Archive for August, 2007

Sandy asked what type of longarm I have. I traded in my Gammill Classic Plus in December for a Gammill Premier Plus.

I liked my Classic but needed to downsize for the move to Minneapolis since we were sure we wanted to live right in the city versus the suburbs where we could get more room.

I’ve been practicing on and off all day and I really love these EdgeRider wheels – I have SO much more control and they’re worth the $160 or so I spent on them.

For me these wheels are much better than the *new* Gammill wheels that came on my Premier and that I had put on my Classic back when they first came out. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to buy the EdgeRider wheels.

We had a good flight home and after picking Chesty up from the kennel (and giving him lots of hugs and kisses) I went straight to the longarm to put my EdgeRider wheels on. I wanted to get it done while Keith was here to help me lift the machine on and off the carriage.

I loaded a practice piece and did a little quilting this evening and I think these wheels are going to make a HUGE difference in quilting designs where precision is required.

I really wish I hadn’t waited so long to buy these. A few years ago I debated between the *new* Gammill wheels and the EdgeRider wheels for my Classic Plus and choose the Gammill ones. There was a definite improvement in how that machine moved with the new wheels but nothing like today.

I’ve got more practicing to do tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed that I don’t wake up and find that this was a dream!

I’m ready to get home and back to work. I have a couple HeartStrings tops to get quilted but first I’m going to finally put the EdgeRider wheels on my Premier. I’ve had them for a month (or more) and it’s time to get them out of the box and on the machine.

I did a lot of walking around downtown today but can you guess how I spent a couple hours this afternoon? I had several people mention Rosie’s quilt shop but in my travels if I don’t stumble across one I don’t typically search out local quilt shops after all as a Stashbuster, I don’t need any additional temptation to buy.

This afternoon we found a quiet spot just off the marina and sat under a tree watching the boats pass by.

Sitting by the pool this morning – finished up a book I’ve really enjoyed reading and now we’re heading out to walk around downtown. We’ll check out the Gaslamp area and head over to the marina and park too.

Little Chapel on the River: A pub, a town, and the search for what matters most
by Gwendolyn Bounds

We’re arrived in San Diego this afternoon – for all of you suffering in the heat let me tell you how beautiful it was here today. We went up to the pool/bar area to have lunch overlooking the city and stayed to relax and read a while. The weather was perfect with a cool breeze blowing.

This is my first trip with the new laptop – I have a backpack that I call my activity bag and packed it with the computer, books, camera, iPod, drawing pad (for practicing quilting designs), etc. I was lucky and the NW lounge and the hotel both have free wireless – so easy to stay in touch. On the plane I watched a DVD from one of Karen McTavish’s books that I’ve had for a couple years but had not really watched before. I just haven’t gotten into watching DVD’s on the computer at home but I can see that I’ll be doing lots of it while I’m traveling and I’ll be ordering more quilting DVD’s.

One other really cool feature of Office 2007 which I bought with the laptop is a new program called OneNote. You can take screen clippings or save pages while browsing and they can be organized and filed in a *notebook*. I’m LOVING this feature. Tonight I followed a link from Tanya’s blog to an article by Joe Cunningham on freehand quilting and just hit one button and the article is saved on the laptop for me to view later. Cool.

Such a long post but I’ll end with a couple pictures. This hotel we’re staying at is pretty trendy – can you believe the bathrobes provided in the room? Which one do you think is ME?

And here’s one of Keith at lunch.

I’ve had Judy’s book Nine-patch Extravaganza pre-ordered at Amazon for at least a couple months and just got an email tonight that it’s been shipped. It should be here when I get back from San Diego on Wednesday.

I started today behind so I’ve got to finish up on the computer and get back to work. Keith and I head for San Diego tomorrow and it’s always busy trying to get ready to leave and still get some work done.

Here’s the Coins quilt I quilted yesterday – if you click on the photo to enlarge you should be able to see the pantograph design mentioned in the last post.

Hopefully I won’t offend anyone with this next comment but I’ve been watching the Quilt Pink auctions on eBay. You may remember I purchased this quilt in the beginning of the auction and I made and donated the quilt pictured below.

They received over 4000 quilts for auction and after seeing how low some of the quilts are being let go for, I’ve been watching pretty closely for mine. It appears that most of the quilts go up for bid at $150 but if they don’t get bid on, they then go to a Buy it Now status for anywhere from $40 – $150. I think it depends on how long they’ve been up for auction.

I decided that I wasn’t going to let my quilt go for less than $150 and that I’d purchase it myself at the end of the initial auction period if it hadn’t been bid on. Well – no bids so I just purchased it which is fine because the money goes to Komen for the Cure which is an organization I strongly support.

My personal opinion is that they need to look at this process for next year – I think they tried to auction too many quilts and I’d rather my quilt be given to a breast cancer patient than be sold to someone on eBay for $60.

I will NOT be sending another quilt in for auction but I will certainly bid on one to support the cause. I WILL be making and donating quilts that go directly to people in need or going through difficult times.

Thanks for the comments and emails about my post on COMMENTS. Not that I was complaining since I’m in the same boat – I try to keep up with other blogs and tend to read more than I comment also. Feel free to read without commenting or to introduce yourself – whatever makes you happy!
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Happiness for me is working on a HeartStrings quilt
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Despite sleeping very late this morning after staying up all night I still got a good day’s work done. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to walk downtown and mail off my Aunt’s quilt and get the HeartStrings Coins quilt done but thanks to Kinko’s being open 24 hours, I quilted first and then walked downtown to ship Nancy’s quilt to her. I was SO happy to send that one off.

I used a new pantograph on the HeartStrings Chinese Coins - I haven’t trimmed it yet so I’ll have to share a photo tomorrow but the pantograph is called Leap Frog by Norma Sharp. It has a strong vertical component which is great for this quilt.

Keith’s out of town tonight so I’ll be working late again. I need to piece a back and load a quilt that’s a gift for a family member. I would like to get it quilted tomorrow so I can bind it when I get back from San Diego on Wednesday.

By the way, I forgot to mention what a pleasure it was to use my ironing board with the new cover. Next time I won’t wait so long.

Couldn’t sleep so I got up about 1am and decided to work a while. I did a bunch of 4 patches for my July QFAH quilt – I seem to be stretching this quilt out – I’ve got to cut more beige strips for the last group of 4 patch blocks but I’m ready to get this one together. I also loaded a quilt so it’s ready for quilting tomorrow….no make that today.

After that I spent some time cruising blogs including some that I don’t always get to. I’ve noticed some comments over the last few weeks or so in blogland about the number of comments being left (or not left) on blogs. It’s funny because I don’t really notice how many comments a particular post brings in – probably because I post so frequently there’s a continuous trickle of comments. I’m also guilty of doing more reading myself than commenting at times but I do keep an eye on the number of visitors I get.

However, I would never have any idea how many people visit my blog if it weren’t for the sitemeter stats. I certainly don’t get this many comments! On one hand it’s kind of sobering to think 400 people could stop by and not comment but on the other hand they keep coming back so they must have some interest in my quilting.

By the way, this isn’t a complaint about people not commenting, while I’m always happy to hear from people who stop by I get enough interaction to keep me happy.

Another day spent on quilty things without acutally sewing. I’ve got another quilt ready for the longarm, spent some time sorting through quilt photos and taking some additional pictures of quilts and of course time on the computer visiting quilty sites.

I’m sure you’ve all seen a quilt and had it trigger an idea. I was reading a post on Stashbuster and came across this link to Quiltmaker and for some reason – those center blocks seemed to be creating a boxy type frame. So since I already had EQ6 open I had to play some.

I didn’t like my first few attempts but came across this version when I started randomly trying different colors in the blocks. It’s doubtful whether I’ll ever make this quilt but it was fun playing. Just in case you can’t *see* the block in the quilt – here it is.

Thanks for the comments – I appreciate the encouragement from everyone!

Diane asked about the pattern. Some of you may remember that I quilted one of these for my Mom last year (I must not have done too bad a job since my Aunt decided SHE needed one too after seeing Mom’s)

The pattern is from the book Great American Quilts book nine.

I’m so glad this quilt is finished – off the machine and trimmed even. The quilting is not as bad as I feared and I’ll be glad to ship it off to my Aunt. I had problems with thread breakage as I started the 3rd border – almost threw me over the edge but I stayed with it and now it’s DONE!

Did I mention that I love to quilt leaves? (Almost as much as I hate to echo quilt!)

1. Pack and label all the things I need to ship tomorrow
2. Take photo’s of HeartStrings tops and quilts
3. Change the ironing board cover (looks much better doesn’t it?)
4. Finish quilting my Aunt’s quilt
5. Make more 4 patches for my QFAH top

Cathi emailed a link trying to help me solve my software woes – it didn’t solve my problem but it reminded me to check a couple more options and guess what I found? Microsoft has a PDF add-in for Office 2007 that can be downloaded (free) that I had no idea they had. Boy am I glad I found out BEFORE I decided to purchase the software from Adobe for $299! Thanks Cathi!

So you can now if you want the new label you can go to the HeartStrings site and save or print the PDF file which has 4 labels on the page. (I use the Printed Treasures or EQ Printables for my labels these days and the EQ ones are my new favorites!)

I love the new computer, Windows Vista, and Office 2007 BUT I haven’t been able to install my Adobe Elements program that I use to create PDF files.

I tried the online PDF creator on a trial basis from Adobe Online but it doesn’t support the font I wanted to use last night AND it’s $9.99 a month. I could buy Acrobat Standard but that’s $299.

Here’s the HeartStrings Label I created last night in Office 2007 and here’s the version I was able to create with Elements on my Desktop. It’s fine for me – I can print the cuter version from the laptop but I had to post the plainer version online. (I know this is a little blurred but that’s because it’s a photo of the label I printed out – poor photography NOT poor printing). I’m sure there’s a way to get around this – just haven’t figured it out yet.

In the meantime, you can get the PDF file with 4 labels per page on the HeartStrings website.