Yesterday I was rushing around getting ready for a Dr's apt so wasn't paying a lot of attention to my surroundings. As I came out of the dressing room into the bedroom I noticed smoke coming from near my embroidery machine--was it smoke? Was it steam from a cup of coffee? I went to investigate and good grief!!!
I have one of those wonderful lamps from Jo-Ann Fabrics that has a daylight and a large magnifying glass attached to it, perfect when I'm doing something on the machine. It sits next to the machine of course. My sewing room faces South and is very bright when the sun beams in during the day. In fact if I'm sewing I have to draw the blind behind the machine to keep from blinding myself. THAT is what happened. The sun was beaming in and reflecting off that huge magnifying glass and actually had burned 2 little holes in the cover I put over my machine--which I put over it to protect it from the sun.
I like the fact that the sun beams in because it heats the room which might be a bit cold to work in otherwise but wow, I never gave it a thought when I placed that lamp near the machine. Imagine if I had left already, my house might have burned. My expensive embroidery machine could have been toast. I'm horrified with the thought.
Luckily the magnifying glass can be removed so I took it off the stand and put it in a cupboard so that its handy when I want to use it but not burning holes in my stuff when I don't want to use it.
Lesson learned, I hope if anyone reading this has one of those magnifying glass/lamps you learn from what happened to mine and we can all avoid the awful consequences.