New assistant

    Do you thread your machine with your right or left hand?   Never thought much about it until I tried to do it with my right hand......unbelievably impossible!   Everything was going the wrong way and I was wasting a few miles of thread here.    Obviously,  I need to new technique to accomplish this feat.   So, on my feet----stand up, place thread in left hand and guide it through the guides and tension, then sit down. Thread the needle with the right hand.    Note----if you ever see someone in class stand up to thread their machine, just know they have problems with the shoulder!

    Now,  I need a few strips cut for more blocks.  Challenge for the quilter with a broken wing......rotary cutting requires 2 hands, one to cut and one to steady the ruler.  I spied a little assistant sitting on my shelf acting as a bookend..... my Grandmother's sad iron.
    I have 2 of these.  They have been  used as doorstops,  bookends, and generally just on display for long time.  They weigh about 7 pounds.   But why are they called sad irons?   Sad is an old term that can also mean flat or heavy.   I can only imagine how awful it was to actually iron clothes with them...I would be feeling sad after using one all day.
 

    But  this sad iron was an answer to my problem.  I needed something with weight.  So fabric plus slotted ruler plus sad iron plus rotary cutter equals strips.     I would not suggest using the sad iron on the acrylic rulers---the ruler could still shift or the iron could crack the ruler from uneven weight---but on the flat slotted ruler, it works well.
     Cutting strips solved.
     Happy stitching.