You probably know by now that I’m a big EQ6 fan.  It’s great quilt design software.  I’ve used it to design nearly all of my quilts.  However, I rarely use it to design the actual quilting designs.  I tend to doodle that mostly by hand.  Well this time, I’m working on a smaller quilt and wanted to keep the quilting design simple.  So I thought it was a good opportunity to use EQ6 to lay out  some stencils on the quilt. 

I was fooling around with stencil sizes and combinations when I realized it was time to start making dinner.  Without thinking, I quickly closed the file even though I still had some of the stencils sitting off to the side of the quilt in the margins.  I just assumed they would disappear.  You can guess the rest of the story! Never assume! 

The next day I went to work on the quilt again and the file wouldn’t open!  The nasty message simply read, “The project has an unreadable polygon.”  Since when can’t my computer read a polygon!!!????  Ok – Don’t panic, I told myself – just contact the wonderful folks at EQ and they’ll get my project back.

Well, I did contact EQ support and got a real reply within 30 minutes!  How’s that for customer service!  I’m telling you they really stand behind their product.  (This is not the first time I’ve gotten such a prompt response!)  Unfortunately the news was bad.  Those stencils that I left off to the side basically corrupted my whole file. 

Lesson 1:  Always clean up your work space when you’re done – don’t leave anything off to the side.  There’s a technical explanation for what happens when you do – but I won’t get into that now.  Just don’t do it!!!!!

Lesson 2:  Here’s the really important one that I never thought about.  If you’re an EQ’er like me, you probably thought that saving your quilt at various stages  in the Sketchbook was enough.  However, if you are working on a project that’s important (and what project isn’t?) – you want to be sure that you also have a back-up file .  Follow this very sage advice from Penny McMorris of Electric Quilt.  This is what she advises:

“…part way through [your project], using
FILE > Save as, giving the project a NEW name, and navigating so you are
saving to the PJ6 folder.
Then exit, get back in and open your ORIGINAL project again and continue
working. That way you’ll have:
– ORIGINAL PROJECT, which you will complete
– HALF-WAY FINISHED (or almost completed) PROJECT, so that if something
happens to ORIGINAL PROJECT you can open HALF-WAY FINISHED and carefully
recreate. That way you will not need to start from scratch.

Also, if you ever create your own stencils or blocks, add them to My
Library so those are not also lost. ”

Fortuately my  story has a happy ending after all because I realized that a few weeks back I had saved the project as a different name for another purpose.  So although I lost the work that I had done recently, the majority was still in existence!  But believe me – I will definitely be following Penny’s advice in the future!

Helle-May

P.S.  Regarding that request for Brother sewing machine info.  I found out that BabyLock and Brother machines are one in the same company.  ( I swear there are only a handful of companies in the world that make everything – but that’s a story for another day)  Anyway I have a friend who swears by her BabyLock Serger and recently bought a sewing/embroidery machine.  So I told my cousin she should buy a mid-priced model and she should be good to go again!

Remember my cousin in Norway who is getting married this summer?  Well, she is making her wedding dresses and her sewing machine died.  Yes – that’s plural.  She will be wearing both a traditional white dress to walk down the aisle as well as wear traditional Estonian costume during the reception.  (I did the same at my wedding here in ’95. )

Anyway she e-mailed me for an opinion.  It’s obviously very expensive to buy a new machine in Norway and was looking on line at some Brother machines.  I have no experience with that brand, let alone what might be available overseas.  Does anyone out there have an opinion or recommendation?  I’d love to pass along any info that I can.  Thanks!

Helle-May

P.S.  Just a reminder, the blog spam protection software requires that you do some simple math in order to leave a comment! 

No going back now (I hope!)!  I found a few crocus blooming in the yard, even a hardy pansy from last year!  What a glorious day!  I took down our snow village today – finally.  It’s official winter is over!

Atttended the NJ Mancuso Quilt Show yesterday in Somerset.  It’s not a huge show – could easily be done in a day.  Spent half the day wandering the vendors and oogling the quilts. 

Spent the remainder of the day selling raffle tickets for our guild’s beautiful raffle quilt.  It is called “Fireworks.” A beautiful rainbow of batiks against a backdrop of black sky.  It’s all paper-pieced with lots of long sharp points.  As soon as I get my hands on a picture, I’ll post it. 

Since it’s my blog – I’ll put in a plug for our upcoming show on October 1, 2, and 3rd.  It is held at the historic Prallsville Mill in Stockton, NJ.  Makes for a beautiful fall day/drive in the country.  Be sure to put it on your calendar – but I’ll remind you as we get closer!

Now open the windows and let the some fresh air in!

Helle-May

Ok – I’m really done with the snow now!  Today makes the third snow day this month for the kids!  At this rate they’ll be in school until July!It’s not fun anymore.  They don’t even want to play in it anymore!  Time for spring! 

Helle-May

I checked my baby out of the hospital yesterday – my Janome 66oo, that is.  Turns out she was trying to telling me that she needed a bit of a spa treatment.  Thankfully, all she needed was a good cleaning and a lube job.  It’s been about 1 year, 2 major quilts and  half a dozen or so small projects.  I guess it was time.

Moral of the story:  Treat your baby well and she won’t let you down!

Another lesson learned the hard way:  I should have paid more attention to this, but of course I had to find out the hard way.  Even with the 6600 and 6500 being practically the same machine, I evidently needed to pay closer attention to calibrating my 1/4″ seam allowance.  After I switched machines, I was working on a pieced border with a lot of seams.  It’s amazing how much length can be eaten up by being off just the slightest bit – after a while it just adds up!  My 35 1/2″ border strip was nearly a 1/2″ too short when I was done!  I had to do a bunch of adjusting but I managed to make it up without a noticeable difference in the design.

Moral of this story:  If you change machines mid-project, make sure your seam allowances are the same as with the previous machine.  On a quilt with a lot of matching seams,  it can mean the difference between the use of a very sharp instrument along with a lot of unmentionable words and stress-free satisfaction with how well the piece came together!

 Lessons learned – now back to the sewing!

Helle-May

Went to a performance of Quilters last night with some of my quilty friends.  It was performed by the Act 1 Performing Group at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA (near Bethlehem).  They did a wonderful job.  Evidently the play was first performed on Broadway in 1982 and was nominated for several Tony awards. 

The play is set in the American West presumably in the 1800’s .  A pioneer woman, Sarah, and six women, who are called her daughters, face frontier life. Rather than a straightforward storyline, the musical is presented as a series of short tales  matched with musical numbers, each presenting an aspect of frontier life or womanhood, such as girlhood, marriage, childbirth, spinsterhood, twisters, fire, illness and death .  Each story is represented by a quilt block and .   The blocks  are ultimately put together to form one large beautiful quilt. 

My friend Linda, who was with us, said that the quilt for the original Broadway production was quilted by her friend in Maryland, a talented long-armer. 

This production at DeSales ends tonight, but is definitely worth seeing if another production comes your way – even if you’re not a quilter!

Helle-May

After 5 scheduled days off and a snow day on top of that, I was so happy to put the kids on the bus this morning!  I love my kids – but really,  they needed to go back to school and I needed to get back to my sewing machine!

After about 20 minutes, my needle suddenly jammed, bent and then broke.  It’s pretty rare for that to happen to me – but ok I knew my needle was a little on the fine side for what I was doing.  So I put  a new needle in, re-threaded the machine and then the noise started.  My baby did not sound happy 🙁   After messing around with the bobbin area for a while, I came to the conclusion, that something ugly must have happened down there when that needle jammed.  She needed to go to the hospital.  Then came the really bad news – she probably wouldn’t get looked at until the end of the week!!!!!  Oh, no!!!

Fortunately, I have a Janome 6500 sitting at home in a box.  When the 6600 came out so quickly after the 6500 – I was advised not to trade-in the 6500 since I would not get my money’s worth on such a new machine. )  Evidently it was very good advice, but for a much different reason!  So I am happily sewing again on my newest project and despite the flurries today – the kids are still in school!  🙂 

Moral of the story:  If you are a serious sewer – always have a back-up!  I think one is probably enough, but I have a few friends who could probably jam quite a few needles before they run out of machines!!  You know who you are!!:) 

Helle-May

I want to thank my guild, The Courthouse Quilters, for being my guinea pigs last night!  I appreciated your patience and attention to my slide-show and trunk show!  I apologize for running a bit late.

A little over a month ago the program coordinator asked me to be the guest speaker at the guild’s monthly meeting.  It’s something I’ve been wanting to try my hand at, but I’ve been a little reluctant.  It was great to be able to try my hand at something like this in front of friends.   My journey in quilting is only 10 years old, but I was worried about rambling and getting off track so I wrote myself a script in hopes that it would keep me focused.  I practiced at home several times in front of my husband hoping to keep the talk to half an hour.  Although I did spend a little more time on personal history with this group than I would with others, what I did not count on was the amount of time that was spent looking at each quilt – especially, since I thought I had shown most of them off already.  So I think it was closer to 45 minutes before I got to the end. 

Figuring that I was going to spend about 30 minutes on my quilting journey, the plan was to spend another 30 minutes on an overview of what EQ6 software can do.  Because the evening was getting late, I had to rush through that part before I lost my audience.  I now know that if I want to offer a trunk show, there’s just not enough time to do both.  I am grateful for the opportunity to work out some kinks in what may possibly be yet a new adventure.

If there are any NJ or eastern PA guilds out there interested in hearing one quilter’s journey, give me a shout! 

Helle-May

It’s been such a crazy busy week.  I’ve been trying to write this since Tuesday.   Now that we’re stuck in the house with a blizzard blowing outside, I have some time! 

I found out at the beginning of the week that Driftwood was juried into the new AQS show in Lancaster at the end of March! I am very excited!!  It will be judged in the Wall Quilt Category.  I think the chances of it winning a prize are slim because I am sure that it will be up against some amazing quilts from some very skilled quilters, many of whom are on the east coast – think Jinny Beyer, Karen Kay Buckley, among others.    As far as I’m concerned Driftwood has already had to pass through one set of judges just to get into the exhibit.  I have already received a “Contestant” ribbon which I get to wear on my name badge when I go.  I’ll take that!

The link to the show:  http://www.americanquilter.com/shows_contests/lancaster/2010/general_info/

This is the show I talked about at the end of last year.  There had been another large show in Lancaster which closed it’s doors.  The American Quilter Society (AQS), which hosts the famous show in Paducah,  took advantage of the opportunity to add its first show on the east coast.   While in the midwest, I never made it to Paducah (which for you non-quilter readers is like going to Mecca for quilters)  It requires reservations for accomodations at least a year in advance and even those are hard to come by.  In addition, the show is primarily held during the workweek.  With two small children and a  husband with limited vacation time, I hadn’t gotten to the point where I could swing that one before we moved!

I did have the opportunity to go to the AQS Nashville show several times, however, before they moved it to Knoxville.  The show was held at the Opryland Hotel which is like a city under roof, but I think I’ve talked about that before.  In 2005, Treasure Chest (HMD-103) was juried into that exhibit.  In 2006, Ring Around the Rosie was juried into the Guild Challenge Category along with 9 other amazing challenge quilts from my guild.  Our guild challenge that year was entitled “Childhood Games.  We drew games out of a hat which we then had to depict in a quilt.  It was a lot of fun.

I hope that some of you will be able to see Driftwood in person – maybe I’ll even bump into you while you’re there!  If you want to make your own,  don’t forget you can purchase the pattern – HMD-104!   It’s not a beginner quilt, but it’s not as hard as it looks.  The pattern takes you through it step by step with a diagram for every one!

See you in Lancaster!

Helle-May

Were you ever afraid to talk about some good news because you were afraid that if you did, it wouldn’t really happen?  Well that’s why I’ve only been hinting at my good news for the past month or so.  But now it’s real and I am so excited to tell you about my new venture with www.QuiltWoman.com! 

Sometimes things happen when you least expect them!  Remember that workshop I took with Linda Hahn back in November?  Linda had just co-authored an Insider’s Guide to Quilting Careers with Merry May and published by none other than QuiltWoman.com.  Linda and I got to talking and one thing led to another.  So the story goes…

Quiltwoman.com is a pattern publishing company that works with lesser known, but nevertheless talented designers.  They have a retail website as well as a very successful wholesale and distributor network.   This is important for two reasons:  First, it means that my patterns will be accessible to a much larger audience – (maybe even in a store near you!) and because they do all the printing, the patterns will be a little less expensive!  I will continue to create my own designs and write up the patterns, but the hassle of printing and marketing them will be taken care of by the very capable folks at Quiltwoman.com.   A dream come true!

Check out their website:  www.QuiltWoman.com  and see for yourself.  Maybe you’ll discover some other quilt designers/patterns that are just calling your name!

2010 is starting off on a very exciting note!  I have a feeling this could be a very interesting year! Hope you stay for the ride!

Helle-May

P.S.  To be consistent, I will be lowering the prices of the patterns for sale on www.HelleMayDesigns.com.  Once the inventories of the original printings are depleted, I will refer all pattern sales to www.QuiltWoman.com.  The patterns are identical except that the original printings were in a more costly booklet format.   At this time, only Christmas Candy will not be available at www.QuiltWoman.com, as I still have fabric kits available.