What I did today

I woke up to the six a.m.,  two hour delay phone call, then the eight a.m. deteriorating weather conditions, school is cancelled call.

At nine, with no breakfast, with the Siruba in the front seat, I set out on the twenty minute trip to the Geo. E. Johnson Company, the only industrial sewing machine company for six states around. Deteriorating weather conditions be damned.

Several days ago I effected a trade with my weaver friend Linda for the old Siruba serger. The industrial machine we used to sew thousands of garments from hand woven cotton fabric. We also serged off the ends of thousands of hand woven rugs, prior to sewing down the bound edge and putting them up for sale at a show. When we retired I sold the Siruba to Linda to bind off the edges of all the bags she made, and the occasional bound rug. She had an old Jukki at the time she could not get to working well. If your eyes are glazed over, these are just big sewing machines for a more professional job. Faster, too, but I could never get beyond first gear, which is fine for me.

They don't authorize this stuff with me, first!

I traded Linda our old, four thread Bernina  home serger for the Siruba. The operative word is old; more than twenty years old. Heavy. Sturdy. Another little work horse. Except, it was not making the bottom loop properly, so I took it to our industrial sewing machine fellows, Alex and Jerry, before I turned it over. Alex is eighty something, suffering more and more from dementia, but knows how sewing machines sew. He put the home serger on the bench, began testing the threads, then delivered me quite the lecture on not having the lower looper thread completely between the tension plates, which solved the problem. He doesn't remember who I am or that I have been a customer for more than twenty years, but sewing machines don’t fool him.

Appears to be leaving again!

When the Siruba, which weighs eighty or so pounds, compared to the fifteen pound home serger, was set up, one looper thread was jamming and breaking. We checked all the thread paths, cleaned the moving parts to within an inch of their being, changed the needles—nothing. The lower looper thread jammed and broke on every seam attempted. So, as mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, I set out with the Siruba on the front seat, for the Geo. E. Johnson Company.

The school report was absolutely correct; deteriorating weather conditions. The northbound trip took me more than an hour. But of course I got there. I was on a mission. Jerry put the machine on the bench, checked all the thread paths, then the threads. Once more the lecture, be sure all the threads are securely in their tension plates. The lower looper thread was not! Home again, home again, by eleven. Southbound traffic moved just fine.

Back and ready to rock and roll.

The mission was to use the Siruba for a marathon sewing weekend AND to be home in time for my appointment for the B/L MBB at 1 pm, arrive thirty minutes prior. That’s short for bilateral medial branch block.

Eventually I was face down on a table. The nurse put a drop of happy juice in the IV; I felt the doctor insert a total of eight needles that, I was told, were also full of happy juice. There is still more protocol, but we certainly are down the yellow brick road now. I must keep track of how long the block lasts, where it gives up, and so forth. There will be another procedure based on that for the purpose of squirting stuff that will just shut up those squealing vertebrae for perhaps a year. Take that. And that. And that! POW!

It's what she calls "weaving."

Then I tied the new threading on my loom to the apron, threw the waste yarn and the header thread, and wove a bobbin of a one pound cone of a color called hawthorn. Rather pretty. A sort of bricky red, not the red red I've always thought of as the color of hawthorns. About four yards in a pound of thread, another three or four shirts. Limited edition, as they say. But, the hawthorn is a little down the road, after red shirts and bluebell this weekend.

"Hawthorn." See how the natural web cuts the color about fifty percent.

But now I’m going to bed. Reveille tomorrow is seven, for the ski run trip.