Day 1509: My loyal sewing machine

I should have named my dear old sewing machine long ago.  She has served me well for just short of 45 years, but today she gave up.  Fifteen coats were stacked up and waiting to be sewn.  They'll wait.  I brought my friend home to pamper her with fresh oil and a deep cleaning.  With gentle care, hopefully she will stop jamming up and return to good working order.

We fitted the Nubian men with trousers and the handmaidens with dresses.  I cut new back panels for three coats to correct a mistake I made yesterday and then we cleaned up a week's worth of garments and fabric from the classroom.  It's progress, but not as much as we'd like.

The fabricators worked two full days on the beam repair so the stage could not be used for rehearsal and we can't get the wall hung tomorrow.  Usually Ben runs the whole show on the last day of Feb break, but that was not possible.  The repair delays have caused us to fall behind.  Upcoming concerts also will further interfere with the schedule.  The next month will be very intense. But for now, we have the weekend off.

Today I merged the three history chapters into one and started cutting.  Beginning with a word count of 11,100, I cut down to 9000 by deleting much of the personal details.  It hurts to cut some our stories, but I think it's actually helping the overall quality of the book.

Andrea and Ella assisting with cutting out patterns

Allison and Jill

Doreen organizing all the various pieces for the ministers' coats

Our lovely handmaidens

Ben working away