Big News!

No, we haven't heard from Jimmy Fallon.  Yet.  For those who saw the FaceBook post about the "virus song" Mark and I recorded, I do keep my FaceBook stuff pretty tight.  So, if you shared that post... well, it didn't share.  I opened up the audience on that post to "public," so it is sharable to anyone.  If you tried to share last night and it didn't happen, please try again.  I have no idea how many times it has actually been shared, but I am still waiting for "the call."

The real big news: Joan got a new sewing machine!  She has been looking, and had narrowed it down.  This morning, she met Cindy at this particular sewing/fabric store, and spent some time trying out this particular machine.

She equated it to: "Remember when you were a kid and you had a crappy guitar, then you got your first nice guitar?  This will be my first "Taylor" (guitar reference; no, that is not the brand of the machine) sewing machine>

She dropped me off at Steph and Dan's place on her way to meet Cindy.  The three of us are going to Waffle House for breakfast.  Yeah, that's kind of a big deal to me.  Steph and I planned for her to make me a new Vespa t-shirt with her Cricut equipment.  After breakfast, we stopped to get me a new t-shirt before heading back to their place.

Once back to their house, Steph went to work on the design.  Dan made a design for me that I will use on another shirt, but this is a design I bought off the internet: a sugar skull skeleton riding a vintage Vespa.  Looking at the design, it looks very detailed, and potentially complicated.  Steph assured me that it wasn't a problem, and she went to work on it...

I should have known that it was going to be overly-complicated when it took about 15 minutes for her Cricut to make all the cuts on this design... she said it is usually less than 30 seconds.  With all the cuts made in the vinyl that will be attached to the shirt, she has to "weed" all the bits that have to come off that vinyl... and there are hundreds of little bits that have to picked out.  Here is just a bit of the debris...

She spent well over 2 hours "picking"... I would have given up and said, "Oh, hell no, pick a different design!" way before that.  Yes, I felt guilty that this "simple project was taking so long...

Joan was done at the sewing machine place and back at Steph's before Steph was done.  The final design...

And how it looks on my shirt...

I like it!

After thanking Steph again for all the time she spent on this, Joan and I headed for the coach.  She wants to finish up the guitar quilt that she is working on before using this new sewing maching, but she had to open it up and check it out...

I would be lying if I said I knew anything about this sewing machine stuff.  I am excited for her, though.  She has done some other quilting projects in the past, but she has a renewed enthusiasm for it since we have been here in Phoenix and she has been able to work with Cindy (an experienced quilter who has given Joan a lot of guidance).

I look forward to more projects to come!