Ladies - Be Prepared

As temperatures are dropping, I decided it was time to learn about this subject tonight. Who knows -- I might actually have to DO this job, some day, by myself.

Our furnace is an old, so far dependable, behemoth oil unit, converted to gas. (If I didn't have that huge old furnace, I'd have room for a long-arm!!!)

I have heard of women who have never pumped their own gasoline, have never brought their car in for service themselves, have not managed a checking account (huh? in this day and age?). Being independant by nature, I can manage most of the household maintenance projects, but the furnace operations eluded me. Hey, it cost nearly $100.00 for a service call and the tech wouldn't know how to do it right anyway. I'd rather do it myself. You never know when you'll need to know these things!

I'll leave these instructions for the next home owner should we ever leave.

Turning AC off, and furnace ON (inside and Out)

1. Turn A.C. switch OFF (down) on the outside of house and associated breaker panel switch in basement OFF.
2. Get rug for knees. Grab a bunch of paper towels and stuff them in your pocket. Collect flashlight and two adjustable wrenches. Pull hair off your face and clip it back - very important!
3. Turn light on by water heater, open lower panel on furnace, get down on your knees or stomach (hope you are wearing old clothes!) and lubricate both right and left ‘spigots’ on each side of the motor. You need two hands to do this job - one to hold the spring loaded oil spot and one to hold the oil can, so I hope stomach/chest muscles are in great shape. Oil can is already there. A longer spout would be helpful on the oil can. A stronger battery on the flashlight would also be helpful. A younger body for the 'doer' would also be helpful. Rotate the belt several times.
4. Change Filters (2). You are DONE in this area.
5. Remove precious Barbed Wire Collectible (Robert's) on the wood door that opens into the other side of the furnace. Open the door with muscle!(it sticks) on the other side of the furnace, access from the family room. Remove furnace panel to expose the works.
6. Open door to boiler, and locate Red Reset button near floor. Assure that pilot valve is ON. Looks like the letter “B” .. (need wrench) to turn it to a vertical position.
7. Get matches, extension match holder from the cabinet to your right where they are stored. Then, look down inside boiler to locate the approximate area of pilot light. You will have to put you head INSIDE the boiler to find it. That's why you need your hair pulled out of the way.
8. Light match without breaking it at the same time and secure it in the extension tool.
9. Look at the equipment near the floor and locate the RED reset button. While holding down the RED button with left hand, reach down inside the boiler with your right hand in the area of the pilot light, with lit match clipped on the extension tool and listen for the pilot light to ignite, all the time continuing to hold the RED Reset Button down. When the pilot lights, continue to hold down the RED button for about 1 minute. This has something to do with a thermoxxxxxxer.
10. Get back UP from your knees. It might help to keep a small chair or stool in this area to lean on while trying to get back in an upright position.
11. If you don’t have an assistant to yell at, RUN upstairs, set Thermostat to HEAT, and temp to appropriate setting to ensure furnace will turn ON. When you hear the Whoosh downstairs, everything is working correctly.
12. Close the boiler door. Close the panel on the furnace.
13. Close that damned wood door that needs to be shortened so it doesn’t close with such difficulty – you need muscle to close it!
14. Replace collectable Barbed Wire ‘thing’ on the Damned Wood Door, then go upstairs and fix yourself a Screwdriver to celebrate accomplishment of this job.
15. Carry tools, flashlight, back upstairs, replace the rug that you put down for your poor ole knees.
16. Enjoy the warmth! Modulate thermostat upstairs for ON and OFF relative to temerature settings.
17. Occasionally, if the wind blows very hard, that pilot light blows out.

Come spring, reverse the process.

The awful truth

2008 Fabric Purchased 86 yards
2008 Fabric Used, Items DONE 113 yards
2008 $ spent for sewing and quilting related supplies $1,427.00
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I started keeping track of ALL my fabric/sewing related purchases, in January 2008. Of course, I've lapsed a time or two but here it is folks - the TRUTH! A LOT of my costs are books - I'm a sicker uhhh, SUCKER for them! Also, a big chunck of my $ spent was for a Quilt Convention. I've refrained from new fabric purchases much more frequently than in previous years.

Hey, remember if you use some of that fabric and old batting for MQ practice, and keep or throw it out, you can count it as USED UP!

Remember that survey that Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (I hope that's right) did a number of years ago? According to that survey, I fall kinda in the middle of the 'average' quilter/sewist, regarding $ spent, but that survey was a number of years ago, so with inflation, cost of living increases, I'm spending LESS than the average. Hmphhhpghhhh so there! my dear DH.

Practicing Machine Quilting on a DSM

After watching a bit of my PatsyThompsonDesigns.com DVD early this morning, I couldn't resist practice stitching. THAT's what I like about her DVDs -- they inspire me.

I started with swirls/circles but got bored and went into my own version of 'whatever they are'. This 'whatever they are' design fills the area easily, travel lines blend well, and I like the curves. Again, you can't make them huge on a DSM, but in reality, they look better on a smaller scale.
For those gals who are reticent about machine quilting on their domestic sewing machine -- YOU CAN DO THIS! You just have to try! One more thing? stop reading all the do's and don't, thread info, etc. Just sit down and DO IT! Then, if you run into problems, start reading the do's and don'ts. We are bombarded with so much information, it becomes tooooooo much and scares a lot of us into paralysis!

My thread was a nice variegated cotton on top, and the bottom is regular bobbin thread. My machine (so far) takes anything I give it! I hardly EVER change any tension, top or bottom (knock on wood!).

You Can't Make These Things Up!

"Gunshot Victim Sues to Recover His Prosthetic Leg!"
My small town has occasional gun issues. This one takes the cake!

This poor victim received 4-5 serious gunshot wounds. Seems one of the bullets was lodged in his leg, a prosthetic leg. The leg was seized by the Police as evidence for a possible trial. The victim was hospitalized for a number of days, recovering from the assault, but as he was recovering, he could not use crutches because of his wounds, but additionally, he had no leg to stand on! (my pun!) His wife had to SUE the County Attorney to get the leg returned, valued at $28,000. A judge ordered police to return the victim's prosthetic leg. Whew!

To make it worse, it was already repeated on Paul Harvey (all over the entire nation!) Radio Program!

Now, that's what we do for entertainment! LOL

Fusible Thread

OK, AFTER using fusible thread, (see previous post) I Googled the matter and duhhh, it says "fusible thread should not be used in place of regular thread" ... And if one wants to use it on binding to fuse the binding down, use a wide zig-zag stitch around the quilt edge to give the fusible more stick power" (... sounds like a lot of extra work to me). Can you imagine dragging the entire large quilt on the ironing board, and taking the time to press, and hold it each time, to see if the fusible fused, and then waited until it cooled to see if it is still 'stuck'? I'm NOT a fusser, being relatively practical. THAT experiment will NOT be repeated. My bindings are fine my way, thank you very much! And I DO press them over, to get a neat edge on the top, and handstitch them on the back. People say they can always recognize my quilts by my neat bindings. Better not change methods.

Just thought I'd clarify that situation.

2 Experiments, 50% Success

Some of you may be getting bored with my project! But, if not, and if you like the learning process, hey, I am still learning also, so I'm mentioning how I slogged through the process.
My "Gobsmacked Kaleidoscope" is done. I will thank Sheila in Australia for that perfect name.

I used a rayon heavier thread for the swirl-y borders, and a variegated pastel cotton, 50 wt. for the top, which was quilted a LOT with "innies and outies" and "dwirling" ...(hah, guess who has been watching her quilting DVDs a LOT!). I DID go back with invisible thread and stitch in the ditch between the top and the first white border -- it was a little pooched up. My batting is 80/20 blend.

I tried two experiments with this quilt. Since I quilt on a DSM, and this is not a small quilt, I wanted it to really stay together, during the pushing/pulling through my machine harp. It was already spray basted it, and pinned.

Experient #1: Water soluble thread. After sandwiching, I machine sewed long basting stitches with water soluble thread (that thread is white). This worked very well, and this quilt has not even one pucker on the back. I was less stressed when sewing my real quilting stitches, because I knew the basting stitches were holding it well. A spool of that thread is $6.95, 300 yds (kinda expensive but ...) I figured I could do 2 quilts with one spool - yes, I calculated it! LOL

The down side is ... that thread is white, as were parts of my variegated quilting thread. And in these close quarters, sometimes I started quilting/echoing the soluble thread line instead of echoing the previous quilting line. It might be a good idea to use one straight direction for the water soluble thread. While not part of this experiment, note how busy some of that fabric is and I became 'lost' a number of times, needing to do the ole frog stitch! On a DSM, your nose is right down there next to your fabric, and you can't see the whole picture as you can with a long-arm! And, long swoopy lines are not easy.

After a brief washing, the soluble thread is gone, and the quilt is lovely!

Experiment #2 - I tried FUSIBLE thread on the binding. My theory (hey, I heard it on the Internet!) was fusible in the bobbin when sewing on the binding, then when I press the binding to the back, it would fuse itself down, eliminating the pinning project that always sticks me. I would still hand sew it down.

Well, after sewing 12 inches of it down, I had the good sense to give fusing a try ... uh, ouch, burned fingers, turn iron hotter, ouch, dang it, not sticking, hold it on longer, dang it ... well this did not seem worth the trouble so, I finished the binding the traditional way. After a quick wash to dissolve the water soluble ... Uh ohhh ... fusible also does NOT take the place of regular thread -- who knew? I did manage to hand sew that open 12 inches down with no problem. Even DH says he really likes all the puckering. 8-)

BTW, do you know you can use a fabric softener sheet with your hand sewing, and pull your thread through it. Works for me. I've never bought the "Conditioner" ...