When disaster strikes!!!

OK - so technically it's not a disaster, but it's a crisis?

I'm putting four quilts in the Quilts at the Creek show this weekend - Saturday and Sunday at Black Creek Pioneer Village. Be sure to come out and enjoy the quilts. (One of my quilts is for sale - a fun one for a child)  Actually, I'll have five quilts in the show as I have a small one (12" square that was part of another show). Two quilts are completely finished and have been for a while. The third quilt was in that stack of quilts to be bound and I managed to get the binding stitched down to the front yesterday.

Binding is completely done!

That leaves one more quilt to be finished. It's been loaded on the long arm (my pixelated apple quilt) for a couple of days and I decided that yesterday was the day. Well, I had no choice since it's supposed to be delivered today. I even practiced the quilting pattern on paper since it's going to be custom quilted. Fired up the long arm, got the thread on the machine and started. I had stitched for about 2 minutes and BAM the thing just shut down. The needle wouldn't function up or down with the controls. WAIT A MINUTE! I have a deadline. This can't be happening.

Shut the thing off - it's totally mechanical. Turned it back on. Nope - the needle will not go up and down. That's a wee bit of problem since that's how the stitches are formed. OK - next step, call Tech Support in the US. They're busy with other customers, so I left a message. And wouldn't you know it, the moment I hung up the phone, the needle started going up and down on its own. I started the stitching again and it died within 30 seconds. I just left it for the support to call me back.

I got a call back about an hour later and I'm not panicking yet. I had other things to do. We looked at a couple of things that required a whole series of screwdrivers to access.

Screwdrivers needed to investigate the issue

We looked at the brushes for the motor. Nope, they appear to be fine. We looked at the fuses. I was a wee bit frustrated with the service person. It was the end of the day for her and I think she was heading out for some event by the sounds of her side comments when I was talking to her.

And to make matters worse, one of the PLASTIC screws that hold the brushes in place broke in half when I was removing it. Oh crap- it's not something you can just buy.

So when I finished with the support person, I was off to the hardware store to get some Krazy Glue to glue the plastic screw back together and I had to replace all the screws in the housing that I had removed to check everything.

Watched a video that she had sent me and realized I had put the brushes in the wrong way so those got changed and then everything got put back. Phew. Now, will it work?  It did. But I'm not trusting it. NOT yet. 

But I seemed to be back in business. And then the bobbin ran out. It was 9:30 PM and I decided to call it quits for the day. I've got something going on this morning, but I need to get back to that quilt this afternoon. Thankfully, it's not huge and the quilting is easy. You can't even see what I'm stitching on the background because the thread is white and totally blends in. That might be a good thing!

This same thing happened to me last week when the computer was running the long arm, but I happened to be right there - thankfully and was able to stop the computer. It's not good when the needle is down and the computer still wants to go!

Then I was on the phone with my Dad last night as we discussed brushes and what was good and bad about the ones that I had and were they still good. I was having another issue with another motor on the frame, so we'll be looking at that today, but not before I pulled out the brushes all by myself and looked at them. Got the OK from Dad that those brushes were still good.

Too bad, Dad isn't closer because he'd had that thing apart and fixed in no time.

I didn't show you the picture of that table of stuff that I"m working on after the Sit n Sew on Sunday. Well, it certainly looks a whole lot better than it did. And I spent part of yesterday getting more stuff ready for the Sit n Sew tomorrow. I can't wait!!!! There's a tuffet in the back so if that would get finished, this pile would look a lot smaller!

This pile is getting smaller

 Here's a picture of the pond yesterday. Nope, there's no dog in the pond (at that moment) but look at all the lilies. They were in full bloom. They've been blooming for months.

Lillies in the pond

There were six of them

Guess who came to visit on Monday before his big trip? George!! He's off tomorrow for a plane ride - a long plane ride and he's super excited. If you don't know the story of George, he's a little monkey with magnets in his paws so he can stick just about anywhere. He's been all over the world. He's had quite a break from traveling but is on the move again.

George

Speaking of sew-alongs, one of the current ones is by Border Creek Station. I'm not even sure of the name. Each week, you make two of these blocks. The ones on the left. Everyone (apparently) is choosing different backgrounds and it's pretty interesting (apparently) to see the different color combinations. I believe it because that's what makes these projects so interesting.

And then you have the crazies. See that block on the right? That's made by Jane. Jane likes little things and so she's making her blocks 5", instead of 10". Yep - there's always some crazy in every group. But I have to admit, I love little things too and that little block is sure cute!

Blocks from the sew along

If anyone is interested, here's a link to Patti Carey's latest blog post. She's looking for some feedback on patterns (and how many options to offer in a pattern). It's way at the end of the post - check it out. I think there are prizes.  Also, I see in her blog a link to a blog hop on organizing our sewing spaces. Hmm - I've got to check that out. It's already in the third week - I'm sure it's totally crazy what we all have. I think Patti said she has 7 pairs of scissors. I don't even want to count the number of scissors I have. Way more than 7. But I'm ready for anything!

On that note, I'm out of here. So much to do and so little time.

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!