Rolling A Burrito/Finishing The Easy V Express Top Neckline

One of the things that I've come to enjoy the most about the blog is chatting with all of you, sharing a bit of my life and hopefully, a few bits of inspiration. 

Back in May, I had an alternator failure on the airplane. A few years ago, I was on my way to Cincinnati with a dog in tow. The dog was the kind of rescue flight that I enjoy most as he was going to his new home. Before I left Chicago, I noticed a whirring sound in my headset. I adjusted the squelch, the sound went away, all of my other pre-flight checks were good, so off I went. After about an hour in flight, I once again heard the whirring sound, I once again adjusted the squelch, and it went away. Then suddenly, about 30 miles out of Cincinnati, a screaming noise came through the headset, and then...total silence. All of my electrical equipment was gone, and at that point, I had no idea what may go wrong next, so it was a 'get it on the ground now' situation. Luckily, there was a small country airport just a mile or so away. Since I had no means of communicating, I did a scan of the area, said a prayer, and began my approach. I'm still here, so you know it all went well :)

As it turned out, not only did I have an alternator fail, the battery had boiled over and fried the battery box. Just a mess of a situation. But, the mechanic was able to get me back up and running enough to get the plane back to Chicago. Before leaving, he drilled into me that I was basically flying a broken airplane and that I needed to take extreme caution. Once in flight, turn off the radios and don't turn anything on until I was where someone could easily come and get me. As I entered the Chicago airspace, I turned on my transponder, all was good. Then I turned on 1 radio, still good. I called Midway tower, got my squawk code and at that point, even if everything failed, I should be able to make it home. When the gear touched down at Midway, it was the biggest sense of relief I've ever felt! Thankfully, the recent alternator failure wasn't nearly as exciting. I realized what was happening before I ever left the ground. 

This past week, my mechanic and I met at the airport to install the alternator and do the annual inspection. At one point as he was working, he said, "hmmm, not good." I've learned over the years to just take whatever it is in stride, after all, I'm on the ground, and at this point, anything can be fixed. The insulation around the throttle cable was gone and the cable was quite worn. So, what does this mean? Well, the cable could break in flight which means that you no longer have control of the throttle. He told me that he has heard of cases where when the pilot pulled back on the throttle that the entire thing came out in their hand. Well, that would make for a fun situation...NOT!!! 

My new throttle cable arrived yesterday. It's so pretty. My husband laughed about how excited I was about a throttle cable. I reminded him that a throttle cable is a lifeline. He no longer thought it to be so funny.  

At long last, I finally have the video together for the burrito neckline finishing method. If you haven't already figured it out, I think you are going to love learning this new technique. In the picture below, you see the back neckline of the dress that I made using the Islander Easy V Express Top pattern. Very nicely finished.

                

Now a view from the inside.

And because the back is finished so well, the front neckline also lays beautifully against the garment.

In the video, you'll hear how I made this video. It's a little funny :/ Oh, and I want to apologize as I have been dealing with allergies the last few days, so my voice is a little weak. But all in all, I think the video will give you a good idea of how to execute the burrito method and beautifully finish the neckline of your garment.

With anything in life, knowledge is king. Be it dealing with a mechanical failure in an airplane, or knowing how to make what we do even better. 

I came across this quote and I thought it would be a nice way to end the post;

Real knowledge like everything else of value is not to be obtained easily. 

It must be worked for, studied for, thought for, and even more, 

practiced.