getting to know her Brother

On Friday, I woke with a gummed eye. I suspected conjunctivitis and asked WM to go to the chemist (drug-store) for some eye drops. However, it could just be an allergic reaction to all the wood-smoke pollution in the air. It is unseasonably cold and people all over the neighbourhood have been lighting fires. That would be okay but many of them seem to go year after year without getting their chimneys cleaned. Even with the house closed up tight, the smoke still gets in and irritates our eyes, noses and throats (which does not help the fact that we both have had very heavy colds this week; him since Sunday, me since Wednesday).


Well, that's enough of my ranting...

I spent Friday sitting inside in the intermittent sunshine of my new studio, getting to know DD's Brother sewing machine. As suggested by Elizabeth, our quilting tutor, I put every one of the stitches on the machine through its paces, varying both stitch length and width. Most of them are not meant to be decorative stitches, they have practical uses like "blind hemming", joining elastic, making scallops, or joining and finishing seams at the same time. Nevertheless, Brother got a workout and his side kick, Manual, was heavily used too. I now have a fair idea of what stitches I can use in a decorative way on the appliqué quilt I talked about here and here.

And, because I know you want pictures, here are some photos of my 'sampler', all carefully annotated!

Is this kind of stitching normally done with a heavier thread?