Back in Action

Yes, after 2-1/2 years of inactivity, Millie is doing her thing once again.  I can't even begin to explain how joyful this is to me. I've had a bit of guilt over not using her for this long. There wasn't any real reason to not have used her. It just seemed life kept getting in the way.  

It started with running out of quilt tops to quilt.  Then it was wedding preparations. Then it was the studio itself. It had become a habit to just move things into the studio instead of finding a home for them.  My studio was a jumbled mess and Millie was covered in various boxes and bags.

There were all sorts of things interfering with me getting Millie ready to quilt. Work, projects around the house, health, etc. This last year, I even tried to use a quilt journal to get me on track. As with all things "Journal" that didn't last. When I didn't get things done like I had planned, I just stopped using it. I am going to try a resurrect it but use it in a different way. I'm not sure what that is yet. 

Last August I even toyed with the idea of taking sometime off from work to get Millie ready. But I needed to save my vacation time and well things didn't work out.  In October, Tatianna was here and she helped me pin the leaders to start straightening them.  After a couple of weekends of working on the leaders, I found out that my mother-in-law was coming to visit Thanksgiving week. 

Mom is 83 years old and has quilted all of her life. She mostly hand quilted but between arthritis and just really messed up hands from milking cows, she can't really do it anymore.  She does piece tops and gets one of her daughters or granddaughters to help her tie them. 

I wanted Mom to see my machine in action. So I was motivated to do the maintenance and get it ready. By the time she arrived Millie was ready to go. Friday, I put on a really simple patchwork throw and picked a simple pantograph to quilt it with.  Of course, not having used Millie in a couple of years, meant there were plenty of mistakes and my seam ripper got a good work out.  But I still got it all quilted in an afternoon.  I didn't lose as much skill as I thought I had and the quilt looks good.  

I think Mom was impressed with the machine. She was right there with me the whole time I was quilting.  When I expressed concern about tension she walked around the machine to take a closer look at the back.  She told me that she didn't think it was too bad. She thought that when I took it off the machine it would relax and look just fine.  She was right.

Mom was very encouraging when I had to stop and rip out stitches. She'd comment about how when I was retired and had more time I would get really good at it.  She thought I should plan selling quilts to supplement my retirement income.  I explained that the money was in quilting for other people.  It shocked her that people would pay others to quilt their quilts for them.   I said told her that not everyone grew up in a quilting culture like she did.

All in all it was a good afternoon and I am itching to get going on the next quilt.  In fact there is one on the machine right now. But we have venison to get packaged and into the freezer. But I will be getting the next one quilted this week

I think my Sewjo is back.