UFO Club

I don't know if I should say anything or if I should just pretend it was all a bad dream? 

The new modem arrived sometime after lunch. There was no knock on the door so I wasn't sure when it arrived. 

The new modem

I had a presentation at 3:00 PM - it was now 1:30 PM. Do I even dare to tempt fate???

I figured - there's no time like the present so I unwrapped the box and swapped out the old for the new. I  had passwords and such, but nothing happened. So I called the Escalation Desk - I wanted no issues with the setup. Thankfully, I was connected immediately. And I could not have figured it out myself. OH - I could have, but not in the timeframe that I had to deal with. 

A very HELPFUL and very KNOWLEDGEABLE person answered the phone. He was patient and we went through a lot of testing and set up stuff. I now know more about modems and upload and download speeds than the average person needs to know. 

And I now know how to run the tests to check our speed. Let's just say that a download speed of 50Mbps is NOT 50 Mbps. Our line runs at about 35 Mbps. I don't know what it was like before. The download speed seemed to be OK, it was the upload speed that was causing the issues. Or so this person seemed to think. The upload speed is a whole lot slower and runs somewhere at 3Mbps to 12Mbps. 

If it's set too high, then the lines can't handle the mismatch and bad things happen. It sounds like some person tried to set that speed too high for us and we kept crashing. So it's set at 6 Mbps and guess what?? I was on Zoom for three hours and not a single crash. I did have a couple of slowdowns, but no crashes. Thank god!!!! I might call and have them lower it just slightly, but let's see how things go. 

Of course, there are hiccups on the lines. I hear that phone lines are even dropping and honestly, I expected that to happen with everyone getting on board with Zoom and working online and all that. But the issue was that our lines were NOT dropping before. So I doubt that we needed to install a new modem, but rather have someone drop the upload speed. 

As I said, this person was extremely knowledgeable and that is one VALUABLE employee to Bell. So many times, people blame the service provider for bad service. Nope - it's the person you get in touch with that makes the difference. I told him that I was impressed with his knowledge and his service so if the call is recorded for whatever reason, hopefully, someone knows that. I also asked him where he was located. In Brampton which is the city beside me!! I got a laugh out of that. However, he works at the large Bell Call Centre about 5 K from me, but they are all working from home. How cool is that that he messed with my modem from his house? 

So BELL - I applaud you for getting this issue resolved, but perhaps better training for some other employees is in order. 

Here's the deal with the internet. You can have SPEED or you can have stability. It depends on where you live and what kind of cables or phone lines you have available to download the services. By the way, our service comes in on TWO PHONE lines - not cable, not fiber optics. A certain someone in our house wants speed and I want stability. I hope we now have stability with a wee bit faster speed. Lesson learned. If it isn't broken, don't touch it!!!

Then all the devices had to be reconnected to the new modem. I got my computers working - OH - I still have one more tablet to switch over, but I need also to connect my Alexa devices and she didn't want to cooperate. That's for another day when I have more time. 

So the two presentations went off without a hitch and that was good. Four down for this week, three more to go. I only have one today so that is a bit more relaxing. Between the presentations, I had to switch out sewing machines, grab new feet and accessories. Same topic - different brands. 

Now let's get to the quilting. Here is my homework for the UFO Club. I got the snail's trails quilt top finished. That was the first item on the list. The first of four items on my UFO project list for this past month. 

The Snail's Trail quilt top - DONE

 The binding and backing are also done. 

The backing, binding, and quilt top 

The next item on the list was to get the disappearing nine-patch top done. And that got completed as well. 

The top is done for the Disappearing nine-patch

I still have to work on the binding and the backing so I can't take it off the list just yet. 

I was to get the binding on my yoga bag. I didn't even touch it. 

And the last thing was to cut the wedges for my PRISM squared quilt. ALL of these items are on my UFO lists. That's what the club is for, but each of us has our own agenda and some of the others - well, they don't' have lists.

PRISM square pattern

I should not have waited until the last day to check what exactly that meant. I thought I just had to cut the wedges, but when I looked deeper into the basket, I knew I wasn't going to make the deadline. 

The project basket for PRISM squared

When I taught this class a while back, I had to give up one of my panels to a student (who is in our UFO group) who had miscut her pieces. That meant that I had to remake that one panel and I knew that I had not done that. 

Fabric to make a new panel

But it wasn't even that. I realized that the panels were made for the rest of the wedges, but that was it. 

The panels to make the wedges

Those panels needed to be cut apart. 

Panels to be cut into three

And then they needed to be sewn together. 

Two sections of panel sewn back together

Then the ruler had to be positioned on the pieced section. 

Lining up the ruler so I could make the cut

The culprit lent me her ruler so I could cut the wedges as I had lent my ruler to someone else. 

A note to remind me that the ruler was borrowed

The wedges are carefully cut apart. 

One wedge is cut

There were 36 wedges to cut. Did I make it in time for our UFO class? Believe it or not - I did - sort of. 

Here are my wedges at 11 AM just in time for the Zoom meeting. BUT do you notice something? 

The wedges for PRISM square

Yes, the student that I gave my panel to, gave me her miscut wedges which are in my pieces above. Can you spot it???

So it wasn't until later that afternoon that I had the new panel made and the wedges cut as per the pattern. 

The wedges are cut!

Yeah - the wedges are DONE!!!!   I was torn because I had accomplished a lot, but not all that I said I would. So I put $5 in the UFO coffer. 

My goal for next month is to completely finish the top. I know - nothing like being ambitious. This quilt is on my UFO list and I'm determined to get those things done as I want to move onto new UFOs. 

I also have this quilt top that I want to sew together for the next UFO club. The blocks are all sewn together and the border and binding fabrics are in the container. It should be easy enough to do. Hey - if one doesn't do stretch goals, this mess will never get cleaned up!

Winner's Bouquet

So once again, the UFO club is helping me to get stuff done that I would easily be left for someone else to deal with. I would have started a million other projects and now I'm getting these old ones out of the way. 

The one thing that I keep forgetting to mention this week is that I'm blogging on QUILTsocial. So be sure to pop over there. Here's the link to the first day.  I'm talking all about embroidery hoops so be sure to check it out. Some great information there. 

I've got loads more to catch up on, but I'm still a wee bit behind in my writing assignments and I'm working my way through the list. Each day more gets done and nothing gets added so that's a good thing. 

And I'm on my way out the door to spin class and I can't be late because they close the door to latecomers. 

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!