Why can't things just work?

 My sewing machine decided to top itself again. Sigh.  Why can't things that are supposed to work, like cars and sewing machines, just work?  Things that you take for granted when they are doing their job, but create so much uncertainty when they start to behave erratically or become unreliable.  Thankfully the car has behaved fine since the clutch was replaced. Hopefully that's the end of its problems, but I've just paid to extend the warranty just in case.

So I was just doing some applique stitch on the Tannenbaum quilt to hold down the fused on leaves and flowers, when suddenly I had another catastrophic failure and needle breakage because the bobbin case had once again jumped out of its place.  This is the new bobbin case that I bought a few weeks ago after the previous new bobbin case was damaged the first time it happened.  This time the bobbin case wasn't as badly damaged so I smoothed out the areas on the plastic with fine emery paper and tried again.  It sewed for another 10 minutes, rattling a lot, before it jumped over the stopper again.  So I phoned the warranty people, who understandably are  now wondering if it is my fault and something I'm doing.  We went through some interrogation re when had I last cleaned it and what was I doing at the time, and I had to take photos of the area and send them.  They've agreed to have it back again under warranty but they've warned that if they judge it to be my fault for some reason, then I will be charged.  I did plaintively say that I thought I had paid out enough to secure a long term workhorse machine, even though it isn't the top of the line.  She said the Janome MC8200 is normally a very reliable machine with few problems.  So I'm obviously being very unlucky.  So it went off by courier on Friday and I am now back to sewing on the Singer Featherweight. I don't think it's anything I'm doing, I've been sewing for around 45 years and have never had this happen before.

I loaded on the pastel hexies quilt onto the frame and have been stitching a pantograph pattern of a stylised rose along it.  It's going fairly well.  Any individual rose repeat is not identical to the paper pattern due to steering issues (my own, and some hesitations on the travel of the carriage itself) but the overall effect is nice I think. This is quilt number 6 of 15.

I spent a fair bit of time this week catching up on a mystery sampler wallhanging class that I've joined at a patchwork shop.  It's taught over four classes and I missed the first class when we were in Dorset, so I had the blocks from that class and the next class to put together.  The pattern aims to teach you various patchwork techniques used in handsewing such as foundation pieced log cabin, EPP hexies, applique, Chinese Coins etc.  It's all stuff I've done before but it's something I booked back in the winter when I was looking around for things I could try now that I'm retired.  I thought the social element might be nice. The teacher is keen for us to enjoy the zen of slow stitching and not just always be machining everything.  I enjoy hand stitching when it feels creative, but I do not see much benefit in handsewing straight lines for a log cabin - so I did my log cabin at home on the featherweight.  The hexies of course had to be hand sewn and became very tedious. It's a lot of starting and stopping, and I kept getting the order wrong and ending up with two of the same colours next to each other and having to unpick. I got there in the end.  I'll post pictures once we get further along, at the moment it's just some loose blocks.

I've been pushing along on the Australian BOM because the next block landed on my desk at the beginning of the week and it's a really complicated one - so I need to get this block done.  I'm almost there, I'm just stitching the decorative flowers on the pincushion.

I think I posted a while ago that our nearest big craft shop, Coleman's Craft Warehouse, was sadly closing down.  We had visited their closing down sale when it was 33% off, but now the discount is 50% off plus they are selling off their warehouse furniture and equipment.  I picked up a bunch of plastic crates for £1 each which will be useful for camping and storage, and some sewing, crafting and scrapbooking supplies at 50% off.  Their fabric which was originally £16/m is still too expensive for me to consider at £8 and what they had left wasn't that attractive.  There was a fair bit of acrylic yarn but I didn't get any of that either.  DH got a tall shelf for his modelling room and some other bits and pieces.  It felt a bit like being a vulture picking over their bones, I'm sad that they are closing down but I'm as guilty as anyone of ordering things on the internet because it is easier and cheaper.

I found out yesterday that the series of industrial action days (train strikes) scheduled this summer includes the day I was booked to go to Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.  Since I had also signed myself up for a fairly costly Handiquilter taster workshop, it wasn't a case of just not going.  So I've had to scramble to book a hotel in Birmingham so I can go up the day before by train, and come back the day after - so I've booked to go back to the show the second day as well.  I'll have to travel by bus from Birmingham town centre out to the NEC, hopefully that's not going to be too crazy crowded because of the train strike.  So it's all turning into a rather expensive visit to the show.  At least I can still go, I saw someone on Facebook who is having to cancel their visit altogether because of the strike, and obviously it's a huge PITA for commuters to work. DS has just been working from home on strike days but often the trains are still disrupted the following day as well because they are all out of place.

I'm trying a new approach on learning Japanese. I found out about an app/website called Tandem.net which is a site for free language exchange.  It seems to be very popular with Japanese people learning English.  As soon as I set up a profile, I had half a dozen Japanese people contacting me wanting to chat.  I've talked to 4 or 5 of them now, they are all working a lot harder at learning English than I am at learning Japanese.  I've been warned by some of them that there are scammers on the site as well that want romance or your investment money, but the people I am in contact with all seem genuine.  And if a scammer wants to speak very slow Japanese to me and listen to my very slow Japanese in return, then I would still be ahead of the game :)  I don't know if it is something I am going to keep up or not.  I'm wondering if hearing regular Japanese will finally persuade my ageing brain that it needs to actually remember some grammar.