Darn.

It's been one of those days. Last night I accidentally shut a cat into my longarm room. I don't know quite how I managed it but I did. The cat was very good and stayed away from the quilt, but he did dig up the carpet and block the door. I managed to persuade it and get in though, so it could have been worse. I am very impressed he didn't go on the quilt. When I first got the frame the cats thought it was just so I could make them the best and biggest bed. I put a lot of effort into explaining this was not the case. I guess they got the message. I don't intend to test it too often though.

One of the reasons I bought a longarm is I have an old shoulder injury which doesn't like hand sewing and tends to be aggravated by machine quilting large quilts on the domestic sewing machine. Most of the time using the longarm doesn't cause me a problem. You can tell there is a but coming, right, but today I have managed to upset it . I think the quilting was fine, the unpicking wasn't. I think I need to have the frame higher for unpicking than for sewing. I managed to sew a hand size area of small pebble pattern in the wrong place. Took about 15-20 minutes to put it in, an hour and a half to get it out. Tiny stitches overlapping each other are not easy to get out, and boy does my arm ache now. So what do I do next? I have too much to do to want to just sit doing nothing, but I don;t think quilting feels like a good plan. I have to draw a couple of patterns but that requires bending down too, and I suspect will be equally bad. Hrumph. Who would have thought a few stitches in the wrong place could be so hazardous. On the bright side the quilt I was working on is looking pretty good and I think I should be able to finish it tomorrow, shoulder permitting.