How many photos are too many?

 I sewed for a good part of the day, but I was in slow motion mode, and that's OK. I managed to get all the homework done for the class last night and the two classes this morning. OK -- that's a lie. While I did get the homework done for last night and the presentation went together, I still need to make 7 more blocks for The Butterfly quilt. I was thinking I'm doing great - I've got everything cut. Then I realized that we needed to make EIGHT blocks, not four, so back to the cutting table!

I'll try to cut them today, so I can sew them at the Virtual Retreat tonight. Then I could say that I'm up to date with The Butterfly Quilt. Here's my one block -- only 7 more to go. I'll be teaching that quilt starting in October through Thimbles and Things, so if you're not in the class now, watch for their newsletter (in August???), so get signed up! It's an EASY quilt to sew, and now tons of homework each month. Very manageable! 

A block for The Tula Pink Butterfly Quilt

I completed the homework for the two classes this morning, but I want to remake one of the blocks. One of the fabrics I used -- well, it's a bit sketchy. The pattern on the fabric is all wrong, and it needs to be redone. 

Then I have a class on half-square triangles today. Well, it's a demo. Now -- I know you're thinking -- why would you do an hour demo on half-square triangles? There are many methods to making half-square triangles, and I'll cover that, but it's WHAT you can do with them that will be the fun part of this demo. I have TONS of ideas to share. And best of all -- it's free!! You need to be on The Hobby Horse newsletter to get the Zoom link for that one! It's probably too late, as the link was sent on Thursday. 

So if you are NOT on their newsletter, you should because I'll be continuing with the free demos in the fall. This is the last one before summer. Anway-- that presentation is almost finished. The pictures are in, and I need to organize them and maybe sneak in a couple of other pictures of my quilts. I have to go diving into the "to be quilted" pile to find those, but it shouldn't take long since everything is labeled. 

If I were smart, I would take pictures of ALL of my quilts and label them and tag them and store them electronically. Then I would NEVER have to dive into those bins again for a picture, and I could start with my finished quilts. Sigh --- perhaps a job for June when the classes are pretty much done. 

I need to figure out how to use Lightroom with all its organizing features. I'm thinking of Helen Anne and her motivation with all those digital tools, and I NEED to follow suit. Not for the designing, but at least for the organizing. 

Why? Well, this happened yesterday. So, about two weeks ago, my phone started acting up. People can't hear me talk. It doesn't happen all the time, but from time to time. I can hear them perfectly. I have found that if I move outside, it's better. Now that's just silly because who can go out whenever they need to make a call. Ronda thinks I have covered my house in aluminum foil, which is a possibility since there is a ton of it on the shelves these days. 

Lots of parchment paper and aluminum foil on the shelves

Lots of foil!

I'm on a mission to find freezer paper. I do NOT need any, as I have a lifetime supply in various widths, including 48"!!); I'm trying to find it for YOU. Anyway, wherever I go, I see TONS of aluminum foil and parchment paper, very little waxed paper, and NO freezer paper; however, you can buy freezer paper in packages (8½" by 11), not the rolls. So if you happen to see it, let me know, and I'll pass that along to you all. 

Anyway-- back to the phone. I went to the mall to talk to the Bell people. The phone turns out to be 9 months old, so it's still under warranty. I have two options -- go back to Samsung or go through Bell repair. I'm investigating which one will be quicker to get a new phone and the cheapest, although it should be FREE since it's still under warranty. 

However, that means I need to remove the photos on the phone because if they transfer my stuff to a new phone, those pictures can take up a long time to transfer. 

This is what I transferred and then deleted from my phone yesterday. There were almost 10,000 photos. 

That's a LOT of photos

Good grief --- that's what I took since I got that phone 9 months ago. I think --- I didn't check when my last download was. OK -- so SOMEONE needs to do some significant culling. So that means I need to get my butt in gear and properly learn how to use Lightroom and start culling and tagging the FEW that need to stay! 

I was sitting here at the computer yesterday morning and didn't realize it was raining. When I got up, I found this throughout the entire house. Sigh.....................

Murphy left her calling card

Murphy and I had an uneventful walk, but this is what we spotted when I took Lexi for a walk. Thankfully, she is calm, so I could snap a couple of pictures.

During drop-off, this happened near the school, so I'm sure some people were freaked out. Can you see the fox? 

How about now? He had his breakfast and happily trotted across the street towards the forest, located a bit past the school. He needs to be doing a better job catching squirrels, and I'd be happy if he took up residence in my backyard! Well, behind it! 

A fox with breakfast

Here's that cutting table. Yep -- I piled it high because this is stuff that I need to cut. I hope to get some of that cut and put away later tonight at the virtual retreat. Or hopefully tomorrow. But I still have a full cutting mat to cut on, so it's not so bad, but I want to get this cleared up and tackle that current project table. 

The current state of the cutting table

And on that note, I'd better get myself going as I still need to sort through those slides for the half-square triangle presentation and dig out three quilts. Wish me luck!

Don't forget the Virtual Retreat is TONIGHT starting at 6 PM. 

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

And here's the link for tomorrow starting at 10 AM.

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81693717518?pwd=STNoVVQzbDd4ZnROQndNNlpvcC90QT09 Meeting ID: 816 9371 7518 Passcode: 579285

What's so nice is that NOTHING is urgent once today is over. There are no deadline quilts to make and no homework that is either behind (for the most part) or urgently needed. I have lots to do, but I can do whatever I want! And that will mostly be sewing sleeves on, trimming half-square triangles, and cutting. Easy peasy!!!

You can just stop by to say Hello! Or you can fire up your sewing machine and join us for an hour, 15 minutes, whatever. It's a great way to stay in touch with people and learn new things! I LOVE IT.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!

When good technology goes BAD!

 I was going to say there is nothing quilt-related today, but that would be a lie. There is something --just wait for it. 

Yesterday, I thought I was going to go mad because of technology. I love my smartphone, and like all of you, I use it a fair bit. But yesterday, I was ready to throw in the towel. Why? Not because of the phone -- oh no -- I LOVE my phone. Nope -- look at what happened. 

Scam  calls 

More scam calls

I received close to TWENTY scam calls on my cell phone in the last two days. They seem to be leaving my home phone alone now. What the heck is going on? And look at the times --- they came in batches -- sometimes as close as 6 minutes. 

And then I received this lovely text message. Notice the number is close to the last digits of the phone numbers above. That got deleted ASAP. 

A scamming text

This is becoming a total nuisance. And interestingly, when I talk to people about these calls, they say - oh yes -- the call about the X scam. WHY ARE YOU EVEN ANSWERING THOSE CALLS????   I have a new rule -- if there is NO identification on the number, I refuse to answer it. It's a crank call. DO yourself a favor and do not answer. If they want you bad enough, they will leave a message or text you. Remember, if you want to shut off your phone's ringing (at least on the Android), simply turn the phone over, and the call will continue to ring, but you won't hear it. 

I used to decline the call, but a declined call will tell the robot dialer on the other end that there is a body close to that phone. Just flip the phone face down, and it will ring and ring and ring. The robot dialer does not know there is someone close to the phone! That didn't help me yesterday, but we need to start complaining to our phone providers. That was totally insane!!!! I wonder what today will bring. Thankfully, they don't ring in the night. OH -- I think I have the Do Not Disturb turned on. 

I've gotten scam calls in the past, but not the quantity I received in the last two days. Please tell me that I am not alone in that. 

Then I was doing a presentation on Zoom yesterday, and while we were doing the preamble stuff, I felt my FitBit buzz like it had reached the goal of 11.5 KM for the day. Nothing unusual, except I knew I was a couple of KM short. I didn't pay attention to it, but next thing, my computer received a couple of e-mails, and OH MY! I had reached some badges. I didn't check it out until after the call. This is what happened. 

WHOA -- that's a lot of KM

Look at the mileage --- I have NEVER walked that much in a day. Look at the number of steps I supposedly walked. No wonder I got the Fitbit Olympian Sandal badge for walking 100,000 steps in a day. 

AH -- I don't think so

Now to figure out how to back out 20 KM from the Fitbit stuff. Good grief -- what the heck is happening? I guess I just delete that entry and reenter the difference of the 20 KM. 

And as I was presenting, I was almost finished, and without any warning, POOF -- I lost the connection. No sign of instability - no nothing, and that has never happened. 

It was a bizarre technology day, to say the least. 

I'm currently reading a book called One Second After. In this case, ALL technology in the US was targeted by a weapon called EMP -- Electro Magnetic Pulse, and in a second, they have ZERO communication, money has no value. Imagine if, all of a sudden, everything that runs on a computer dies. You have NOTHING. It's terrifying, the technology exists TODAY to make this happen, and it is a possibility in the crazy world of politics. According to the fiction book, it takes years for everything to be rebuilt! There are three books in total. Pretty scary reading! 

My evening reading involved a quilt magazine from 1990. I know --- they need to be cleaned up. I wasn't even quilting at that point. While I may not make anything from these older magazines, it's fun to check out the advertisements and the techniques, and there is inspiration there!!!

Quilt magazine from 1990

This was BEFORE embroidery machines, and there is some gadget you attach to your PFAFF sewing machine to create little motifs. I didn't quite understand it -- it sounded very slow and laborious!

Making designs -- pre-embroidery machine!

And talk about sexism -- read this first paragraph. TOTALLY FEMALE ART???? Are you kidding me? If, as late as 1990, this was the attitude, it's no wonder that the general population doesn't value our work! I wouldn't have expected this in the 1990s --- the 1950's maybe, but not the 1990's. 

What? 

And look at the instructions! Cut according to templates. 

Templates! ACK!!

The templates are squares!! Thank goodness the rotary cutter has been invented. Otherwise, we would NOT be making as many quilts as we do. 

Yep -- make templates to cut squares

This picture popped up in my Facebook feed yesterday and brought back so many memories. This is Karen and Alex - two friends that I met on the trip back in 2010. We rode our bicycles from Vancouver to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. This sign is on the Dempster Highway (800 KM), an unpaved road leading from Dawson City to Inuvik. There's only one refueling spot along that highway -- Eagle Plains Lodge. And YES -- we rode NORTH of the Arctic Circle!

Alex and Karen at a road sign on the Dempster Highway

The weather was glorious that day - NO mud. Gosh -- I need to go on another bike trip! At least, the weather is warming up and was quite lovely yesterday. So nice that I decided to go out late in the afternoon for another walk, even though I had walked earlier in the day. And despite the craziness of my Fitbit, I did need to legitimately walk another KM or two. 

This time, I did something I hadn't done in a while, but the two of them were looking so forlorn. I took both girls for a walk at the same time. 

Lexi and Murphy - -my sled dogs! 

They were pretty well behaved, although this was a rare scene to see them together like this. Usually, one or the other was off to the side checking something out. 

And for some reason, Murphy has an excellent memory. Several years ago, we used to walk in this park, and I trained her to jump up on that bench and walk along the bench. That was part of her agility training. She NEVER forgets to jump up on that bench. I don't encourage her, I don't ask her -- she just does it!! Too funny. 

Murphy walking the bench

Her paw seems to be healing OK. She is licking it less and less, so that's a good thing. But man -- she loves to empty her toy box. 

Murphy and her toys

Despite having some problems saving files - what was it with technology yesterday? I managed to get two lots of homework out the door. That also involved setting up a Facebook group, and I was determined to create a photo collage for the banner. I have done it in the past, but I couldn't get it to work the last time I tried. 

So I opened up Photoshop Elements, and I remembered LAYERS, and before I could "Bob's your uncle," I had my collage. 

Collage for Facebook banner

And hey -- if I can do one, I can create the second one that I've wanted to do. So now all my Facebook groups have banners! 

My second collage for a Facebook banner

I have some older Facebook groups that I want to delete. You would think it would be easy. Just DELETE. NO --- I've Googled it, and you have to remove all the members first. I'm OK with that, except there is NO REMOVE member command in the menu. You can BLOCK the members but not remove them. So then I use Facebook help, and it says the same thing. Then you get to rate the support --- NO, this was NOT helpful because it asked me to do something that didn't have an actual command in the program. I HATE that. 

I may take one of the groups, try the block command, and then delete the group. I now have 15 groups, and there are about four or five that I no longer use. They need to go! And oops, I noticed one group doesn't have a banner yet, and I must change that. 

Today will be a day of car errands (I have two) and sitting at the computer trying to finish the homework and set up some dates for upcoming classes. It just doesn't end!!! But after today, I should have a breather in computer work, and I MUST get that long arm up and running. 

On that note, I'm off to spin class. No more proof of vaccine required -- it will be a breeze to walk in and show my membership card!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!