Ouch! Accidents happen...

I still can't believe the stupid thing I did last week. Everybody knows about the dangers of needles and sharp objects in general. For years I have been teaching the kids to stay away from my work area and not touch my sewing needles, unless I am supervising. So what did I do? I dropped a needle, and not a small one at that, on the rug in our family room. This needle got stuck with the rear end up in the air. And guess what happened next? I stepped on it. Not lightly. Not halfheartedly. Nope. I stepped on it hard, so hard that the "darn" thing penetrated a toe on my left foot. Not halfway. Nope. All the way through! Ouch! It was the weirdest thing. You know the sort of thing that, when it happens to you, you look at yourself and think: Oh, no! That's not my foot. No, no. This just did not happen to me!" The kind of situation where you separate yourself from your own body, because otherwise you could not stand it. Maybe like in childbirth. This hurts!

Since the other people in the room, I won't name any names here, showed no reaction to my plight - well it had been a pretty good movie, until this point - I hobbled out of the room to inspect the damage. After all you don't want to curse or bleed in front of the kids...

Good thing I did that mind/body separation thingy. Otherwise I would have fainted at what I saw. The needle was stuck right in the middle of my toe with the back end pointing up. Yessiree! How in the world? Shouldn't there be a bone or something? Must have gone right past it.

Whatever! I pulled it out. Sharp end first. Just the way it had gone in...Strangely enough there was NO blood. NOT a single drop of it. Can you believe that?

So I hopped to the bathroom to wash my injured foot. How do you wash out a puncture wound? How do you wash a wound that is on the inside of your body? Here I was, at 8.30 pm in the evening, standing in the bathroom considering my options. Images of the endless stream of bills for the ER room arriving at our house didn't help with the pain. I would have to make it through the evening somehow. So I went back to watch the rest of the movie. Can't remember what it was. Don't know how I made it through the night either. The throbbing went on all night. No doubt the bacteria were having a fun fest in my toe.

The next morning the family did appear a wee bit more concerned about my red swollen angry looking toe. At 7 am I managed to get a ride to Urgent Care. I love those people! The doctors and nurses are fantastic there. I got my Tetanus shot, painmeds, and of course, the usual round of antibiotics. If only it wasn't for those bills....I suppose I could have tried to tough it out some more, but my husband had a horrible skin infection a few years back. Out of body experience or not - I did NOT want to see a repeat of that show...
My friends, I am on the mend! Hallelujah!

The Best Sewing Machine Ever. Or Ode to my Bernina

Oh, I cannot tell the many ways in which a good sewing machine makes the life of a seamstress better. I struggled for 5 years with various machines. One was DH's grandma's hand-me-down, an old Singer from the sixties. I loved it simply because it came from his dear old grandma and a lot of good memories were tied to it. But one day we tried to make sofa cover out of sailcloth with that poor old machine. Bad idea! It died instantly.
After that experience I started looking for a new model to cherish. Soon enough a friend came along and offered to sell me her new(er) Singer machine. Wow, for 150$ I got a Singer Millennium including every attachment you could ever think of. It was fun - for a while.
But when you are a professional and spend 3-4 hours a day sewing let me give you a piece of advice. Don't try to safe money when it comes to your most important tool! Get yourself a good work horse. I am not much of a computer person. I wanted a good, solid, mechanical machine. Not a fancy computerized one. So my first trip was to the Library to do some research on sewing machines. Unfortunately I cannot remember the title of this wonderful book that I found. But it was something cheesy like: How to choose and buy a sewing machine. With the help of the book I was able to figure out what I needed. The book also had great tips on how to set up your machine, and how to take care of it so it won't break again.

I played with the idea of buying an old industrial type machine. Lots of praises were sung about those. I looked at various models for sale on Ebay and etsy. My husband was wringing his hands. Honey, why would you buy someone else's problem? Just get yourself a good new machine from a reputable store in the area where we live. Well, I hate to say it. But as usual, the man was right. He gave me the best advice of all. In the end I went to a local dealer and bought a Bernina 1008. I absolutely love it! It runs as smooth as butter. Over are the days of cursing like a sailor or washerwoman...I am a much happier person. I can rely on this Swiss miracle every day! It has never given me any trouble whatsoever!
It works well on all kinds of fabrics I use for my doll clothes. I work with cotton, flannel, linen, and velour. The velour fabric used to cause the worst problems. The Singer Millennium would get clogged up and eat my fabric ALL the time.
The Bernina is like fine Swiss watch. I did not know that sewing could be so much fun and easy until I bought this machine. Gone are the days of running to the repair shop because of tension problems...Gone are sad days of not being able to get to your custom orders because of a broken machine
If you love sewing: Spend the money and buy a Bernina! And I swear they did not pay me to say those things!

Happy Sewing,
Your German Dollmaker