Nancy H, tumbling blocks #4 for me and Loree

Tuesday (5/27) started out so promisingly, and that promise ended very quickly L.  Michael left for golf at Edgewater, and came home around 3 PM with an 80 (including one birdie)…he was thrilled.  I got chicken/barley soup in the crockpot (for my neighbor whose wife is in rehab…and it was fabulous to be able to put in parsley, rosemary and thyme from my own garden J), had a quick consult on our driveway (which is sinking) with the builder, then headed up to Nancy H’s house to pick her up.  Their car is in the shop for several days for unknown issues, and Nancy was coming to start me off quilting.  We got the top all lined up, attached the clamps to pull it tight, and I turned it on and said ‘ok…I’m ready to start’.  It was at that point that Nancy gently said ‘don’t you think you want to thread it first?  So, we had to call the store to walk us through the threading because it wasn’t really intuitive at all…and I had missed putting in one of the thread spools. 

my 'teach'...scoping out the threading

OK….we got done with that and I tried to get started.  Now there are buttons on the handles, one on the left, one on the right.  First, you should hit the left hand handle button to get the needle to go up and down (you have to pull up your bobbin thread)…no dice!  Needle doesn’t move, and no beep when I hit it….I eventually hit the right hand button (which starts and stops the stitching) and that worked (for just a bit...it eventually stopped and the screen was locked up)….but we didn’t have the bobbin thread pulled to the top, so the tension was all screwed up.  We tried a few things and nothing worked.  In the meantime, Jan had stopped by to see the excitement….of which there was none  L.  I finally turned it off and Nancy and I just sat and talked until it was time to take her home.  I skipped Stitch & Chat (and that was bummy because I not only had show and tell, but I had stuff to give out to 3 people) because the furnace/air conditioning guy was supposed to come between 2 and 4 (he finally showed up at 4:30  L) and I watched a video on the operation of the long arm machine.  I called the store around 4:30 and Barry (store owner) said he would stop by on the way home.  Good thing he brought the handles from the machine in the store….because I had a bad cable in my handles….so maybe the great quilting beginning will take place on Wednesday.  By then it was 6 PM and I got the soup all packed up for Bryce (as well as some leftover rolls), and Jan came over to get 2 quarts for her dinner as well.  Michael left at 6:30 to pick up Larry to go and see the new XMEN movie and I spent the evening working on my 4^th tumbling block:

I really love how lame looks....but it truly is a pain in the behind to work with!

I’ll tell you…BG and Loree are whipping these things out like there’s no tomorrow…I should ALWAYS do a sew-along on my projects…peer pressure really keeps you hopping!  I was finished with the block by 9:30 PM and went upstairs to knit on my baby sweater until Michael got home around 10:30.  Loree's #4 block is also finished:

Loree's #4 block

BG finished her, but didn't get it ironed, so hopefully I'll post a picture tomorrow.  It takes her a little longer sometimes because, after all, she IS still working a full time job!  There's only one more color to go for all of us...we each will have 5 colors in our quilts.