While I sometimes tell about weather of the front range of Colorado, it looks like this month I will tell you of massive rains and some flooding in western Colorado in October. The rain that was recorded at the Grand Junction totaled 2" which was the most two day total since 1941 and fourth highest in history. Wolf Creek pass had over 5" of rain. There was an evacuation of more than 390 homes in La Plata County due to flooding. Vallecito Creek and Grimes Creek have had "unprecedented" flooding with a high of 7,200 cubic feet per second captured for Vallecito Creek, which is more than double what a significant spring runoff event would produce. Then on October 17th there was magnitude 3.0 earthquake hit Colorado just before 1 p.m. The epicenter of the quake was about 30 miles to the southeast of Denver, just outside of Elbert, near Castle Rock. There were very few reports of shaking.
Now on to the single report for this month.
Lisa
Lisa has been quite busy in spite of being sick. She also sent a picture of the full quilt that parts of which were seen on the September 2025 Colorado Get-Together post.
Here is my update:
Update:
First, Here are pictures as requested of the front and back of the quilt I had used as a backdrop for the pictures on my last update. It was the Sweet Tooth mystery quilt from the Modern Quilt Studio.
Been a busy month for me personally and professionally. I visited Italy during my first trip to Europe. Such a lovely country and culture! Unfortunately, I got sick there, probably influenza, and spent most of my vacation in bed, self-quarantine. Came home and developed all the upper-respiratory -itises. Drugs and rest and I hope to be fully recovered soon. Here is a picture from right outside my room in Castel Gandolfo. This old girls show up in the most unlikely of places.
I have been building up my little business of service and repair of vintage and antique sewing machines. Because I can’t just leave it alone, I am expanding my repertoire to include modern machine maintenance by taking lessons and apprenticeship through the Sewing Doc Academy. Without being an “authorized service technician” for particular dealers, I will be limited in getting parts or doing repairs on modern machines, but general maintenance is still greatly needed.
This week, I picked up a Featherweight from a client who is donating it to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. I will be servicing it in preparation for the machine to be included in their Spring Fabric & Friends fundraising Auction. I briefly looked at it when picking it up and saw that it would be a suitable candidate for the auction. Today, I pulled it out of the case and realized it is a full-fledged Blackside, complete with black faceplace, stitch regulator plate, and presser bar lever! It will be a beautiful machine once it gets cleaned up! More information and pictures in upcoming months.
As I mentioned last month, I was the speaker at the CQC (Colorado Quilting Council) general meeting on Saturday. After a late start, I spoke on “Your Sewing Machine: How it works and what you can do to keep it running great.” The general meeting that preceded the speaker went an hour over, the PowerPoint slide formatting was corrupted in translation from my provided thumb drive, and moments prior to the introduction, they announced that a beloved long-time member had passed away that morning. Wow. An auspicious opening, but I still think some valuable information was presented.
Sunday I lead an all-day Featherweight workshop that helped 11 women learn more about their machines and increase their confidence in maintaining them on their own.
Coming up on Nov. 9, I will be doing a Sunday at the Museum lecture at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum entitled “Treadles, Hand Cranks & Motors--Oh My!”, following the evolution of the critical sewing machine components from 1900 to today.
Last but not least, I am starting a series of one-one-one, 1-hour workshops called First Friday Featherweight Fun where clients sign up for a session when they sit next to me as I do a general maintenance (cleaning, lubricating, adjustments, review for issues) on their machine and teach them how to do it themselves. This is geared for those machine owners who are too intimidated to attend a group session and may need assistance identifying the working end of a screwdriver.
I think I am doing this retirement thing wrong.
~ Lisa Selzler
In Closing
That is all we have for this month. Thank you for reading. We will post again next month.