Another morning at Kentriko, and I am getting

It has been a different sort of day altogether, with hail storms and rainbows before I left the house. The students are in the streets protesting the most recent austerity measures placed on the breaking backs of the Greek people, and the pharmacies have locked down the prescribed medication I take daily for chronic pain. It is very mild by US standards, but strong and suspect here. After proving my legal ability to obtain them, which included whipping out my rarely needed Alien ID card, I'm set for another month. I do have a very strong alternative on hand, but I prefer not to take it unless I'm ready to scream from the pain. I really miss playing softball and doing interpretive dance.

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with machine embroidery. Other than just chatting about my morning, it is actually quite reminiscent of some days in my sewing room. You know the types of days I'm talking about. It's those days that everything goes a little wonky, or just seems a bit off, no matter what.

For me, if I want to accomplish some embroidery quilting, this can be anything from not being able to find the right type of stabilizer to forgetting to change out the thread ... a disaster if I'm using water-soluble thread for basting. If I want to do applique embroidery, it means cutting my fabric too small for the patch it needs to cover or losing my favorite trimming scissors.

Some days I can't even insert a needle straight. Luckily, the automatic needle threader on my embroidery machine won't work if the needle isn't in place, so I've got something to let me know to fix it before disaster strikes. I wish I had helpers like that for everything else that can go wrong!

Most times, it is just realizing that I'm low on some much needed embroidery supplies. While I have other products that will work, they usually aren't quite right for the project. I can force them to work, but I prefer not to (much like my meds). Being here in Greece, sometimes I just have to make due since they are quite far behind the rest of the Western world when it comes to machine embroidery.

What they lack in modern products, though, they make up for in the beauty of the embroidery projects they create completely by hand. Occasionally, I will come across a project that has benefitted from machine embroidery designs, but they few and far between. If I need something, I just need to wait for it to get here by mail. Very slow mail.

So, while I wait for my embroidery supplies to come by Pony Express, I still zoom around the sewing room trying to get too many projects done at once. It's just the way I am. Always active. Maybe I should change this.

Instead of stitching embroidery designs like I'm trying to win the Indy 500, maybe I should adopt a Kentriko technique. Slow and mellow; enjoying every step of the process. Hmmm, I wonder if I can get my main squeeze to serve me cappuccino while I'm in there.