Getting frustrated

I haven't been doing much this week. My big dog had surgery so I've been keeping an eye on her. It's limited my time in the studio.

So I have this embroidery machine - one of those sewing/embroidery deals. I don't know why I bought it because I knew that I'd never use it. But we talk ourselves into these things. So since I hardly use it I always seems to have problems - haven't learned all the little tricks or something. Yesterday I decided to make a design to put on a t-shirt for my daughter. I did a couple of designs in the software and I'm happy with them. So I thought I would stitch them out on an old t-shirt for practice. The first time I stitched the frog the thread kept breaking. I kept rethreading it and it would sew some more and then stop. I finally tried to lift the hoop to see what was up and somehow it had sewn the throat plate to the t-shirt. WHAT? I had to take the plate off the machine and cut the t-shirt off of it. Okay - try again. I rehooped and it worked okay. So I have the design with the frog. Then I decided to stitch out the design with the lizard. This time the thread broke about every 30 stitches and it made a mess on the front and a bigger mess on the back. By now I was very frustrated - I had changed threads, changed needles, changed stabilizers - I tried everything I could think of but it made no difference. Finally I stopped the machine - took the work out and ripped it out - literally - I ripped it right off the darn t-shirt! Made me feel better though, tee hee. Can you see the big hole on the lower right?