My Amara

Last week my longarmer just stopped working. It shut down in the middle of quilting a quilt. It was like somebody turned off the power. However, the room was still lit and everything else that was turned on was working. I immediately got to work troubleshooting and ended up on a message board where there have been reported issues with a specific circuit board in these machines.

I called my dealer and we walked through her troubleshooting methods and she directed me to the tech support at Handi Quilter once those things didn't work. I went through troubleshooting methodology with the tech support people and then he asked me for the serial number of the machine and instantly he stated that the motor driver board needs to be replaced. Tech support was shipping the part to my dealer. Done.

I had to schedule an appointment with my dealer to get the board installed once Handi Quilter delivered it to them. They are very busy people. But very good at customer service. Since I recently started working at a quilt shop, the scheduled date for dropping the machine off was a day I had to work. My husband very nicely volunteered to drop the machine off since we would have to transport it in his truck anyway. There's no way that machine would ever fit in my little Mini Cooper...unless I put the convertible top down. Ha!

Here's my precious cargo headed to the shop for repair. I won't have the machine back until September 16th. I don't know how I will survive without her. I will have the machine tuned up since they will working on her anyway.  Good thing there's plenty of gardening and quilt tops to be made.

Speaking of gardening just look at the size of this cabbage. In order to get an idea of the size of this thing, I put my hand in the photo. It's huge!

We went to Six Flags Great America yesterday and I did a bad thing. I took a photo of the photos you can purchase of us on one of the rides. It grainy and blurry but here it is.

My granddaughter loves roller coasters. And I musts confess, I do too! Here are the two girls when we left Hurricane Harbor. 

Seeing as yesterday was the last day of summer vacation, it felt really to finish it off with a bang.

What's on the Design Board?

I've had this pretty bundle for a few years now and it's finally hit the top of my to-do list. I know it will be a bit of a challenge which is why I was in no hurry to make it. Although I enjoy honing my quilting skills for some reason, this one intimidated me more than most others.

I really struggled with the instructions for the center of this quilt. Once I completed the diamond sections, there was nothing that stated how wide the sections should be. So I was worried when I put it together and sure enough, one section was not quite right. So I am missing a point on one of the diamond pieces and after 3 tries to get it right I decided it was time to call it quits and just move on. Even though I added more borders to the center section, I still might unpick the center stitches and hand sew it back together in order to make the points better. I doesn't look half-bad from this distance though, don't you think?

There's not a lot of quilting going in these days since my longarner has to go to the shop. I will be taking it in right after Labor Day and won't be getting it back until September 16th. My husband thinks I will be going into withdrawal way before then. I disagree since I have so many other things to do so I guess we will see.

Yesterday morning I got up at 5 and took a walk around the yard. The sun was just coming up and it really made the flowers look pretty. Here are the sunflowers on the side of my vegetable garden. It sure took them a long time to finally bloom. In fact there are many more still to come. 

I also canned salsa last week and I have so many tomatoes that are ready that I will be canning another case of salsa at the end of this week.

It rained all day last Monday and just look at this guy. He knows what to do on a rainy day.

Row by Row Quilt in Progress

I got ready to quilt this quilt called Row by Row on my longarmer. Before I loaded it I noticed how nice the rows looked from the back. I am a firm believer in pressing my quilts. It really makes a difference and helps with accuracy when lining things up.

Once I got it ready to go I stitched 3 rows of quilting. I got halfway through the 4th row when bam! the machine just stopped. It was like the power went out. Except that the lights were on, the television was still on and everything else power-wise was still working. I instantly turned the machine to the off position and back on. Nothing. I unplugged and plugged it in and nothing. The light was on on the surge protector so I suspected that it was not power related. I even plugged the machine in a different outlet. Nothing. I checked all the connections, asked my husband to double-check the power and everything was fine. It looks like I have to make a service call. So this is as far as this quilt is going to get until I figure out what's going on. What a bummer.

Sophia's Birthday Quilt

This is Sophia's birthday present. Sophia is my daughter's friend's daughter. Sophia's older sister, Lilly is my granddaughter's best friend. Of course I made Lilly a quilt for her birthday and Lilly's mom was so thrilled and appreciative that I couldn't help but want to make one for Lilly's little sister. We've always been invited to these girls' birthday parties so it wasn't unusual for me to make this quilt for this little girl.

Her favorite colors are pink and purple and other than that, I just knew she was like many other little girls who like things that sparkle. So this fabric seemed appropriate for this quilt. I made 12 large star blocks and sewed them together to make the rows. I didn't use a quilt pattern, just instructions for the big 12-inch star block and added a small inner border and a larger outer border. It was pretty quick and easy.

I quilted this using a pantograph called Cloud of Hearts. It compliments the little fairy princesses on the fabric nicely. 

I like how it turned out and I sure hope Sophia (and her mother) like it. 

Sue's Wisconsin State Fair Winner

My friend Sue won 1st Place at the Wisconsin State Fair for her modern quilt. I am so proud of her! She sent me a message thanking me for the use of my longarm which was totally unnecessary. She is always welcome here - I would not have that longarm without her encouragement and support.

Here is her quilt hanging at the fair. I love it. She did a great job putting it all together and it is beautiful.

Toy Story (Buzz Lightyear) Quilt

I am doing this game (challenge) found over on the Country Threads Chicken Scratch blog called Connie's Dirty Dozen. The idea is to find 12 of your unfinished projects (UFOs) and number them from 1 through 12. Each month a number will be drawn by Connie and that's the numbered project you need to complete by the end of the month. You can read all the rules and instructions for the game here. The game started with July and last month I finished my #8 in two weeks. I had extra incentive in that I was donating the quilt to my church's art fair on the 20th of July so it really needed to get done. Country Threads posted the photo I sent them of my quilt here. Yay! I am keeping up with the game (so far- ha ha).

For August Connie drew #3 so here is my August project all done:

This quilt will go to Quilts for Kids. As you can see the fabric has Buzz Lightyear all over it in large print. I struggled to figure out how to cut up the fabric to make quilt blocks and still see that it's Buzz on the fabric. So I found this cute free tutorial here called the Novelty Quilt tutorial. I thought it was perfect for this fabric so I fussy cut all the Buzz images as well as his enemy. I used all leftover scraps from my scrap bin of solids to make the 2-inch squares. It was a very economical project. I used high-loft batting when I quilted this in order to make the quilting pop. I think I was successful. The quilt feels nice and puffy yet still soft.

So I'm 2 months into the Dirty Dozen game and I feel like am "winning"!

Cindy's Charity Quilt

I quilted my friend Cindy's quilt for her today. I should say over the past few days. It's a pretty big quilt so it took me a while to complete the quilting. It didn't help that I chose a harder pantograph to use for the quilt design.

The pantograph is called ripples and there's lots of curls and waves in it. I wanted to make sure I did a good job for her so I made sure I took my time. It did take a while to complete each row sine they were pretty long rows.

I used a variegated thread from the Superior Thread Omni-V line, the color is called Rolling Hills. It sure felt like a perfect match to the colors of the quilt blocks.  For the back of the quilt I used So Fine thread in Glacier. What a pretty name for a turquoise color thread.

The quilt is for a charity raffle and the money will go to the PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) Foundation.

What's on the design board?

My design board doesn't have any new quilt projects on it except to say that the leftovers from the recently finished One Direction quilt are present. I want to make pillow covers with the orphan blocks and I'm just trying to figure out how to arrange them in a way to use them all up and make them look cute.

I also have some orphan blocks that I'm hoping inspire me to make more Lori Holt-Farm Girl-like quilts. They are a bit putzy so we shall see.

This last week was spent cleaning out my studio and it's amazing how inspired I was to start new things once that was done. I cut 2 new kits to take with me to the senior center sew days. Before cleaning things out, I just couldn't get inspired. I think it was the giant stacks of leftover scraps from other projects that were staring at me - clogging my brain. Ha!

This time of year is when I spend a lot of time gardening. The produce I get is never taken for granted. Gardening is hard work and I love the rewards Mother Nature brings. I used up the last of the snow peas that I picked in some garlic chicken. It's one of my husband's favorite recipes so there was none left when that dinner was done.