Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Late night thoughts...

Doing the mom thing and waiting up on a kid to get home...might as well dust off the 'new post' page, eh?

I actually finished a top over the weekend;  I wasn't in choir this week since I was home playing post-op nurse for My Sweet Babboo.   He had a cyst removed...the CT scan showed it on his bronchial tube, but the surgeon said it appeared to be more connected to the pericardium (sac around the heart).  It also was lymphatic in nature, but the pathology all came back benign.

He looks like he had a tussle with a shark.  Pain meds are keeping him tolerably comfortable, but come with their own set of ...issues...so we'll be glad when the soreness abates and he can back off of them.  But he's on the mend, and I really  have not noticed the persistent cough that started this whole line of investigation.  So hopefully that was the culprit and he can remember what  it's like to feel good.  Sometime around Christmas.

Anyway.  Sewing.

I had an olive green jersey knit in the stash waiting for that to roll around in choir; almost missed it this go round but I will be able to wear it this Sunday, if all goes well and I can leave MSB at home for a few hours unattended.  I used Vogue 9057, the asymmetric long sleeved view that I have loved so much in the dark brown version I made a couple of years ago.

I had a time.   The presser foot on my sewing machine doesn't allow variable pressure adjustment (which probably would have been a deal breaker had I thought to ask about it when I was test sewing); it ate the first mitered corner I tried and I had to fudge it a bit in the end to cover the resulting holes.

On top of that, my serger wasn't trimming the seams cleanly; it was just kinda chewing them. By the time I sewed my last seam on the serger I was so frustrated I was ready to throw it in the car and haul it to the dealer for some maintenance. The chewing was dragging on the seam and making it waver; I couldn't stitch straight.  I got through it and pressed it and thought, well, I'll keep moving.

Then I happened to think...it HAD been a while since I gave the serger a good cleaning.

Found the oil, found my lint brush and went at it.  And found a sizeable chunk of lint in the spring that holds the moveable blade, which was probably pushing it just a hair away from the fixed blade.

Once I got it cleaned out, I ran a test seam on some scraps.  No problems.

Which just goes to show...everything needs a little TLC* from time to time. :-)

I'm going to be cooking tomorrow; turkey and apple salad and pie, in preparation for the feast of Thanksgiving.  My favorite holiday; probably more of what Christmas was like before it became such a consumer-fest.  Family and food and thanksgiving.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I wish you joys as you reflect on your blessings; if you live elsewhere and it's business as usual on Thursday, I still wish you a day of joy and maybe a little TLC somewhere along the way.


*if you're not up on the acronym, that 's Tender Loving Care  :-)


8 comments:

  1. Hello, Just a gentle suggestion, you might want to consider changing the background on this page; it's rather confusing, and the scrolling bar to the right of the page is impossible to read. Hope this is helpful.
    Lee

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not sure if this just isn't a problem w/ the way the page is rendering on Lee's device, but I'll throw this out for more feedback because that's not terribly specific. The only thing I can see that might be hard to read is the link cloud; which is kind of the nature of that beast. But...what do my faithful readers/commentors/etc think? Are you confused by the tiled photo? Is the sidebar not easy to navigate? I'll rework it if most of y'all think it would be helpful.

      Delete
    2. Well... I wouldn't say impossible to read, but the text on the transparent background in't as easy to read as the text on the opaque background (which is super clear to read). I don't find the tiled image confusing... and I think almost any image is going to have the same effect on the right hand bar.

      And glad that your husband is doing okay now! Best wishes for continur=ed healing!

      Delete
    3. I wonder if that translucent sidebar renders differently on different devices? Because the image behind it is very, very faint on my screen and really doesn't interfere w/ the text. Hmm.

      But maybe I'll see about switching it up after the new year. It's been a while since I updated...

      Thanks for the feedback and the good wishes!

      Delete
  2. So glad that your husband is on the mend. Thanks for sharing that cause I was following you on IG and didn't quite get what had happened but was thrilled to see him doing better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Carolyn! It's been kind of a long journey; he'd been coughing for well over a year and had fought off multiple bouts of bronchitis; it just didn't seem to go away, only get better while he was on the meds and then come back once he finished. So we're hopeful that the base issue has been resolved.

      Delete
  3. If the serger acts up again, try replacing the knives. They are fairly cheap, and sharp knives make a world of difference.

    For the "problems"....try using polyethylene glycol 3350.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was my plan, before I realized it was just jammed up w/lint. Seems to be fine now (um, pun kinda sorta intended). Thanks!

      Delete

Real comments are always welcome! Spam comments will never see light of day ;-)