Keep Swoops the *&$*#$ AWAY from my sewing machine!!!

ARGH!!!!

I am SO glad that I actually made a practice sandwich to work on today. My sewing machine worked *perfectly* yesterday. Today? I change threads and go to do *the exact same thing* - no changed settings or anything - just threads. And the bobbin tension was whacked. I changed it back *to the original threads* and it was STILL whacked. Unhappiness reigned.

I fiddled and changed, and fiddled and practiced and changed again, and finally got it working perfectly. Then I moved to a different part of the quilt. I didn't even change threads. Guess what? Whack City! ARGH! Add to this that I went to snip a thread while I was on the phone and took a 1/4 inch long chunk out of the edge of my almost finished quilt, and I am NOT happy with this progress.

I requested a temporary restraining order, and the 'quilt' is no longer allowed within five feet of my sewing machine. When it broke said restraining order and reappeared on my sewing table (I had NOTHING to do with that, mind you), I put it under house arrest on the design wall. It is being held there with straight pin restraints on all four corners so that it cannot escape and commit more heinous acts of whacked free motion quilting.

In the meantime, to console myself, I worked on my face for the QA mag challenge: and struck gold. I really enjoyed expressing my frustration with it, and I decided that the sample sandwich I had made and seen abused earlier being *precisely* 8.5 inches wide was an omen. Therefore, here is: "Seeing Red"
And you know what cinched it? I started quilting this with monofilament at the bottom, and it worked fine. Until I moved up to the nose, where it started making loop de loops again! As a result, only the tags and collar at the bottom are anything other than just fused down. C'est la vie. I quit!