Sewing Machine Games

I was wondering what wonderful, adventurous, exciting thing I was going to write about today on my blog. I figured I would amble through my day and something would jump out and surprize me. I didn't get too far.
I decided that since this quilt of the century was looming over my head for a early June finish, (Hopefully even earlier) I should get cracking on my broken sewing machine. I went in and sat down at my "desk" turned sewing machine table and stared at the machine. Hoping beyond hope that it would just tell me what was wrong as opposed to me digging in and further screwing things up. My grandmother came to mind. Maybe she was just speaking to me the way spirits speak. Ya see? My grandma was the best seamstress in town. She made everything, I mean EVERYTHING my mother wore. (Except for those silly tee shirts my parents would pick up on trips to Mexico.) I would watch in awe when she was in sewing mode. If we needed a dress for a special occasion, we would describe what we wanted and colors and wa-la...It would be done all except for the hemming by the evening we asked for it. Of course, at times it was agonizing because everything had to be just so, and more often than not, we were over there trying on the dress, time after time so she could adjust seams and trims. She never used a pattern. If the dress was more complicated she would grab up the Sunday paper and make a pattern to follow, but it still all came from her mind.
For the longest time she had this old Singer sewing machine. I mean OLD! It would, from time to time, of course break down. She'd put an old sheet across the kitchen table and tear that machine apart, right down to the last screw and lay it out on the table like a metal banquet. Then she would pick up parts, clean them, oil them if necessary and eventually put it all back together, better than new. She would then grab old material and sew lines up and down on it for about ten minutes until all the excess oil could work it's way out, wipe the machine down and continue sewing whatever project she had going on when the machine stopped working. She eventually got this "New-fangled" machine and it took her a time to figure it out, but soon she was making even fanier stitches on all of our clothes that she made. (I think it may have taken her all of a half hour to figure it all out)
I pulled my machine apart and started cleaning. Mind you, I did not throw an old sheet over the kitchen table, cause for one, I don't have a kitchen table and two, the old sheet is covering and protecting my couch. And I didn't tear into the machine piece by piece, I just took a few things off of it and cleaned them. I put it all back together (the four pieces I took off) and it still didn't work. So I says to myself, "Self. What would grandma do?" Grandma came back loud and clear and said, "Hmmm, silly girl, try changing the needle, see what that does". I'm thinking..it couldn't be that simple. But it was. I feel stupid. But I can get on with my quilt now.
I'm off to sewing heaven, maybe make some headway on that quilt! YAY!!!
Oh by the way, Thank you Grandma!