The Test of Mettle
I believe I may have gone beyond Dennis’ mettle in regard to his stitching abilities. Give Dennis a puzzle to work through for pin pointing what needs to be done in all aspects of a vehicle. He knows when to hold it or when to fold it and get it into a repair shop.
We are in a snow situation here and that means that we hunker down until the snow stops and then we move it. Neighbor Randy has already been down our driveway and his when he was on his noon break from John Deere.
I was at my sewing machine finishing up the last of what I wanted to get done in my adventures working with cork fabric. Dennis wanted to help by doing some serger work on the cotton dinner napkins. My machine was working with one spool of thread. Dennis’ serger was working with four spools of thread. It sounded like a a good way for Dennis to while away some time. The project was clipping right along. I had encourage and advised him to do what we call chain sewing. When the one side of one napkin was stitched just feed another one right behind it under the presser foot. The threads are not cut to separate them until all of the napkins have had one side stitched. It eliminates the need to lower and raise the pressure foot to position the fabric each time.
Somewhere along the line, that process wasn’t going well and Dennis wanted to cut one from the machine as each side was done. When thread is held taut behind the needle and then cut the pressure and tension causes the thread to snap back out of the eye of the needle. In this case two needles. The snap back extended far beyond the eyes of the needle. Where oh where did these two threads snap back and become overlaid with the remaining threads from the other two spools. At that time, Dennis thought that perhaps he could see if his snowblower would start and move some snow around. It was a good call on his part.
I got my Dell computer down into the sewing room. I knew there was a good YouTube called “A man and his serger.” I dug out the manual. Between the two, I should be able to get everything re-threaded. It had been a challenge getting the four spools threaded the first time and one time does make a blueprint in my mind on how to successfully repeat it.
Midway through, I got dressed and went outside to move a little bit of snow around and clear my head. Dennis and I both got a good amount of the driveway cleared. No . . . it’s still snowing. There will be plenty for Randy to play with after he is done with work.
It’s now supper time. The serger is ready to go again. My cork fabric projects are done. Dennis has gotten some snow exercise and is enjoying playing solitaire on his computer in the west house porch. Dennis’ mettle is in good shape. I may have stretched it a bit. It’s all about living and learning – and we sure do a good job of it here.