I swear, if I get any more sloth-like it'll be Christmas 2024 (or maybe even 2025, who knows?) before I get the two stockings I'm presently working on finished. I had thought about making one for David, our kids, kids-inlaw and myself but I'm not sure if that will happen this year. In the last two weeks, I have managed to complete two and I have two more that have been ready for the embroidered cuffs for several days. It wouldn't be so bad, but I must spread everything out on my dining room table then shove it all to one end for us to eat. I could use the table in the office, but then I couldn't watch television or be in the thick of things while I work. I blame my inability to complete the stockings on the boys visiting since I stop everything to play endless games but the reality is, I put things aside thinking everything will magically come together if I wait long enough. Those darn stocking fairies didn't show up again last night.
So, the boys went home and I resumed work. I put one of the cuffs on the embroidery hoop, positioned it on the machine and pushed the start button on the machine. Then I realized I hadn't sent the project from the computer to the machine so I remedied that and the machine hummed away. The embroidery program finished, the machine stopped, and I took it out of the hoop. I pinned it on the stocking and found the name in the wrong position (Of course, sigh.) and now the seam is not where it needs to be. I set up the next one, and that's when my machine decided 'Nope' it wasn't going to play nice. My machine tests perfectly on a piece of scrap material. It's when I put in the project that it chews everything up. Why does it do this to me? I stopped the machine, took the cuff off, reloaded the bobbin, replaced the hoop, resumed the project, pushed start and still it refused to work so I turned the thread around. This machine is so picky that if the spool is seated wrong it will refuse to work. It also took me 30 minutes to figure out how to attach the cuff to the stocking so the name is not upside down. It's a good thing I don't do this for a living, or I'd starve.
Anyway, I decided I'll whip it yet. No embroidery machine or Christmas stocking is going to get the best of me, darn it. To solve the problem of names in the wrong position I made another trip to the fabric store and bought enough extra fabric to make dozens of stockings so it should cover these two. This time I'll cut the cuff extra large, embroider the name then cut the cuff down to the size I need with the name centered and the seam where it belongs. We'll see if it works. I don't remember having this much trouble when I made the first ones many years ago. Beginners luck, I guess.
David, Trinity, and I are binge-watching whatever Christmas movie comes on, hoping it will get me in a better frame of mind. I'll get them done, eventually. I'm kind of like a car my parents drove that didn't like to start after it'd been the cold all night. At least I have my fireplace to keep me from freezing.
Here's hoping all goes well.