New and exciting!

 I will be spending the day in a "danger" zone! Shopping danger, that is. There are two kinds of shops I shouldn't be allowed to wander around in: a bookstore and a craft store. I'm good with quilt stores now - I can only buy what I need and then get out. I'll tell you where I am in a second. 

Oh my -- hopefully the pictures will come through. Microsoft seems to be having difficulty letting me log in this morning. I wonder if they are still having problems. OK -- we may not have pictures. I totally get that there are security reasons for all this, but it is starting to drive me crazy. Two-step verification, doing it multiple times and then timing out. It's so annoying. 

Well, I just checked, and Outlook is still down—does that make it 24 hours? I'm sure the business world and anyone who uses Microsoft Teams are in a tizzy, and they should be. We put a lot of faith in Microsoft, and they have failed! Let's just say that I would NOT want to be on their team this morning. 

If only the hackers worked with us, not against us, computers would be so easy to use!!

I guess that means there are no pictures this morning, so you just have to bear with me as I describe what happened. 

This will mean nothing without the pictures, but let's get my writing skills out and your imagination. Imagine the word JOY in large, rounded letters on a white background. The letters are made from candy-striped muted red fabric. Some boughs of machine-embroidered holly sit on top of the J, the bottom of the O, and the top of the Y. Now that you have that vision in your head, here's what I did. 

WAIT --- I went to the video and snagged this photo. How did your vision compare to the real thing? 

This is one of my single-word projects. I love doing these - you take a single word and create a small wall hanging from it. I quilt the background with the embroidery machine, and then I cut the appliqué shapes for the letters on my Singer Momento (24" digital cutter). Then I appliqué the letters on using the embroidery machine. Did I mention that I design the entire thing in the Creativate Embroidery Software? 

If I need a little embellishment, and I did in this case, as the letters looked a bit lonely by themselves, I added a holly embroidery motif. The letters looked a bit plain with nothing else, and it just screamed GREEN to me - then I found a holly motif in our online Creativate Design Catalog and embroidered that on. Then I bound it in sewing mode. 

Wait—I didn't share the back with you, and I can't since I'm not home. But they are so fun to make. 

Well, that's a bit of a bust—let's hope everything is working just fine tomorrow. The pictures are coming through just fine to my phone email, which is NOT a Microsoft product. Wait—if I had the proper cable, I could transfer the pictures to the computer and bypass email altogether. Shoot -- I do not have that cable in my cable bag. I'll add that for future snafus!! 

I had a plane to catch at noon, and everything went smoothly. I had tried to get on the upgrade list, but that just didn't happen. Why? The silly app just wouldn't let me, but I suspected I would be too far down the list to get one of the three available seats. I am on the list today, but I am number four with three seats available. Why do I just miss the darn cutoff? 

But it was the first time I could access the lounge with my "new" status, so that was fun! Then I got on the plane and had a great flight to  - I can't even put the picture in here - but I flew to Montreal, which is a short flight for me. 

Thank goodness I came to Montreal in October with my colleagues, because I'm not sure I would have found the car rental place. The area around the terminal is in complete disarray because of major construction. 

To get to the car rental, you must walk a very long way, and it's mostly outside, under part of the terminal building, and you literally walk around it, or so it seems. Then you arrive at the shuttle bus, which takes you to the car rental. Now, why the shuttle bus can't meet you at the terminal like the limos and taxis do is beyond me, but then I'm not the genius who figured out the temporary situation. 

Then I had the fun of driving to Joliette, which is about 1.5 hours from the airport. It was around 2 PM on a Thursday afternoon, and the traffic was insane. Now we think the traffic in Toronto is insane, and I suppose it is when you consider that we have MANY MANY lanes of traffic on the major highway to get through the city. 

Here on Highway 20, there are at most THREE. And the GPS kept trying to avoid the traffic, and I just said -- screw this -- keep me on the main highway. It might take 2 minutes longer, but it's less hassle. 

I passed right by the exit for one of the places I used to live, and I was tempted to zip off and have a peek, but I decided to stay on the highway. If I have time on the way home, I might. But I doubt that since I'll be going back later today (Friday) and it will be rush hour again!

I got to Joliette in good time and spotted the Michaels store where I will be today. Yes -- that Michaels - the arts and crafts store!! When Joann's closed in the US, Michaels took over some of their product lines and decided to bring fabric into their stores. Actually, at the flagship store in Dallas, Texas, they have had fabric for about three years now. So even before Joann's closed, Michaels was testing fabric. 

Now they have gone in with a vengeance, and they are also selling sewing machines - Singer and Brother. 

Most of you in Canada have spotted fabric in Michaels, but it's been a long process, and they have tried to incorporate it into their existing spaces. 

They are creating new stores that allow a lot more interaction than just selling rows and rows of product. And now - I wish I could share the photos; the brand new store in Joliette is the FIRST store in Canada to have that format. Here is the press release from Michaels so you can check it out. 

The store has a relatively large sewing/knitting/crochet department with a massive cutting table (I want the table), fabric displayed in the two corners, and, right in the middle of it all, the table with the sewing machines. It's all rather exciting!!!

The bigwigs from Michaels Canada are here, and I met a couple of them yesterday. 

So why am I here? Singer has a new and exciting embroidery machine called the Singer SMART Heavy Duty 9120. This machine is fairly inexpensive - it is for anyone who wants to start with sewing and embroidery but without a huge price point. How is that possible? The embroidery area is small, but that's OK. The big deal is that there are NO electronics in the machine—it runs from the Creativate app on a cell phone!! YES!!!! 

At first, I wasn't sure what to think, and now? I'm hooked, and it's helped me see the vision of Creativate, which is the glue that ties the technology of SVP Worldside (the parent company of PFAFF, Husqvarna Viking, Singer, and Creativate!) together. Check out the video, and you'll see what I mean. 

So I'll be demoing that machine today!!! Before you poo-poo this technology—keep in mind that this is the future!!! Apps let us do so much, and if there is a way to keep costs down, that's where the younger generations are going! It allows people to get into machine embroidery at a very low price point. Less than $1000 in Canada, and that is HUGE!

The other thing I spotted at Michela's was in the framing department. You can come in, give them a picture, and they will print it, frame it, and you'll have it in ten minutes. Seriously??? I want to get something framed - I should have done it yesterday, which was their test day. Today is the grand opening, and I expect the place will be a zoo. 

But Michaels has hired a ton of people to be at the store, and if you can't find someone or they don't find you, you must be hiding in the craft-making area!!! I certainly expected a lot of French language in this area, but the bigwigs are from out of town, and almost everyone is speaking English. It's a crazy place and today is going to be FUN!!!

So lots of exciting things are going on. I was going to say I'd take pictures, but my phone will be tied up! WAIT - I can still use my phone to take pictures while I'm embroidering! 

People are arriving at the store at 6 AM to make sure everything looks spiffy for today's grand opening, and I'm sure there were a few bugs yesterday that need fixing. I will be arriving at 7:30, and hopefully everything will go smoothly for the setup. I have played with this embroidery machine, but I've never set it up, so let's see how easy it is!!!

And on that note, I'm out of here! 

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!!