The light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter!  And I have been keeping myself focused on only this!   No “squirrel” allowed for me!   
(although a pattern has surfaced that I want to make for a class at work!   BUT, I really want to get DJ together!)
i need to dig around in my paperwork to see if I can get an idea of the year I started.  But I know it has been 10 years or more.

thanks for everyone’s encouragement to keep going….posting now and then about progress has helped me stay determined!

I am pretty sure that there was a topic and a lot of people on about.com that jumped on the Dear Jane bandwagon when it came out. I considered it myself and did a swap for 9 inch blocks but never started the little 4" inches. Maybe you started back then.

Dont really know how to describe this, but Ill try. We had that problem on almost all the long arms we owned. We had to even make some them ourselves as they weren't available like today. Make sure your thread is going straight into the needle eye, Dont have your thread guide off to the side. Try anyway of having it go straight into the eye. Another trick to use for a temporary fix to finish a job is to wrap the thread around your needle one time and sew slower. It may let you finish a project.

ohh...ok, will try the wrapping around the needle... I go pretty slow anyway...so no problem with that (maybe I need to speed up a bit?)

On the thread guide - what do you mean? What I am using is a cone on a stand behind the machine. If it's in line with the needle, I will be running into it with the quilt top. There are no other thread path adjustments I can make - its an 'Easy Load' where I just lay the thread in the path. It is curious that the direction that breaks is the opposite of where the thread stand is located....

I am going to try my Mama's Bernina soon (the machine I have been working on is a Singer 9100 Slant with a Westalee ruler foot) - I expect I will have another whole raft of questions when I try that machine! The ruler foot gets here on Monday. Don't know yet on that one if I will need to use the cone stand behind the machine or not - but probably will.

I wonder if someone makes a thread stand the attaches to the machine like on the long arms for a domestic...

Ill almost bet that the Bernina will do the job for you. The slant needle has some inherent problems of its own. Great machine for most sewing projects, but wasn't designed to do out of the ordinary .

The thead quides Im talking about are on the machine by the needle. You wouldn't have the ones I was talking about on your slant.

I'm sure Sandy loved seeing you, too.  Nice to have a chance to go back and see friends.  I'm glad my daughter still lives in the DFW area so I can visit old friends when we see her.

Beautiful, Ellen.  You are almost done!  Keep going.  We want to see it at the retreat.

My goal was to have it together for retreat.  But, I have so much on the rest of this week and next week, I am not sure I will make it.

Bring it almost done, I bet it is incredible!

yes...bring it even if its not all the way done!!