W.I.P. Wednesday {and a tale of woe}

Wednesday again! I have a little bit to show, a little bit on the way {I've shopped, read the end of this post if interested}, and a sad story to tell.

So you know how I've been working through my scraps?? I thought I had exhausted the majority of my supply, but believe it or not I've squeezed yet one more quilt top out of scraps! The white, I purchased - it is a sub-par, craft store cotton...kind of ugh to work with - but the prints are all from my scraps. Who knew that what I thought was a small amount of scraps could go so far!!!?? I certainly didn't!

I know that these look like traditional flying geese, but they're actually half square triangles sewn together to give the same look. My older son looked at this and said he thought it looked like a bunch of fast forward symbols, and he's definitely right!

Okay, so my sad story. I'll try to keep it brief. Ooooh, maybe point form will work....

~ few weeks ago I hit a pin with my (two month old) machine....we're talking badly. As in loud noise, pin disappeared, all that was left of it was the little plastic ball from the top of the pin.

~ talked to my saleslady who told me that if the pin truly did go into the machine, it is very unlikely that it wouldn't be found after taking the bobbin/bobbin case out and needle plate off, etc.

~ did that, looked and looked, vacuumed, etc., and never found it. So maybe I'll never know if it actually went in or if it flew out into the room somewhere.

~ machine has pretty much worked normally since then - not jammed, no tension problems, nice stitches - only problem is this annoying tick-tick-tick sound when running. Saleslady gave me the go-ahead to continue using it until I was able to go into town to have it checked.

~ fast forward to today - ticking sound annoying, decide to clean it out again, unscrewed the top panel cover where the thread tension mechanisms are just to make sure there wasn't a thread stuck somewhere or anything else obviously wrong. Took panel off, and THIS fell out:

~ can we say freak out???

~ email saleslady with picture, she shows it to their tech who says it's not a familiar piece

~ bottom line, I'll have to take my machine the 1.5hr drive in to get checked. I'm mad at myself that maybe I caused this, have no idea how soon it can be fixed or if it will be covered by warranty, etc. Grrrrr.

Okay, so that wasn't brief but I had to get it off my chest. Thankfully I still have my mom's machine as back-up, which I will most definitely be using in the meantime. Thanks Mom!!