My usual sewing machine, Jezebel (a Singer Ingenuity) went to the hospital about ten days ago.  She needed a part not on hand, so in her absence, I've been using my old sewing machine, a little Kemore I call Connie.  I made all of my first quilts on Connie as well as host of clothing and home decor items, so I had no qualms about putting her to use and felt that she would be well up to the task. 

Sadly, she gave up the ghost on me this afternoon.  I spent nearly two hours painstakingly taking her apart, cleaning her, oiling her and putting her back together again, but she is still recalcitrant; so I finally came to the sad conclusion that there will be no more quilting today.

The good news is, when Connie stopped working, after my initial attempts to help her ended in ashes, I called the shop and found out that Jezebel is ready to roll.  BSP has volunteered to pick her up tomorrow so she'll be ready to go when I get home.  Hurray!

This is the backing fabric as well - I had to fuse it to give is some stability - it's a Japanese silk, but is fine and sheer like Sari-veil fabric.  If you click that pic, you may be able to see a really cool detail - those grey ovals and the insides of the flowers are slightly raised and feel like caterpillar fur.  So neat.  I picked up several yards of this fabric at the most recent Textile Museum fabric sale and while I was standing in line with it, people kept coming up to me and touching it!   It's extremely tactile - soft and smooth - it really invites stroking.

Anyway - my next post should be the finished product.

Hope you all had great weekends - and perhaps ones more productive than mine!