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Saturday 9 November 2013

New Machine!

I am very excited to tell you that my new sewing machine arrived yesterday! It is a Brother Sewing and Quilting Machine. There is a lot to play with on this puppy but the first thing I did after taking some practice stitches was to put on the free-motion quilting foot! I doodled on some scrap fabric and it was SO easy! I can't wait to do more free quilting.



One thing that I finally took the time to check on was the watt usage of my electric iron. Oh. My. God. Because we live "off the grid" and supply ourselves with all of our own electricity, I pay a lot of attention to our power usage. We monitor an inverter and batteries and you can bet that all the lights are turned off if nobody is in the room. A sewing machine is not a major concern because the power it uses is intermittent, and basically all it does is move a needle up and down. An iron on the other hand is a heating element and therefore is a HUGE electricity draw - a whopping 1100 watts!! That is a lot! Turn on every light in your house and then you still wouldn't draw as much as that thing. Yikes! What am I going to do? I have a couple of small projects waiting to be quilted and I'm dying to get going on them, but they MUST be ironed. And, of course, right now it gets dark at 5:30 and the weather has been rainy. Not much sun shining on the solar panels! I am officially on the hunt for an old-fashioned iron. As in, an actual piece of iron that I can put on the woodstove to heat up, without using any electricity.

The view from my sewing room window on this grey and rainy day.

In the meantime I am sorry to report that I have a sniffly cold, probably as a result of my Hallowe'en sugarthon. I am paying for my crimes and man I would trade ten of those sugar cookies for two clear nostrils right now. Little David has a cold, too. On the upside I enjoyed some delicious juice today, first carrot and ginger and then a blend of apple, ginger, and kale. The kale pretty much disappears with the sweetness of the apples. Highly recommended by yours truly. Here's hoping it'll kick this cold in the butt and we'll be breathing free and easy soon!

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