Work on it Wednesday

All quilt, all the time. I'm going to do some hardcore sewing today. I'm almost, okay actually more like half way done with the quilt I'm working on. But, I will finish it well ahead of the deadline, woo hoo. I might be able to get into this quilting thing since it's turning out much better than I could have imagined. I also seriously need to decide if I'm going to do end of the year teachers gifts. I think it's a weird peer pressure thing around here, but I also know that teachers are underpaid and under appreciated. I really like M.'s teacher so I'll probably do a couple of market bags or something for her. I should be able to whip those up pretty fast, no pattern needed.
Interesting sidebar in my quilting adventures to share. You may know that I love vintage machines and have a few. Well, I've been piecing the quilt top on my lovely Viking, Brownie (I know so original, right). Well, last evening when I was working on attaching one of the borders and I noticed the upper thread tension was just awful. Now you must understand that my Brownie is absolute sewing perfection and I had a real full blown panic attack when I thought something was wrong with it. I rethreaded it (always a simple place to start your troubleshooting). Made sure the bobbin was in correctly, changed the needle. I even broke out my manual. I had to crank the tension way up just to get the stitch a bit tight, but it still looked awful and so different from Brownies normal stitch. What could be wrong? Finally I thought, hmmm...let me change the thread. I had been using a small spool of cream color Coats and Clark XP. I don't have a problem with C&C thread, although I prefer mettler or gutterman, but you know those sales will get you every time. However, something I hadn't noticed was that the thread was considered "heavy". I must have purchased it to sew purses and grabbed it without thinking. Brownie did not like it at all. She's a girl who knows what she likes and C&C ain't it. I switched it out for some gutterman and holding my breath I made a test sample and it was gorgeous as always. I'm not ashamed to admit that I almost started crying when I thought something was wrong with my Brownie. I know it silly, but there it is. Luckily it was an easy fix and I'm back with my foot to the pedal sewing away.