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.