AAAAAAGH! 

I borrowed a machine from a friend and realised just how personal a sewing machine is when I broke her zipper foot.  My machine is 27 years old and I consider it a workhorse.  I was given it when I got married and it hasn't stopped since - well, until last week anyway!  It weighs a ton but there is nothing it won't do despite being a domestic machine.  The one I borrowed was a very good Singer but they don't make them like they used to do they?!  Plastic casing, motor not designed to deal with several layers of medium weight fabric.  Mine's a Frister Rossman 66;  if you see one in a car boot, grab it!

Oh well, my wonderful husband glued the foot together and I gave up with the machine.  Instead, I spent the week hand tacking the cushions.  Normally I machine the piping in place and then tack the box strip to the top and bottom if you see what I mean.  I would also normally do two cushions at a time - tack, machine and finish two and then do two more.  This time I had to tack all six which was pretty damn dull and put me in an increasing bad humour.

Then on Wednesday Christmas came (and went!) early.  Mr Shoe Repair man called to say that his man had fixed my machine and it was working like a dream.  Whilst I tacked cushion number six wonderful husband went and collected the workhorse and bougth it back to me just as I was ready to stitch the cushions.  And yes, it works a dream.  The strange noise has gone.  The forward motion is very smooth.  The motor is quiet.  The tension is sorted.  It seems I was using a workhorse with a limp before! 

So it's all over bar the ties and the delivery to, hopefully, a happy customer.  I won't tell her the story behind her cushions. I just hope she notices that the stripes all match up!

Photo to follow...