On its way to the dealer today. She's going to take it to the repair lady on Monday and hopefully when it comes back it works. She had a 905 and a 910 yesterday, the 910 is pretty sweet but the more I'm looking at the 936 it seems like the way to go. Hopefully the White machine can be fixed and then I'm just looking at the repair bill instead of 2 grand for a new machine.
I cleaned up the sewing room last night, got some more stuff moved in. All I have left to do now is the closet, which is going to be a nightmare all on its own. There's so much stuff in there that doesn't belong! I really need to go through the fabric and pull out anything I'm not going to use. I've also been using it to stash yarn, and I'm not sure that's going to continue to work.
Several of you have emailed asking about the Fleece Project again. Our church kind of partners with one of the local low income schools (95% of the students are low income). In the fall we buy school supplies and uniforms, in the winter we provide coats and socks or whatever they need (last year instead of so many school supplies we bought socks and underwear...these kids didn't even have THAT stuff). In addition, several members mentor some of the students throughout the year, it's a really cool thing. Anyway, it was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that there are little kids in this city who don't even have a hat or mittens for days when it's really cold.
So, the Fleece Project was born; a group of ladies and I got together last fall one Saturday to make hats and scarves. We learned early on that we could buy mittens cheaper than we could make them, and they would be warmer and more weatherproof. The hat pattern is actually the same one my mom and I use to make the hats we give to chemo patients, but with fleece in fun prints and bright colors, they're really cute for little kids. The scarf is a 5" wide strip, serged on the sides (not turned) and stitched 3-1/2" up from the bottom with some kind of decorative stitching, and then slashed the rest of the way down. We made 23 sets the first Saturday when we got organized, and since then I've made another 130 or so, and have another 48 ready to be stitched up once I get my serger back. I really wanted to provide 200 sets this year, and then we'll see about next year.
Right now I just want to be done with the project, it's been a little too consuming this winter and I've fallen way behind on my other projects. I have 20 yards of regular hat fabric to be cut out, in addition to several quilts that need to be completed for gifts. My goal is to be done with fleece by February 17th. Hopefully my machine comes back okay and I can whip through the final stack by then.
So that's all about the Fleece Project. Next year we should be a little better organized, maybe we can get more sets out. There are 590 students at the school, so I'm not sure we could ever provide a hat/mitten/scarf set for every child, but I guess that's why they call them goals, huh? :)
Posted by tomiandc at January 26, 2007 08:32 AM