Cleaning up photos

 And another crazy day is in the bag! Actually, it wasn't a crazy day at all. It was a glorious day - I worked at a leisurely rate, went for a long walk, sat in the gazebo, and generally went easy and well -- it was a glorious day!

The day started a bit weird. Lexi and I were out walking along a somewhat busy street. While she doesn't pull like Murphy does, she likes to stop and smell EVERYTHING. Tugging is required to get her back on track and keep her moving; otherwise, we would never make it back to the house. 

So imagine my surprise when there was ZERO tension on that leash suddenly. What? 

Two thoughts immediately ran through my head. This dog is a runner, I must get control of her, and secondly, I thought her harness must have failed as it is wearing through. 

MOM -- -no more leash!

The last time this happened was shortly after we got her, and she slipped through her collar, and we didn't see her until the next day! I didn't want to repeat that, especially on the street where we were. 

I yelled at her to STOP. She was a bit confused -- she does NOT listen (that's why you have to yell at her). But she stopped, and I grabbed her harness and accessed the situation. The photo above was staged when I knew I had control of her!

Can you believe that the metal clip failed? One end pulled right out of the other! So we had to improvise for the rest of the way home. 

New attachment for the leash

You don't realize how much you use that loop on the end of the leash when walking! I was going to go in the afternoon to get a new one, and then I thought -- I could fix the old one. Actually, I looked in the bin of dog stuff and found an old leather leash that is perfectly fine. It's just missing that loop on the end as the stitching came out. I wonder if my sewing machine is strong enough to sew that? With a leather needle, of course! I'm going to try it, but I didn't have time yesterday. 

I could get a new clip for the red leash and have the shoemaker fix both. That's all part of being environmentally conscious, and there is no need to throw it out when a simple repair could fix both leashes. Now to find a shoemaker. YES --- there are still shoe repair people around. Shoot -- I should have taken the one leash in yesterday. Oh well --- I'll do that this week. 

I've also noticed a ton of airplanes in the sky. Those planes are coming in every minute (or less!). Big ones, little ones -- they are coming in fast and furious. Two flight paths are close enough to be interesting to watch but not so close that they fly overhead. 

Planes in the landing flight path

Then it dawned on me that they must have started the work on the runways at the airport. Apparently, a significant renovation is happening, and some runways are shut down.  

What's scary is the timing. There doesn't seem to be enough time between planes for one to land and get off the runway before the next one is right on its tail. There will be no dilly-dallying with the use of the runway! Apparently, the project goes on all summer, so we'll see weird things with the flightpath all summer. As close as they are, the noise of the planes is far enough away that it doesn't bother us. 

I wasn't fast enough to snap a picture of Mrs. Cardinal as she stopped on my fence outside the office window with straw in her mouth! They are building a nest in the left tree, and I'm surprised because a robin usually builds a nest in the other tree! There must have been a showdown, and the cardinals won! Anyway, I hope to catch a picture of them as they build the nest. 

The cardinals are building a nest in the left tree

Since Lexi had an exciting morning and I will have to cough up cash to get the leash repaired, Murphy couldn't be left without some incident. This is her BRAND NEW ball. Yep, she managed to pull out the little plug from it with her teeth. The big question is why? Why did you do that, Murphy? 

Mom -- I pulled that plug out! 

This dog just doesn't give up! She proceeded to play with that little piece of rubber until I threw it away for fear that she would swallow it. She was NOT happy. 

And let's not forget how many times she dropped the ball in the pond when I was outside enjoying the sun. 

MOM -- the ball is in the pond!

One last NON-quilting picture. On my walk, I noticed this sign. Does that make sense to you? 

Is this proper grammar?

Shouldn't it say "Record Sale?" but I could be wrong. I wonder what my editor will think of that? It's interesting because I finished reading 1984 by George Orwell yesterday, and there is an essay at the end about Newspeak -- the language being implemented in Oceania. Basically, they were reducing the number of words available because it was easier and supposedly going to be less confusing. So instead of saying better or best -- you would have the use of good or more good. ACK!!  

That whole book is frightening. Frightening because some of the stuff has come true and frightening in the government's control over the people. Their beliefs and how they dictated them are horrifying. How the government rewrote the PAST (not that that is happening here!) to suit their needs and make them look strong is very scary. Let's keep our freedom! 

OK -- so what happened in Studio B? Well, the Cherrywood Challenge did NOT get completed to the point I had hoped. But, it is trimmed, and ALL of the embellishments are done. Some are sewn in place, with a few more to do later this week. I'm happy with it, so that is good. 

I love my tube-turner and have used it a fair amount. I recently watched a video on making PIPING with the tube-turner. How to insert a cord into the narrow strips. I watched the video and did NOT believe it could work the way they showed, but you know what? It worked!

The tube turner

OH -- I should also mention that we had our Out of the Box class in the morning. I was so excited that I was bursting to show everyone the projects. I can't say enough about how creative this group is. They are learning by doing each month, and we, in turn, are learning so much from each other's experiences. I just love it and will be sharing the pictures later this week. 

I got a customer quilt done. 

Customer quilt - DONE

I almost ran out of thread, but I didn't. Don't worry -- there was a second spool waiting if this one was finished. 

Almost empty spool of thread

I spent the evening prepping a pattern to experiment with machine embroidery applique. I've now got all 25 designs scanned. That took a LOT of running back and forth to the printer, which is in another room. But they are scanned. 

The patterns have all kinds of writing on them, which I don't want when I start to digitize the designs. 

Lots of writing

So each got loaded into Photoshop Elements and cleaned up. Some had to be cropped, as there was an entire page of designs, and I wanted one design per file. Some had to be rotated, and all needed a lot of erasing. Something so easy in Photoshop Elements. It took me about 3 minutes, if that, to clean up this file. 

Ready for digitizing

It's now saved as a .jpeg, and I'll load it into the mySewnet machine embroidery software and try my skills at creating the machine embroidery applique files. At the same time, I'll be creating the .SVG files that I can use on my Scan and Cut. 

I'm convinced that I know enough now to make this happen. Stop delaying and go for it!! I think I could clean up those photos in my embroidery software, but I'm not sure. I should try one and see how easy it is. I know how to do it in Photoshop Elements, so I went with what I knew. 

This is for my PERSONAL use, so there is no big deal in doing this. The files will not be shared with anyone, and I'm not making money off them, so it's OK to reproduce them in this fashion. This particular pattern is already available as embroidery files, but the version I have is just the old-fashioned way of doing applique. I figure there is enough variety in the files that it'll be a good exercise for learning. 

Ooops -- it's almost time to get to the gym. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!