Monday, March 16, 2009

Weekend progress + misc.

BNP binding for quilt
It was a good, productive weekend for me. Not enough nap time, but plenty of movies (Near Dark, Let the Right One In, and Synecdoche, NY) and enough quilting to make me feel good about it. Above is a photo of nine strips of non-bias binding...

BNP binding
...and here it is being attached to my Blooming Nine-Patch quilt! I am so close to finishing this project, which makes me excited! I also feel like I should pick up another big project, but the rational part of me knows I should take a break, catch up with the swap and my "twins" to the swap, make some bags and tops and aprons I've been thinking about... 

March STUD mini sneak peek
Speaking of swaps, above is a sneak peek of my STUD March mini quilt, going in the mail today! The theme was Japanese. Full reveal to come later this week. 

Finally, yesterday morning I decided to clean my machine out before attaching bindings to my Blooming Nine-Patch and my swap quilt. I love that YLI quilting thread, but it sure is linty! Anyway, I'd forgotten, but a few weeks ago while I was working on my Blooming Nine-Patch a pin went through my machine on accident. As a rule, I don't leave my pins in while stitching unless I'm machine-basting or using a really long stitch for whatever reason. Anyway, it was a mistake, and a pin went through and I heard this awful noise and I kinda freaked out. I spent five minutes looking for that pin but could not find it. I have a magnetic pincushion, so I thought maybe the pin had flown back to it. It was nowhere to be seen. So, I forgot about it. That is, until Sunday morning: 

pin before and after
On the left is a normal "before" pin. On the right is what I found in the bottom of my machine, under the bobbin casing. At first I thought it was some sort of spring/tension piece for my machine that I accidentally disconnected by cleaning it out with a little brush, but when I looked a little closer, I realized what it actually was. Wow. How in the world did it get bent like that? And what happened to the little glass ball from the top?? My machine is a monster. 

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