Odds and ends

I was going to quilt first thing today, but first I needed to sew down the edges of my practice pieces and the table runner. But something was wrong with the sewing machine.

The machine is less than a year old, and I know that some time in the next few months I will need to take it in for a checkup. I'll take my lessons on the machine when it is ready to come home again. But not now! Maybe in April or May.

The machine wasn't advancing the fabric. I tried it out on just two pieces of fabric. I tried it out on a practice sandwich. No luck. The stitch formation was fine. But they were way too close together. I tried making the stitches longer in the machine. I tried a different stitch. Twice!

When something is wrong the first thing to do is to rethread the machine. Nope.

I was using a new thread from a company I had never tried before. I changed out the thread to one that I knew the machine had no problem with. Nope.

Maybe it was the walking foot. Maybe it didn't like the kinds of fabric it was stitching on. The stitches did look better on the plain fabric sandwich with no batting. Oh.....

It was the walking foot. It had not been installed correctly on the machine. I pulled it off and put it on again correctly. Everything worked.

There is more than just sewing going on in my life. I've had physical issues for years with my back and with walking. Last year I asked my family doctor for a chiropractor. She sent me to someone she trusted. She has other patients going to him. Things got better.

I'd done physical therapy a year earlier, but my asthma got bad and that affected my heart so I had to stop. The heart turned out to be OK. When the asthma got under control the heart stopped doing weird things. I decided to try to do the earliest and easiest chair exercises that the physical therapist had started me on. Things got better, and I ended up upgrading a few of the exercises to the standing versions.

I asked the chiropractor about massage therapy and the next thing I knew I was having massages once a week. She added in some additional physical therapy type exercises to the ones I was already doing to help deal with my very swollen feet. The feet are no longer that swollen. Things got better.

I could walk to my mailbox, but just barely right after Christmas. I decided to take my walker with me because I knew there was a heavy box in the mailbox. I went, got the mail, came back and realized that my back did not hurt. The next day I walked just a bit further in addition to getting the mail. I continued just a bit further every day and suddenly, two weeks ago, realized I'd made a breakthrough. I could walk about 5 or 6 blocks total (round trip) and come home out of breath, but my back did not hurt because the walker was supporting me.

Then came the freezing weather we have had for a week. I got to go out and walk a little bit yesterday and it was heaven. I'll do more today as it warms up. I need to be careful not to push too much, but being able to go out for a walk is wonderful. Maybe I'll take my camera with me.

Take care all.