A Tale of Two Sewing Machines

I had dreams yesterday. I wanted to get my "work" out of the way early and settle down at my sewing machine for an hour or two. I have aprons on my mind. I own two waitress-style aprons, both given to me by a long-time customer. One is Halloween themed, the other features small snowmen against a medium blue background. I want to make several more aprons - a Minion one to match my favorite face mask, and other colorful ones to feature fabrics I've collected for years. 

I love my sewing machine. It's quite similar to this photo, same
model, but all white. It does a TON of stuff, without being
impossible to deal with, and it sews through a large variety
of fabrics and weights effortlessly. It was expensive, and worth
every penny. 

I settled down at my faithful sewing machine and realized I wanted turquoise thread to match the background fabric. I pulled out the appropriate spool of thread and an empty bobbin. Time to wind some of the thread around the bobbin - an automatic process for most sewing machines, and one I've done hundreds of times. Except this time. This time, my bobbin winder didn't wind - the machine sewed perfectly, but the bobbin winder was on the frintz. But wait! All was not lost! I had another machine I could try. 

It was a rainy day yesterday, but you can still see
tomatoes ripening on my container tomato plant.
The plant has thrived. I did give it two doses of
calcium as a fertilizer (four broken and pulverized
eggshells for each dose), and it perked up
beautifully. It's healthy and happy. 

When my mother passed away early this century, I inherited her sewing machine and it's the same make and model as my own (although much more heavily used). I pulled her machine from the craft room and settled it in place of my own. I loaded up a bobbin and voila! No ... no voila. Instead of "Bobbin Winding" appearing on the activities screen, I saw an error code. No error code when I switched back to stitch mode, just for bobbins. I was doomed! 

The new row of rocks is the probable new edge for our
down-slope drainage ditch. We need to have a larger
backsplash area and probably will raise that edge another
inch or so too. 

I went to my trusty computer and called up a sewing machine supply company I had dealt with many years ago for a successful repair on an old Bernina machine I had used. Did they repair New Home Memory Craft 7000's? Why yes, they did, and they were located very close to my house. I made sure they were open to the public, put my sewing machine, the foot pedal and power cord into my car, and drove over. 

Here's a close-up of the eastern end of the wood shed.
Looking to the left, you can see how high DH had to
build it up to get level. We have quite the down
slope in that part of the yard. You can also see the
landscaping fabric, the edging and the river rocks. 

It'll be three weeks or so, and cost me $100 or so (the original machine was $1200, so I'm perfectly fine with paying a reasonable repair cost), but I'll get my baby back home again. After I've got mine fixed, I'll think about getting Mom's fixed too. But...it's more important to get mine up and running again. Of course, to get the cords unplugged, I had to pull out bags and bags of fabric. Guess what I'll be cleaning up over the next 2-3 Wednesdays? LOL 

Here's the full view of both sections after the edging has been
put down and the rocks placed. It's working really well with
the water now. We checked and double-checked it during
yesterday's rain. Today the black fill dirt will be delivered and
the next stages of the landscaping projects can commence. 

I've peppered this post with pictures of the woodshed progress and my container tomato which is so happy and providing me with 1-3 nice tomatoes almost every day now. I hope you have a glorious day and that all your problems will be as minor as a broken bobbin winder. Have a wonderful Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow.