Frustrations

I got all excited about finally having some batting, and pinned up the brown barrister's blocks for a nice solid day of quilting - and my damn machine is playing silly buggers again. The thread keeps breaking! I haven't had this problem for ages. I've tried all the usual fixes; changed the needle, changed the top thread, changed the bobbin, fiddled with the tension, sprayed silicon on the needle, swore, kicked it and cleaned out all the fluff. And things work for a while, and then don't work, and I cannot for the life of me figure it out!!! So incredibly frustrating.



I still like the brown-ness of it all though. That fabric in the middle - the brown background floral - is a favourite, it's very pretty. I think it might be time for traditional brown to make a come back. Most of the blogs I read are by modern quilters and it's all brights and whites and clear clean colours. I like that, but it's certainly not the be-all and end-all of beautiful quilts.

The other frustration was our weekend at the beach - I picked the boys up from school and did a quick whip turnaround to leave again by four o'clock ... we drove for an hour and then sat in a queue of cars for half an hour before being turned around. There had been a bad smash and the highway was closed (for over five hours, as it turned out). There are no realistic alternative roads (especially not in the dark!) so we came back home, via the pizza shop, and at seven o'clock were back where we started. I am very happy not to have been anywhere near the smash, but we were so tired and cranky we decided not to try again Saturday morning, and we've had a very quiet weekend. It was minus 6 last night, but bright and sunny today, which is perfect weather for lying in the sun reading a book...