New giveaway!

I just visited a blog called Quilt Story.  The newest entry there is I Spy A Ladybug Giveaway.   The Ladybug Quilt Shop is giving away 8 fat quarters of the most luscious fabric!  Visit it and see what they have.

StIQy WIQet

Bummer!  My Y axis motor on the IQ broke/got stuck this past Saturday, and I needed to replace it.  I was on the list for the new, more powerful motors, but they don't have all the bugs ironed out yet, so I thought I was going to get a replacement older model and have to replace just one motor.

That was not to be.  Zoltan Kasa, the remarkable inventor of this robotics program, sent me two of the new motors on Tuesday.  And since they needed new mountings, he sent those as well.  With great fear and trepidation I gathered together my tools:  Allen wrench set, Phillips screwdriver, metal measuring tape, wire snips, wide ruler, etc.

Zoltan sent me the first set of motors, but the Y motor had a bent axle on its sensor wheel, so he needed to Fed Ex me another one, which arrived on Wednesday afternoon.  Meanwhile, I took a trial run installing the X motor.

I was able to put on the mountings, level them, add the motor, change the wheel base to allow the motor to clear the railing, make sure the motor was exactly parallel to the railings and screw everything down, ascertain that the drive wheel was just a hair's breadth above the railing in the resting position, and put the right plug into the right pins -- on the X axis motor.  I practiced on this one, since all parts are easily visible, unlike the Y motor.  But even so, it took me two hours!

Here's a picture of that tiny space between the drive wheel (black) and the railing.

Not so lucky with the Y motor.  It turns out that the intermediary mounting (just above that sexy looking rubber belted thingy) is 1/4" too short, so the motor won't clear the Y rails.  Back to the drawing board.  Zoltan says he will Fed Ex me a new plate tomorrow.  I'm getting used to this stuff, now.  But he sure is

spending alot of money with the Fed Ex people!!

Lest you think I am an ungrateful wretch, despite these setbacks, I need to tell you that nowhere else in the computerized robotics industry do you get such incredible, instant and specific help.  Zoltan couldn't apologize more for not being able to be here to do this work for me himself.  Both he and my substitute IQ dealer are traveling separately somewhere in the US and neither can fly back here instantly.  I don't really mind that it's all up to me.  However, DH's nose is out of joint, especially when I explained to him that I didn't want him to do the work, I just wanted to borrow one of his tools (the wire snipper).  I have accepted the challenge of doing my own machine maintenance!

Sooooooo, I get to sit on my hands again tomorrow while I wait yet another time for another part to my IQ.  But today the 5D Extra embroidery program for my HV Designer Diamond came in, and I ran down to Rocky Mount (about 1  1/2 hours away) to pick it up.  I'll install that onto my business laptop that I also use for the Diamond, and fiddle around with that until the mounting plate arrives.  This promises to be equally fun compared to putting on the new motors for the IQ, because I am equally "challenged" when it comes to computers and understanding how to fix it if something goes wrong.

  

                               

Accessories

You know how you have these fancy shmancy sewing/embroidery machines and all their software and all the feet -- even before you take the first class!  Well, I went a little overboard after I bought my first Husqvarna Viking Designer 1 back in 2002, I think.  I loved it.  Bought the 3D software.  Used it all as much as I could understand, which wasn't half bad. 

Then came an opportunity to buy another one at half price on ebay.  Brand new.  Never opened.  Not a reconditioned one.  With something like 20 feet included beyond what normally comes with the machine, and all the other bells and whistles.  So of course, I bought it.

I put one in my studio when we moved here, and one in my project room.  While the longarm is quilting away, I can put on binding or work on piecing another quilt.  And when friend, Mary, comes to visit, she doesn't have to bring her upscale Bernina -- or even her Singer featherweight. 

But what to do with all those feet?  For a few years they lived in one of the drawers in my sewing center and never saw the light of day.  Then I found some demos of their use on the HV site and elsewhere and started thinking -- isn't it time to get these things out and at least see what I've got?

Once I discovered that I have every foot ever made for the Designer series, I then had to think about how to store them in a place that was not only accessible but also portable.  I was scrounging around my project room, thinking I might make an accessory roll or some such thing when voila!  I found THREE of these accessory/thread/foot bags!!!  Basic black -- boring, but profesional looking.  Tan print -- understated but not really me any more.  Ahhhhh!  Dusty rose floral.  Now that's the ticket!  Feminine with a hint of scarlet...

I explored the outer pockets and put the large accessory feet in the very large outer zipped pocket.  There was an open pocket on the back with just a small velcro closing.  I left that free for patterns and the like.

Inside were pages, like in a notebook, velcroed into the spine of the bag.  Some pages had large zippered compartments and some had small ones.

I could leave the more complicated feet in their cards intact by storing them in the larger compartments.  And in the smaller ones, I could remove the foot from its card, trim the card so that just the number of the foot on the front and a pictured explanation of how it functions on the back of the card remained, and it would all still fit in one of the smaller compartments.

So now my machines' feet are totally organized!  Maybe you have a similar situation. You can find these bags at local quilt shops or online (usually under "organizers") or at any quilt exposition.  Enjoy!

Creation

It's finished!!!  My guild friend, Lois' beautiful Creation quilt is finished!  I must say that this quilt took me an extraordinarily long time to do.  I had to create six of the designs from scratch:  Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, central star bursts, Alpha and Omega.  These were then outlined in gold metallic thread and placed between the pieced stars, all except the Alpha, Omega and Earth.  Those were three of the four corners surrounding the central red and yellow fireball.  The fourth corner there was a Celtic symbol for the Trinity. 

One of my favorite additions was this moon figure, which I cut from a larger moon and stars block.  Other cut designs from that block included comets and shooting stars.

So now I'm taking the rest of the day off, having already cleaned the house this morning while waiting for my customer to come to pick up her quilt.  But first, I'll show you what darling hubby did for me this past weekend.

I have to get the poles trimmed, but if they turn out to be the right distance from the wall for me to use the outer portions as hanging rods for my quilts-in-waiting, I may just keep the tallest one that long.  I have more batting to hang after the poles are trimmed, and the lowest bracket is repositioned.  As it is, it interferes with my ironing board.

Now, you might ask why we put the racks in that location, across the five foot door.  Well, that door goes into the part of the basement that holds the heat pumps, and we have access to them through a different door.  This one was created just so I could actually move my Nolting frame out of this room if I ever had to, so it's ok to cover it up for now.

This little darling has been waiting three years to get her own home, and we finally found a spot in my studio that is just right!

And now Miss Lissa (my Nolting 24 Pro) and her IQ (tablet on her head) are just waiting for me to load the next quilt on the frame.  But first, some iced tea and a few moments to read a real book.  I have been enjoying my Nook, but really, nothing is like a real book.  The texture, the smell, the luscious decadence of curling up on the sofa for a few hours.  Nope.  Nothing beats a real book.

Quilt Odyssey

This past week was spent with my quilting buddy, Mary, and it has been a blast!  We travelled to Intercourse, PA on our way to Quilt Odyssey, an annual quilt show and classes at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA.  I'm particularly fond of this show since my baby sister, Missy Molino, is the founder and energy behind it.  Its web site is http://www.quiltodyssey.com/.  Here Mary is posing beside the sign for the People's Museum in Intercourse, where one of her quilts is hanging for the next year.

Mary's quilt derives from a class she took with Elsie Campbell in 2008 at Quilt Odyssey and is her own special twist on Elsie's string "hazmat" blocks.

While we were outside the museum, we ran into one of the new teachers for this year, Bonnie Hunter.  Bonnie is famous for making every inch of scrap material count!  Her wonderful free patterns and pictures can be seen on her web site,  http://www.quiltville.com/.  So we all decided to have lunch together and get to know one another.

  

Once in Hershey and all checked into the Lodge, we prepared our fabrics and tools for our classes the next day.  My first one was with Linda Ballard, who is known for her mystery quilt classes.  She is a very careful and methodical teacher and gives clear written instructions as well as demonstrating each step in the process.  I won't show you my quilt from this class yet, because it isn't finished.  Almost!

                  

The second day I took a class for the first time from Pepper Cory.  Pepper is a southern gal who has gone back to her roots and recently found an antique and gorgeous string quilt done in cheddars and purples.  I call it the Sweet Potato Pie quilt.  She taught us how to make it using paper piecing, and the end result was a large, 18" block, which we finished in class.  When you put enough of these together, you get the quilt. 

I'm not going to show you my quilt yet because I still have alot to do on it, but I'll show you Pepper's antique quilt find.  Isn't it wonderful?!

Multitasking

My table runner is waiting to be quilted.  I have a customer quilt on the frame, so, although this runner was ready for the festivities and got used as is, it won't get its "big girl" finish until the other quilt gets done.

I am doing my lessons on my Designer Diamond.  This was one of them.  It's on the Husqvarna Viking web site under Education.  Lots of free projects and lessons there.  This one will end up as a little wall hanging somewhere after I embroider the Welcome To Our Home phrase on it.

Yesterday was such a peaceful day for us.  No visitors, even though I would have loved to see the family.  Just hubby and I, each doing our respective projects.  We call it Multitasking, our way.  Educators call this parallel play.  Apparently children of a certain age engage in alot of this before they become fully socialized.  They will each do their own thing, but in proximity to each other in a loose social group .  Great training for adulthood!  Team effort is one thing, but when the chips are down, it's what you can do by yourself that gets you where you want to go.  Not to say that being socially tuned in, empathetic, helpful, etc. is not an important part of our humanity.  Sharing our knowledge, imparting the "lore", supporting each other -- those make us members of the tribe.  But somewhere someone decided to strike that flint against a rock all by him/herself to bring new potential to the tribe.  If we had all sat around doing the same old thing as a group, we'd still be eating raw meat. 

And I'd never get to sew on my wonderful machines!

Embroidering again

A few days ago I started taking lessons on my Husqvarna Viking Designer Diamond, which I have had for over a year and understand the rudiments of, but realized that I owned a very expensive piece of machinery that was definitely not being used maximally.  Then one day, a glitch occurred that required me to travel hours to have repaired, and while I was waiting for the work to be done (can you believe it -- done while I waited?!) I talked to Sherry, a computer whiz who teaches the Diamond for the shop where I had my appointment for the repair.  One thing led to another, and I have become her student.

She lives in the same locale that I do!  So she came out to the house (a house call!!!  what a wonderful world!) for two hours the other day and began my education at the beginning, going over the embroidery part of the machine, starting with the design screen.  Each function was explained and then I had a series of exercises I had to do while she downloaded all the updates that I had not been able to figure out how to do.  Not surprising, since my security system on my laptop was keeping the download from occurring but not letting me know.  She, however, being a master at back doors and wrestling the wily computer to the ground, was able to get everything done, and voila!  My machine is now up to date.

Because I can only stand just so much of artificial practice exercises, I decided to make blocks from the Dakota Collectibles American Quilt disk that I've owned for about 10 years and have never opened.  I used her exercises to position, scale, combine threads, etc.  Everything fell into place.  It all downloaded perfectly onto my USB stick.  The stick then downloaded into the embroidery machine.  The stitch out was beautiful.  You can see three of the blocks above.  I stopped at five because I just want to make a table runner in time for the 4th of July.  

HAPPY FOURTH, everyone!

PS  We ate the tomato.  But never fear, another one is rapidly ripening even as we speak!