Stitching day at Karen’s

Today I had the most wonderful day in the company of stitchers and patchworkers at the home of Karen of The Stitching Post/Dragonfly Dreams fame.  The company was awesome, as always, the food sublime, and the chatter endless and interesting.  It was lovely to see some finished works as well … and I was seriously tempted to mug one of the patchworker’s quilts she was paper-piecing – you don’t have to think too hard to guess it was in scrumptious blues!!

As we were saying goodbye at the end of the day we got chatting about sewing machines, and how I really do dislike my el-cheapo one I bought on sale at Spotlight – and that I seriously miss my old Janome machine.  You may/may not remember that my old faithful machine I’d had for 20-odd years finally gave up the ghost just as I was putting my belongings into storage … so I splurged on a cheapo one to tide me over until I could afford another good one.

Anyway, Karen then surprised me by saying she had an old spare Janome just laying around and she’d been wondering what to do with it, and would I like it?  My jaw just about hit the floor – and the wonderful kind soul that she won’t accept any payment for it, rather that it’s in thanks for doing the model stitching for her.  I was seriously gob-smacked (and still am!), and I actually felt quite choked up when we picked it up from the shop on the way home.  Karen, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so very very much … I’m actually now looking forward to stitching again with it – I’ve got pile of gifts I’ve been wanting to get finished, but I haven’t grown to love my own machine yet and therefore putting off using it ‘cos I just can’t get the tension right.

No piccies yet, as I really need to get cracking and do my packing for my holidays – my flatmate will be enjoying the peace and quiet until I get home again … and I’ll probably be offline for a while longer.  I’ll post piccies on my return, along with some holiday snaps – but I couldn’t go without acknowledging my unbelievable gift!  😀