The Making of a Beautiful Quilt

I began this quilt yesterday and as it usually goes, the beginning is kind of slow.  There's lots to deal with such as stabilizing the whole thing, deciding what color thread to use where, the best designs to fit in the right spot, time to ponder the sewing order to minimize changing thread constantly and much more work than you ever would think about.  The story of the ugly duckling comes to mind when I look at all the ruffles and excess fabric in places, and what to do with warped borders...  It may not be a very good looking job at this point, but I never lose heart...from past experience, it usually comes out in the end.  I thought I'd give you a glimpse into my life and the point of "agony of defeat" in this process.  I will wait for the "thrill of victory" in a few days.  Meantime, I plod away, chomping at it bit by bit.

Ray White machine repair classes

We just completed our third annual machine maintenance and repair workshop with Ray White, White Sewing Center, Belleview, Missouri.  Ray has been traveling to the West coast to teach groups of individuals who are interested in knowing how sewing machines work and how to save a bunch of money doing maintenance and repair at home.  If you are interested, go to Ray's website and read and learn.  We tentatively plan to repeat the classes next year, Lord willing, and if Ray is able to make the trip.  It's small and lots of individual attention is possible. Ray White has been teaching these classes for at least 10 years.If you Google his name you'll find it connected with machine repair classes, Elna sewing machines, and anything to do with parts for outdated machines.  Here are pictures of a couple of my projects.  I highly recommend his classes if you love to tinker with sewing machines and have a sincere desire to learn how they work. Ray can sit down at any machine and get into it and diagnose sometimes just by listening to it.  You might call him the "machine whisperer".