I was at Value Village last night with my dad, a rare treat since we usually don’t get to go anywhere together and just spend time hanging out. We had a great time going to Cash Converters and laughing at the junk, remembering the good old days before it got really bad. Then we went over to, like I said before, Value Village and wandered around.

I hit up the pattern section while my dad headed towards the mens clothes and household items. I found a few cute patterns for $0.69 a piece and thought that my night was made. A nice Simplicity shift dress? Score! I walked towards the back of the store where my dad was supposed to be and I found him huddled in a corner texting as quickly as he could.

All I have to say is thank goodness for large, scary looking dads because if not then I might not have a serger right now! Apparently there was a woman pacing around peeking around him at the serger waiting to see if he was going to take it or not. He was, he just needed both hands to carry it and he couldn’t text my mom at the same time.

It’s a Hobbylock 776 by Pfaff. The poor little thing is filthy dirty, someone didn’t bother taking care of it. The knobs are encrusted in dust, as is pretty much every single other piece of machinery. Not to mention the lovely pile of fabric lint that we found hanging out in the bottom of the machine with a few dead bugs. It’s nothing a good vacuuming won’t fix, though, and in fact I think it’s almost ready to start dabbing at it with the brush to get the last of the dust out, then it needs to be oiled. Oh and it needs a new lightbulb, too. Otherwise it seems to be in working order, or will be once we get the thread jam fixed. There’s thread wrapped all around several moving parts and it’s restricting their movement.

As for my hand, well, it’s still really sore, but I have pretty much resumed normal use of it. I think I’ll wait a bit before I start to knit again, perhaps another week, the scary thing about it was that I was unable to use my other fingers, it affected such a large portion of the muscle in my thumb. Thank goodness that it’s over, though, because I have things to serge!

(Ever wonder what I like to sew on? It’s a Bernina 1630 and I love it dearly. It’s an awesome little workhorse and hasn’t failed me yet. Except for that time I used bad thread without realising it. My mom uses it too, but prefers her Elna, no idea what the number is. Now we have 3 machines, one vintage from the 40s/50s and a serger! Score.)