Finally a real post!

(warning spoiler alert - Mom don't read this!)

As I'm writing this I'm home sick from work - I think I may have the flu... slight fever and altogether feeling pretty  yucky. In my new knowledge that every medicine known to man has glycol in it (which I'm allergic to) I'm stuck taking disgusting alka-seltzer instead of dayquil. Whatever. At least it's working a bit. :)

I'd mentioned earlier this week how I'd finished tons of projects but hadn't taken pictures - I had my chance yesterday -- a moment of sunshine so I snuck outside to take some pics (even though I felt crappy). 

First I'm going to show you why regular machine maintenance is good. 

Before I began free motion quilting my mom's quilt I decided to clean out my machine really well. Knowing that I'd sewn quite a bit in the past week and that it really needed it. I opened up the casing around the take-up lever assembly to dust and oil, and this is what I found. A screw had completely wiggled loose. See that circle of light up there in the middle? That's where said screw belongs, it was found sitting inside the casing right below it. Eek!

This has happened before. I'm fairly certain that this is the same screw that came loose the last time I had major machine troubles - I took her to the repair shop and my repair man took 6 hours to find that a screw had wiggled itself completely loose. This is the general area where he'd said it had happened.

I put the screw back in and am now sewing much more smoothly. I took these pictures to show the repair man to see if it was the same spot. 

Then I took apart the bobbin casing and dusted in there. Whoa I had a whole sweater worth of lint! 

I think Nancy (my machine) was happy after I cleaned her up! Since she gave me only a little trouble quilting up this giant couch quilt for my mom's Christmas present!

More details on that later! :)