Are you superstitious?

 I am not a superstitious person per se. However, I think about all those things that you are not supposed to do, like walking under ladders, what to do if a black cat crosses your path, and everything to do with the number 13! I don't avoid that kind of stuff, but it crosses my mind. More on that in a minute. 

I had a very bizarre presentation yesterday. It was on Zoom, all the participants were in the store, and they never opened the camera link, so I had ZERO connection with any of them, including the store owner. We had to wait as they had a technical glitch, and with a number of them talking in the background, it was tough to hear, and let's not forget that it was in French. 

No questions, no feedback whatsoever! I need to have a chat with the shopowner today to see if we can fix that! It made me nervous, and I stumbled with my French. It was very unnerving, and I may have ended up talking to myself for an hour! Sigh.................

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE Facebook? I don't get a chance to post every day -- I try, but some days, well, it just doesn't happen. But what I love the most are the groups! Not only do I get to stay in touch with the groups that I have created for my classes, but it's a learning tool! 

I've got a couple of unusual quilts that need to be quilted, and I had no idea how to do that. Well, I asked my Facebook group, and I got answers. I don't have enough experience with unusual stuff on the long arm to know these tricks, but I'm learning, and the people in the group have been amazing and patient!

People are posting educational stuff in one group, and I need to carve out some time to learn it.! My long arm can do so much, and I have only skimmed the surface of that software! I have a whole pile of my quilts to experiment on! 

I sorted samples that had been strewn around Studio B, and they were put away. More samples need to be made, so there is loads of stuff to embroider hanging around, but if I put it away, I'll forget it! I spent some time doing paperwork, and I almost have the urgent stuff out of the way, but I need to spend this morning at the computer to get a couple more things done. 

I'm also cleaning up the work tables as I need the space to put up more machines. All in a day's work! 

Between sample making, and learning which goes hand in hand, I could be busy 24/7!!

I did get some sewing done, which was great, but I can't share it with you. The students get to see it first, and then I'll have show and tell this weekend. 

But I did work on the border of one of my quilts. 

The border for All in a Row

This border is for my All in a Row quilt. The top and bottom borders are on the quilt, and I've meant to lay out the side borders forever! Now that I had plenty of space, it was easy to lay out the quilt to measure it and get the correct length. Then super easy to layout and glue these pieces in place. 

I made significant progress on that cutting table this week, and I hope to continue this afternoon. I have three classes this weekend, plus the Virtual Retreat. So I feel that I can make excellent progress on clearing up some stuff and get that table 100% clear. Wish me luck!!

Never mind the enormous stack of paper that's on the floor beside me that needs to be dealt with! Yes -- I know I have my little storage shelf, but well -- I need lots of room to spread out, and to do that in the office, I need to completely clear the table or the second desk. There are too many things to do to make that happen! I could pile the stuff into a box and deal with it later? I may just do that, so I can get a better handle on the day-to-day stuff. 

Or I'll just try to get back into spending the morning in the office and the afternoon downstairs. That's hard to do with my presentations, as those take priority regardless of the time of day. Oh boy-- I'd better enjoy the downtime right now because I just realized that starting November 1, I have TEN presentations in one week. Yikes -- how did that happen??? 

That means that for all of November, I'll be doing TEN per week. Thank goodness, I'm at the end of the ongoing classes, so I'll focus on the presentations. And thankfully, the prep work for most of them is complete!

OK -- so back to the superstitions. I was quilting another quilt yesterday. I'm trying to get that pile done. As of yesterday morning, there were 13 quilts left to quilt. One per day - in less than two weeks, that can be cleared up! Right? So the 13th quilt was on the long arm. I'm at the sewing machine, and I can hear a BAD noise. Oh no - I dropped everything and ran. And this is what I found. 

OH!

This is NOT good. Thankfully, I was close by, but there was an open seam in the quilt, and the foot just happened to be going in the opposite direction. It was jammed very tight, even though I got there pretty quick. The machine doesn't know that there's a problem, so it just keeps on trying to quilt. I released the long arm and got out the seam ripper. This wasn't even a question of ripping out the stitches; it was trying to delicately slice the stitches out of the quilt without creating a lot of damage to the quilt. 

After I freed the machine, I looked at the damage. Sigh............  I was able to fix the top so that if you didn't know what had happened, it would take a lot of searching to find this. That open seam will have to be hand-stitched in place. There's a small hole in the top - it's more like the fabric fibers have separated rather than a hole. But there's a hole in the back. I'll applique some of the extra backing fabric over that hole. Unsewn seams are NOT my responsibility. 

The damaged area

This has only happened twice in my longarm career. The first time, I happened to be standing at the machine waiting for the bobbin to run out and caught the machine pretty much right away, but there was still a hole created in that quilt. So if you are taking your quilt to a long arm quilter, or even one that you are quilting yourself, make sure that you close all the seams up when you are fixing a problem! I know it happens. This quilt will survive in the grand scheme of things, and no one will be the wiser that this happened. I do have to laugh because when this happens, it's always with a backing that is light in color and monochromatic, so a patch will show more than if the print was busy! 

And it just so happened that the pattern I used was a bit denser than I usually choose! Of course, it was! But the quilt turned out beautifully! Now to get trimming!!

Customer Quilt - DONE

Oh shoot -- I went to order the Cherrywood Challenge book - Diana, and they are NOT shipping to Canada. DRAT!!!!  I need to find someone to whom I can send the book, so they can, in turn, ship it to me. Yes - I know the shipping to Canada will be expensive, but the store that sells the Cherrywood challenges is NOT ordering the books. If only I were going to the Quilt Festival, which I wouldn't dream of at the moment! Of course, I'll pay for the shipping to Canada!

Anyway - it's time to get the day started. I must NOT try to learn something new before going to bed as that keeps me awake, and then I get up late!

Don't forget the Virtual REtreat is this weekend. Here are the links. 

Saturday, October 23   From 6 PM - 9 PM

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89254233911?pwd=VGQrTnFybW1HMWpleHA4M2Q2NGVwZz09 Meeting ID: 892 5423 3911 Passcode: 982797

Sunday, October 24, From 10 AM - 9 PM)

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87246635892?pwd=VGY1cUUyLzRaRi9VUVV2ZWFINXc2dz09 Meeting ID: 872 4663 5892 Passcode: 440473

 

Oh -- has anyone used the link at the top of the blog to get the blog via e-mail? Someone was having trouble with it, and I must confess that I don't know much about it. There are other ways to get the blog. You can use Bloglovin, which will e-mail you the blog every day. You've got to indicate which blogs you want to follow, and it sends you a daily e-mail. 

Have a super day!!!

Cio!!!!