This Week's Lessons...

I like to think that a person never stops learning, and this week was a perfect example of that for me.

I had changed my mind about the design I wanted to use for Preston's Christening gown, so I took out my sample cloth and stitched out the new design layout so that I could size it to the actual pattern piece for the gown. Perfect fit! So, yesterday I decided to mark the layout on the fabric (a lovely Martha Pullen cotton batiste) and start the machine embroidery process.

I also worked on a new "quickie" project, Deanna's Vintage Styles' beaded scarf, rather than just sit and watch the machine stitching away.

I carefully aligned all the elements as I moved the hoop down the fabric to make sure it all stayed in the center of what would become the front piece for the gown and it was looking fabulous - if I do say so myself. Scarf and embroidery projects sailing along just fine. After working on both for most of the day, I was down to the final three small motifs for the gown front.

I finished small motif Number One; reset the machine to start stitching small motif Number Two and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Did I tell you that my Ellisimo sings to me? She does! She twinkles when a new setting is entered into the machine; beeps when I make a mistake; and sings a whole little tune when a design has finished stitching. It's so cool! Well, I was just finishing making that cuppa, when she "twinkled". I knew that meant that I had to check on her. I went into my studio, read the screen and she told me that the thread had broken and that I should check and rethread the machine. I opened the cover and...Oh, No! I was OUT OF THREAD!!!

Now, I don't mean that the spool was empty, and I'd just grab another spool of the same color and thread up the machine to complete my project. Noooooooooooo. I mean OUT OF THREAD. No more. Empty. Nada. Period. ARRAAAGGGGGHHHH!

And, because no one in the area sells this particular brand of thread (which I purchased via mail order), I knew I wasn't going to match the color with anyone else's brand to finish the embroidery. To say the air in my studio turned blue would be an understatement. I looked in drawers - I don't know...I guess I hoped I'd find that a spool of the exact color I needed had spontaneously generated when I wasn't looking - I searched through my, ahem, vast stash in hopes of finding more. What was I thinking? The only saving grace was that this pattern calls for 3 yards of fabric, and I knew that I had 7 -- er, now 6 yards left to do the project so I would have enough extra to start over. sigh

So, here's what I've learned this week:

• Never stitch your practice design on your sample fabric in the actual color (and the only spool) of thread for your project. Go in the drawer and pull out a spool of "Why do I have this color?" thread to do your practice embroidery.
• Always purchase at least one spool more than you think you'll need for a project. If you get caught in the middle of the night - or at the very least after shop hours - you're going to have to wait until the next day to resolve your "issue".
• Don't walk out of the studio while the embroidery machine is hard at work. This really has nothing to do with why I ran out of thread, but I figured my Ellisimo (newly named, "Ellie") burned through more thread than she should have because she was lonesome. (Well, it could happen, right? I'm not taking chances on that again.)

So, there you have it. I went to Sarasota today to my favorite fabric store (Sew Worth It! - that's the name of the store), and with the help of my friend, Loreen who works there, purchased two 1100 yard spools of the closest match I could find to the color I had originally fallen in love with, and now I'm back home telling you about this so you don't make the same mistakes I did. I'll fire up "Ellie" tomorrow and hold her embroidery unit until the stitching is complete. It'll be ok...just a slight delay.

By the way...my scarf is looking fierce!

You can see my gown progress in the "Preston's Christening Gown Project" Flickr album, and my scarf can be seen on "Currently On My Needles..." (down the lower left column here)