Sewing machine woes and a few projects

So, I can't sew or embroider right now.  My machine (a beautiful brother SE400 that I just bought on 30 Sept - yes about 2 weeks ago) is not functioning correctly at this time.  I'm a bit miffed.  The tension won't adjust - at all.  The bobbin thread is showing on the running stitch and the zigzag is skipping zigs and zags.  Grrrrr.  Called the only place that services brothers for more than 50 miles and was told that I could bring it in, but there are 6 machines ahead of mine and the guy that works on them only works Tues, Thurs and Sat.  Also, he wasn't in yet (it was tues morning at about 9:30) and she wasn't sure when he was coming in.  Note to self: consider taking a sewing machine repair course.

 I emailed service from Brother's website to see if they could tell me what was wrong.  Hoping for the best.  Will keep you updated.

Machine issues aside, here's  a few things I either forgot to post last time or worked on before the machine died.

Wearing these today:

 A very good friend of mine saw my key earring and loved them.  Unfortunately her ears aren't pierced.  Could have done clip-ons, but once I told her I had a similar choker pattern, we knew what had to be done:

There was much squealing when I gave it to her. (As always, the wonderful embroidery patterns came from my favorite place on the web: Urban threads.

One other project, based on the tutorial found here: http://www.urbanthreads.com/tutorials.aspx?t=Restyled+Shrug

These two shirts (picture the black one as a long sleeve t-shirt, I forgot to take a pic before hacking away)  Plus this ribbon:

Give you this (sorry, forgot to turn the pic)  I didn't grab a pic of the embroidered back.  I will try and get a better pic of this later, the very lovely Shey has agreed to be my model for the things I make so I can have nice pictures - She's worlds more photogenic than I am.