– – – –

Tonight my sewing machine seemed loud to me. I was worried. I decided I’d take a break from quilting for a bit before starting the dreaded background bits of the pieced border (man that’s starting to sound like something on the order of a Russian novel). Anyway. I cut up a lot of the strips I’d cut right after the Vermont show.. Then I thought – hmmmmmm even though I just cleaned my machine maybe I should look and see if there is a bunch of thread down there or something.

Yikes – it was full of lint! duh.

Cleaned and oiled that sucker and sounds much better. The only thing I can think is that it was the switch to cotton and a hand-dyed cotton thread. I didn’t really have any problems with the hand dyed stuff in terms of breakage but it feels, even to my fingers, very uneven. Anyway. I’ve been using poly in the bobbin and I guess I’d forgotten about the lint.

Seriously though – I cleaned it last night!

Wow.

Anyway. I have about 30 sets of strips sewn together. That’s a pittance. I think I figured I needed about 200 nine patches. It’s a good diversion. Maybe I can do it next time I need a break. I’m a long way from having 200 nine patch blocks. A long way.