"Gingerbread" "House" Weekend

Some friends have a family tradition of building holiday gingerbread houses using graham crackers instead of gingerbread and building anything but a house.  This year, the group gathered to build a vegetable garden, dog park, fire hydrant, dog house, two houses (one small house and one white house-inspired house with a huge hot tub), and my creation, a sewing machine. 

It worked out perfectly because I had to drop my own dear Sofia off at the dealer/repair shop on Saturday morning to have a couple of noises checked out and the threader repaired.  The threader stopped working as soon as I changed the needle for the first time.The noises include a metallic noise that occurs when the thread uptake lever reaches its high point and a thunking noise that occurs when beginning to sew again after winding a bobbin.  I also needed more bobbins.  The machine supposedly takes a standard size bobbin, but the Babylock bobbins are not exactly the same as the other brands.

So, I have a "loaner" sewing machine!  :-)  Behold it's beauty and fine craftsmanship:

Front View. You can see the buttons, tension apparatus, thread uptake lever, needle, and needle plate (under which is a bobbin case and bobbin).  The bobbin thread feeds through the needle plate.

Top View. You can see the spool of thread, bobbin winder, and handle.

Side View. Hand wheel and on/off switch on this side.

Back View

You can see the "fabric" ready to sew!  Despite my laziness-induced failure to cover the machine in frosting and decorate it properly, I am very proud of my creation!

Sewing!

In non-gingerbread sewing this weekend, I finished the rest of the petals and more than half of the thread tracing of the overdress.  Instead of using the tracing paper, I left the muslin pinned to the overdress pieces until after I finished thread tracing each piece.  After I finish this thread tracing, I will begin assembling the foundation, yay!