Quality Time With the Beast

The painting project is done, although I still have to unmask everything. I am glad to have that off the to-do list. The bathroom renovation is next. I have to discuss that timeline with the husband. He may want to wait until the fall. A lot of corners were cut when that house was built in the 1980s and the bathroom desperately needs an exhaust fan.

I reserved yesterday afternoon for working on some sewing projects on The Beast, my Juki 1541 industrial. A few weeks ago, my friend Twila brought a leather tote bag to church and asked if I could sew the handle because it had ripped where it connects to the bag. On Tuesday, one of our employees brought me a sling for his rifle and asked if I could make a modification to it. And I’ve had the Kandou Patterns Retro Sling waiting to be finished since last fall. All of those projects needed to be done on the Juki.

I did the sling modification first. It wasn’t difficult and didn’t take long, but it also wasn’t something I’d done before and I was making it up as I went along. I was happy with how it turned out and I think our employee will be, too.

The Retro Sling literally only needed three seams and it was done. It was a good reminder to me not to let projects languish when they are mere feet from the finish line. I had to bind the first inside seam, sew the back half of the bag to the gusset, then bind that seam. It took me a grand total of about 45 minutes. The exterior of the bag is waxed canvas and I had to heat up the bag with the hair dryer to turn it inside out, but I love it:

The perspective in this photo is way off for some reason. This looks like the size of a backpack on the dress form—and there is a similar pattern by this same company for a backpack just like this—but this is a smaller sling bag. I’ve been wanting something like this to carry to shows and other events. I would have used it last week at the quilt show in Spokane if it had been finished. 🫤

Unfortunately, I was not able to fix the bag Twila gave me. Every time I tried to put the needle down into the material, I tripped the safety on my machine. I think there is some kind of reinforcement around the top of the bag that the needle couldn’t pierce. I was very surprised, because that machine is designed to sew all kinds of thick materials, but I also know not to push my machines beyond their limits.