The Death of Hello Kitty....

Is that Death on the line? 

Farewell...  Battle Hardened Veteran...

Cheryl's Sewing Machine died today.   Hello Kitty has been with us a while now... and has certainly seen a number of battles with Christmas Stockings.   It was battered, beat and broken several times...  with plenty of scars on the outer shell to prove her hardened, battle fatigue.  I took her apart several times to jury rig and clean parts that had shown irreplaceable wear.  I always had extra screws for some reason...

Time to Bury the Kitty...

Dead brushes = Dead Motor.

But the brushes on the motor have worn down.   Today was the final day...  She lacked power,  would hesitate, and ultimately simply stopped working all together.  we had to put her down.

The New Brother in Town..

Comes with everything plus...
a set of steak knives.

But here we are in the middle of the Stocking rush!   No time to grieve..  we headed to the store to purchase a make-shift replacement.   Something to simply make it through the day!  And hopefully the rest of the year.   The discontinued the Singer Tradition.. and Cheryl was used to her Hello Kitty buttons and dials.  We do not have the money to drop on something fancy,  or time to wait for researching and finding something online.   So...  we had to do with what was available.

Any new Sewing Machine names out there???

The Brother LX3817A.   Not a very memorable name.   Sounds more like something you would name a Droid in Starwars.  But I love my PE 770 Embroidery Machine from Brother...  And it has a number of features that I find better than the old Singer and traditional sewing machines.  Namely:  The Top Loading Bobbin.

Much easier than the Singer and Hello Kitty Machines,  the Drop Down top loading bobbin allows you to see the string on the bobbin to see if it is about to end.   No more guessing or finding out that the bobbin has run out half way through a stocking top.

Cheryl has to go back in time...

The downside... Because there is always a downside.    The downside is the learning curve.   With 30 stockings left to finish today, Cheryl had to learn the "Old School" way of Trial and Error.  Even I had to figure out how the bobbin worked the first time through.  ( Slightly different from the PE 770...  but there was time pressure involved.)   Hopefully the thread holder and stitch speeds will all even out as she gets used to the thing.   We shall see. 

30 stockings... Feels like 40!

In the mean time.   30 stockings today.   27 yesterday...  I lost count.   The stockings are no longer stock from the shop.  Now almost all of the orders are custom!   They order and then leave us a note to "change something" to look more like their dog or cat.   The word is out that Allenbrite Studio will do custom pets... and instead of asking.. just order and they will do it.   Who spreads these rumors?

Maybe employ the cat for something other than
"Shop Mascot?"

The Stockings are no longer "fun."  I think "fun" left us several years ago. Now it is simply a habit we can't seem to escape from.  "Trapped"    is a fitting word.   We are also running out of buttons and felt...  Not in every category.... but enough to make us sweat a little.  We were going to faze out Nautical Blue anyway.  And black buttons for the Eyes have lots of substitutes.  Our only salvation is that the season will be over soon enough.  There is light at the end.

So many other things to blog about.. but no time  and Limited Bandwidth.   I'll have to do it later..  tomorrow our Internet Limit should renew and I'll have more time to load pics and blather away.  Thanks for stopping in.