Every day is a learning experience

Seriously - there isn't a day goes by that I don't learn something. Whether it's from the ladies I sew with, my own stupidity that forces me to get out of sticky situations or whatever.

I had not one but TWO AHA moments yesterday. Both were valuable lessons, but both were necessary and I'm SO HAPPY the two situations came up. I'll get to those in a minute.

I'm making good progress on the magazine quilt. It HAS to be in a box tomorrow. The top is currently in four pieces and then there's some applique that has to be prepared and stuck on. Then the whole thing needs to be quilted. There's time - it's going to be tight, but there's time.

I thought I'd share what my sewing station looks like these days. It looks awesome. I had this hard plastic container that I use for threads when I'm sewing. It used to sit on the right-hand side of the workstation, but it made the table look junky with everything else that was there.  Now look - the coral colored little bucket is tucked right beside the machine and sits on the same table as the sewing machine. It's PERFECT. Lots of room for my pin cushion. The little orange dish has extra bobbins - my five bobbins before I need to clean the machine. And my ender/leader project which is almost finished unless I cut more fabric. A pin cushion you ask? Every seam in this quilt needs to be pinned - just the way it was designed. No big deal. Only three seams left!

My workstation - nice and tidy

 I have to say one thing about having this tidy of a workstation - you actually feel very motivated to sew. When I had Sit n Sew last week (Thursday), the table was a mess and I had no motivation to sew. But that was actually a good thing because I got all those other things repaired.

I want to share with you my latest finished project for the year. This is number 66. Yes - Diane is in the 70's. Am I worried? Not in the least. My list and my goal is exactly that - MINE. I set the rules and I set the goal. Not sure that I'm going to get to 100 for the year, but I'll give it a good shot.

Anyway - here's my snowflake pillow. The applique shape was cut using the Accuquilt. The snowflake had embroidery designs that you can purchase to do the outline stitching (in several different stitches) on the embroidery machine instead of doing the applique yourself. Well since I've got embroidery machines coming out my ears at the moment, I bought and downloaded the embroidery design. It's adorable and it took no time at all to make. I was going to sew up the seam on the inside using the sewing machine and then I looked at those other machines on the table and said - there's my serger - ready to go. So I turned it on and serged the pillow together.

My snowflake pillow

This is going to be a class at Oh Look Fabric. No you won't be using a serger and no you won't be using an embroidery machine, but you'll get a chance to cut your snowflake (or more than one if you're prepared) on the Accuquilt cutter.

The pillow is a great project for a beginner so if you're not interested, but you know someone who is - call the shop to book the date. It's in the evening on November 20.

I know that I resisted the Accuquilt for years, and I'm still not convinced that I want to use it to cut quilt pieces for a project. Unless they are totally weird shapes (like apple core or tumbler) - then it would be quite useful. But for stuff like this - I LOVE it. I did something else with those snowflakes (there are three different ones on the die) and you'll see those in a magazine sometime soon.

I have another new toy. I'm not big into gadgets, but I do like a tool that will save me time. It's mostly time that I'm worried about these days. So this is a set of rulers for trimming embroidery. Since I'm doing a ton of embroidery these days, I thought it would be helpful. They are from Kimberbell and called - Orange Pop Rulers.    And I have a TON of Kimberbell embroidery that I want to do.

Orange Pop Rulers from Kimberbell

 The rulers come apart as you can see below. The 4 ½" square is perfect for the project that I'm working on. I tried it - hmm - this is weird because you mostly eyeball the placement of the design rather than placing a regular ruler on top and then measuring on the top/bottom and side to side.

I set the ruler aside thinking I had just wasted a bunch of money. But my regular ruler rocks on top of the embroidery and it can shift. So I dug out the orange pop rulers again and you know what? It's not bad. I actually like them. I found that I can cut out my embroidery blocks without rotating the block, but you have to be very careful since on two sides you're cutting with the rotary cutter on the opposite side of the ruler you would normally cut.  It's not a big deal.  As Kim mentions in the video, there's also a rectangle set and - what the heck, I might just as well buy that one too.

Here's the 4 ½" ruler that I'm using.

Ruler for trimming embroidery blocks

I'm doing OK on the embroidered blocks. It's going to take a wee bit of time, but well worth it - the end result is EXACTLY what I was looking for. As I stitch the designs out, they are being trimmed down to size so that's a good thing.

Now here's the thing - I was dreading attempting to get the long arm going so I delayed as long as I could. I was afraid that it wasn't going to work! Last night was the test. I had bought new fuses but I was confused because I had two different fuse amperages. I inserted the higher amp fuse into the machine. Nothing - dead as a doornail. Then I tried the new fuses - the machine was still dead as a doornail. I even tried a different extension cord - I checked the electrical panel in the event that I had tripped a fuse there.

By the way - for those who suggested that I might have an electrical problem. This is the FIRST fuse that's blown on the machine EVER. We have not one, but TWO electrical panels to handle all the circuits in our house  - we had extensive electrical work done when we moved in. That is NOT the issue.

I tripped the breaker anyway just in case. Well, that caused another problem which I'll tell you in a minute. The long arm is still dead. I had a wee bit of a panic attack and then I said to myself - get a grip. Let's look at this thing. Oh NO - seriously?????  There was some discussion that the CDN machines had TWO fuses, not one. I looked at the machine and then it hit me - I need to use TWO fuses, not just one. DUH!!!  How stupid can you be? Especially when it's written right on the side of the  machine.

There's a little fuse tray which has room for one fuse (the main fuse and the one that uses the higher amperage) and there's room in the tray for one spare fuse. Hence - that's why I had two fuses of the higher amperage. Both are good as they were just tested. I replaced those two in the little tray. Then in another little round tray, there's a fuse for the motor. That's the one that blew. So I replaced that with the new fuses I bought and BAM - I had lights - I had a motor. OH MY GOD!!!!!!

In the photo below, the arrows are showing where it's written right on the side of the machine which fuse goes where. But it's all hard to see with the cords and what not. The little round button holds a fuse in there and the little box (it appears as an outline under the plug) holds the second fuse. I was aware of both of them, but I wasn't really. But now my fuses are tested - I have spares of both sizes and I'm good to go.

This is where the fuses go

So that was a very valuable learning experience and I'm glad it happened. Hopefully, this won't happen again, but we'll see. At least the troubleshooting will be easier next time. It's funny that all these issues are happening AFTER the machine was sent into the manufacturer for servicing. The problem the first time was a loose wire inside the machine (as best as I can tell).

What was the second lesson? At the moment that I flipped the breaker in the electrical box, my embroidery machine wasn't working because I was in the process of changing the bobbin. The moment I flipped the switch, I heard the machine shut off. ACK!!!  When I turned the machine back on - it asked me if I wanted to resume my embroidery. Of course, I said yes, but I noticed that for some reason, it wasn't quite in the right spot. Not sure how that happened. But I learned very quickly how to reposition the design on the embroidery machine to match what was in the hoop.  I've been meaning to learn that for a while because I have something else to fix. Now I know!!!!

I must say that I'm learning so much about technology! Not sure if I mentioned, but there was something that I needed to change on my embroidery designs. I got out the laptop with the software on it. The manuals are on the iPad and both were sitting side by side on the table. I was in the process of writing an SOS e-mail to one of my fellow freelance educators when I discovered what to do. The e-mail never got sent and I learned something. By learning it myself, I will never forget it.

I've been meaning to take this picture for the last couple of weeks. This is on the street next to me. Look at those trees. They are gorgeous. The picture doesn't do justice to the color which is brilliant.

Fall colors

There we have it - so many learning experiences. I'm going to be so knowledgeable it's going to be crazy. I love it - and I can see from what's happening that there's going to be many, many more learning experiences.

Yesterday, I had to make an emergency fabric pickup. There are several quilts that I"m working on for the magazines and I was slightly short of fabric for three of them. A quick trip and I'm back in business. Now I see that I'm running out of embroidery thread so it's going to be another emergency trip today for thread and hopefully I can get another small hoop so I can get two embroidery machines working.

On that note, I'd better get myself organized for the day. It's going to be intense and I have a class to teach later in the day. Nothing like having deadlines!!!!

OH -- I should direct you to the Ruby Star Society website. Big news there. Remember these are the ladies that founded Cotton + Steel. I have a feeling that after what happened to them when they were "ousted" (that's my opinion) from RJR - that they are going to come back with a vengeance if for no other reason than to prove a point. Watch out!!!!  In case you don't catch it - they have signed up and working with MODA!!!   Yes - that HUGE company called MODA.

OK - now I'm out of here.