Today was a mixed blessing

Yesterday I was doing some fairly dense thread painting, when the needle "jammed".  This has happened before, and is a bit of a pain to pull everything out and clean up the mess, but then you can usually start again and carry on. Not this time.  There was absolutely no way I could get the needle or anything else out.  In the end I had to cut the needle in half with a pair of side cutting pliers.  Then I was able to pull most of it out.  But something still seemed to be wrong, so took the throat plate out and cleaned up underneath.  Then I noticed that there was chunk out of the bobbin holder and a raw, scraped groove underneath the bobbin holder.  Oh! Oh!  This called for a trip to the repair shop.

This is the machine on which I hope to be able to teach a class in free motion quilting to nine paid up students on Wednesday--yes, Wednesday the day after tomorrow.  I don't want to run this machine again  until someone who knows about these things tells me it's safe. So, what is my contingency plan? Plan to take it into the shop first thing Monday morning hoping that it might be fixed in time for pick up by late Tuesday. And if that doesn't work?  Fire up the old Pfaff.  I've been using it for piecing and bobbin work, but haven't done any FMQ'g on it in about 3 years.  In order to use it for a class, I would need the  table platform which has a broken leg.  Okay, next plan,  find out if we can replace that leg first thing Monday morning.  If that turns out to be necessary, I would have to spend all of Monday and Tuesday re-teaching myself to do FMQ'g on the Pfaff.

Turned out that there was no hope of seeing a technician for the Janome until the weekend, but the table leg was available. ( Two different dealers, you understand) But my husband, who has been servicing, cleaning and repairing my machines for years, thought that we might be able to get the Janome going if we replaced the bobbin holder.  So, new bobbin holder, new table leg, and into the studio to work something out. Tried some free motion on the Pfaff, and remembered why I prefer to do the FMQ'g on the Janome.  Worked at it all day, even took half an hour off and went out to get supper, instead of trying to cook something here.  By 8:00 the Janome was purring away and doing free motion feathers better than ever before.  I am still a nervous wreck, but things are looking better for the class on Wednesday.

Shibori has come up in a couple of communications recently, and someone has asked what I do with my Shibori dyed fabrics.  I may have posted these pictures before, but here are the three Shibori wall hanging that I've made, so far. They are all machine quilted, but the middle one has hand quilting as an embellishment.  I use #16 coton a broder, and dye it with the fabric to assure a match. The first one has leaf prints in three of the clamped circles. They are all about 25 by 35 inches.