Last week (in vanity post #141), I told y’all the saga of trying to finish “All American”, my veteran’s quilt… AND the update which reported that I had, indeed, managed to finish this quilt using one of the Center’s “loaner” sewing machines. Well, the saga continues…
Yesterday (Tuesday, 27 October 2026), I went to this week’s community “sew-cial”, hoping that Liz would be there… for two reasons:
- so she could attempt to do what I wasn’t able to do last week: fix Emmy, my (rather temperamental) sewing machine; and
- so I could finally give her “All American” and have work her “long-arm magic” before the upcoming veteran’s dinner and quilt presentation.
Thankfully, Liz was there this week, and, to make what could be a long story short, Liz is more magical than I thought she was because SHE DID, INDEED, FIX EMMY! After looking at the strip of blue fabric that I had used when I was trying to fix Emmy AND at my bobbin, she said that she thought the problem was with my bobbin:
“Your bobbin is loose,” she said. “Do you mind if I take it all off?”
“Of course not,” I replied. “Do what you need to do.”
After unwinding all of the thread on my bobbin (and discovering two separate windings of thread on one bobbin), she then proceeded to fill the bobbin with more thread, adjusting the distance between the bobbin and its “stopper”. Once that task was done, she then tried sewing on the aforementioned strip of blue fabric, and, much to my surprise, Emmy worked beautifully! I didn’t realize that a “loose bobbin” would cause so much trouble!
Anyway, onto the second reason mentioned above… Before Liz arrived that afternoon, I wasn’t sure which fabric I should use for the backing: the original fabric I had purchased for this purpose or some of the fabric that was donated to the Center. I thought both of them would work. So… I asked a couple of the ladies who were present for their opinion. They both thought that the donated fabric would be good and that if I used that fabric, I could keep my fabric for another project.
After seeing “All American” on top of the donated fabric, I started having my doubts about using it — mostly because I didn’t think the shade of blue matched the rest of blues in “All American”. So, I was waffling back to using my fabric, which featured white stars on a dark blue background.
[Note: I didn’t realize that there were so many different shades of reds, whites, and blues until I started working on “All American”, using a collection of fabric that was only “All American” because it was a mixture of reds, whites, and blues — no stars, no flags, nothing that could be considered to be patriotic, which is what the name implied to me.]
Before Liz left that afternoon, I asked her opinion about which fabric I should use for the backing. She thought about it for a bit, and then said, “I think you’ll be happier with the fabric you brought.” After seeing “All American” on top of the donated fabric, I totally agreed with her assessment. So… She left with my finally-finished “All American” quilt top and my original backing for that veteran’s quilt of mine!
Since the Center will be closed on Election Day, I won’t be able to get “All American” back (as a completely FINISHED quilt) until the following Tuesday — just in time! I hope that it’ll look nice once “Magical Liz” has worked her “long-arm magic” on it!