Ahhhh - the weekend!

Gee, it seems like Saturdays are more fun these days since I'm all calm and not trying to recover from a terrible week. Now Saturdays are back to being a day to actually practice relaxing and having fun!! This Saturday started off with a SEW DAY at my house with Leslie, Rosie and Chari - my own Ms. No-Blog. Somehow I managed to not get any pictures of the SewDay (!) but I did get snaps of two little guests who were too shy to stay very long:

We've been watching these two cuties for a few weeks now and boy do they grow fast!! The first time we saw them they looked like house cats with long legs. They're probably thigh-high now, still in spots and so so cute! I'm glad we're on their daily circuit.
So for my Sew Day project I didn't work on a quilt, I worked on my Bunco table cloths. Each of them is a modified 9-patch that is custom fit to the table top, and each has the black center so you can see the rolled dice better. The side borders will be fitted at the corners to make a box-shaped topper that won't slide all over the place as we play. They will also each have the 3 appliqued dice on the sides although each tablecloth will have different colored sides, this one is red. The second one I think will be aqua, and the third maybe dark gold - I'm still debating.

The dice are printed on fabric adhered to paper-backed fusible and cut apart. The plan was to do a quick machine zig-zag around the sides of the dice to secure them. Easy project to do while visiting and giggling, right? Well, my machine started right off skipping stitches. I fooled with the tension and that didn't help. I got a new needle and that didn't help - still skipping stitches. I un-threaded and re-threaded top and bobbin and that didn't help. I changed bobbins. I changed thread. I changed MACHINES and still skipped stitches! I changed stitches - maybe straight stitch instead of zig-zag. Nope - still skipped but the straight stitch looked much better. I changed needles again, to a larger size 12, and switched to a heavier thread - no dice. (ug - bad pun!) I switched back to thinner thread in the larger needle - still skipping stitches so I pulled the whole thing out of the machine, wadded it up and threw it behind the couch. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! I had 3 honest to goodness ladies in my house so I didn't say what came to mind, but I'm sure they heard anyway - LOL!! It was still a wonderful, terrific, relaxing day with good friends and good food and that sure made the aggravation bearable, even funny. Thank you my dears!
After my friends left, I got a quick nap then we packed up the 2 oldest GS's age 16 and 14 and went to the boat races. At a paved racetrack! ROFL - it was hysterical! Here's the premise - you get your old beat-up jalopy and old unwanted boat and paint them up with gaudy designs and personal slogans. You hook the boat to the car with rope and don't bother with a trailer, just drag the boat on the road behind you. Then put 20 of these outfits on a racetrack that's been raced on by real cars for a few hours so it's good and slick. Oh yea - get the biggest water truck you can find and water down that oily track real good - spray the crowd too while you're at it! OK - the last car still running with boat still attached is the winner, so you want to wipe out your opponents as fast as possible.

We laughed so hard our faces hurt! There was debris everywhere, a few times wild boats went screaming past us skidding along ON THE FENCE and the noise was incredible! Any boat was a target - another driver would take aim, accelerate and smash into it as fast as he could! Every couple of laps they'd stop the race and remove drivers, but the wrecked cars and boats stayed right where they died!! So if there was a big boat that ended up right across the track that's where it stayed and got turned into trash by the next car to come by. There was no holding back - these guys were putting on a show and all 6,000 people loved it. You can see we're very close to the track which adds to the thrill since those wrecks happen less than 15 feet away!

It was certainly the highlight of the nights racing, and this time NO ONE left early! I've never seen the racetrack so crammed, and parking was a nightmare but I'm sure glad we went, it was quite a spectacle. The boys were beside themselves and all the way home talked about fixing up an old car and racing. Well, Grandpa raced, Dad raced, Uncle raced; heck I even raced motorcycles many years ago so it's about time for these guys. Grandpa and I told the boys we'd buy them a car but they have to foot the bill for everything else, then we dropped them off at their house and scurried into our house locking the door behind us so Mom couldn't get us!! LOL!!
Back to my derailed table cloths. I still love the idea and I'm not ready to give it up so back to the drawing board. I sure wish I knew why all of a sudden I can't get a decent stitch with that fusible; it's always worked fine before! Plan B will be to print on plain fabric backed with freezer paper and just pinned onto the background. I know that method works! How's your weekend?