Winning out over frustration

Well, Saturday was a total waste.  I worked off and on ALL DAY LONG on the tension on my sewing machine.

I tried using the So Fine! thread that Nancy gave me in a trial kit, but I couldn't get it to work.  After trying quite a bit with tension, I ended up having to put it back where I started.

Then I put the King Tut back on and thought I turned it back but I was having problems with it sewing along fine and then loops or a snag and then sewing along fine again.  Because of the loops I assumed that the tension needed to be tighter and yet it never seemed enough.

At the end of the day, I finally took a picture of my problem and sent it via email to Nancy at Pennywinkle Ranch.  Once you buy a Sunshine16, you are part of the family and Nancy is always there to help.  She suggested that I needed to check that the thread was all the way between the tension disks.  Her suggestion was that the tension was too tight and causing the thread to jump out from between the disks.  Well, that's logical.  It sews along fine and then all of a sudden the tension is too loose because it jumped out.  Then it was in again and then out again.  So I took a leap of faith and turned the disk a quarter turn looser and still had the problem.  Then I thought I was able to find the original mark I made and so I turned it practically a whole turn looser.  And Wala!  It was almost perfect!  After all of my frustration for a whole day and then I just stumbled into the right place.  Tiny, tiny increments allowed me to get closer to perfect and I think I am finally ready to go again.  Now I just need to make sure I can mark the tension dial to be able to get back here again.

That will be tomorrow's assignment.  So here I am STILL.  All loaded up and ready to be quilted.

And how fitting that my order of King Tut thread arrived this evening.