My Quiltazoid is here!

Yesterday my Quiltazoid came....i was soooo excited. it was a huge box that weighed 30 pounds and had the following parts in it.

At first that was all a bit intimidating...but i remembered that i had seen it in action and it looked really simple. so, i kind of read through the manual first then just opened the first page and got started.

i had to remove the rod that held my laser first....

Then replace it with the rear holder for the rear stylus...there is even a small rod to put the laser back on.....so you don't ever have to take that off.

So far...simple. then had to take 2 screws out from left front of machine to install front stylus holder. i got 1 screw out and simply could not get the second. had to go back to the house and round up Jim to get it out for me. he came bearing bigger tools and more muscle. he made it look easy. so, then it was a piece of cake to install the front stylus holder.

Then you set the Qzoid on the frame with a template on top to set the stylus in the proper place.  there is another piece that sets to the left of the Qzoid...it looks like a tray and is exactly what it is. it holds the gears and things you will need as you use your toy.

This works pretty much like the Circle Lord. there are knobs to turn and tighten to set in place and a clamp to move over to tighten everything down. the tray goes over 1 rail and in front of another. after you tighten it down, it stills moves a bit. but once you tighten the base plate of the Qzoid, it is pressing in the opposite direction and it tightens up the tray part. you don't want to tighten it too much so it doesn't bow your rails in....just enough to keep it tight.

Speaking of the Circle Lord....the Qzoid is able to use the CL templates also...how cool is that. but if Qzoid doesn't have a template that you would like....just contact Adam and he will create one for you. they tell me that is where most of their ideas for new templates come from...their customers.
This is all to work from the front of the machine....which is what i did yesterday. working from the front, you can see exactly where you are going and if you are matching up properly.

Here i am all set up and making circles.

The system also works from the back...like if you were doing a pantograph. Here it is clamped to the back of the table. simple to do....place down..adjust knobs...close clamp...done.

There are more parts coming next week. i also ordered the large continuous templates. they are 2 foot boards....there are 5 of them to fit across the table.  you hook them together and use the rear stylus to follow the template just like a pantograph. i got the baptist fan, clamshells, terri's brain teaser (kinda looks like brickwork), maze and the enchanted garden.

I am in love with the enchanted garden. the template has leaves twisting through it with 4 large holes spaced throughout. the holes are for the pop out flower discs. right now there are 5 choices..daisy, tulip, poinsettia type, and 2 others. hard to explain but i shall show you when i get them next week. i got 4 different flowers....didn't get the tulip. you get 4 pop outs for each flower....you can use all the same flower in your quilting or use different ones in each hole and fill your garden with all kinds of lovely flowers.

There are a gazillion different designs you can make with these templates. each template holds many different shapes and depending how many times you rotate gives you different choices. This is going to be fun seeing all what i can accomplish.

Yesterday i put different designs in 8 different blocks. in the next blog post i shall show you what i did.

If you are interested in knowing more about the quiltazoid just go to their website....  http://www.quiltazoid.com/    and check them out. the owners are Adam and Linda Anderson and they are just the nicest couple. Adam builds these in his garage right now. They are located in Iowa. Adam is an engineer and answered any questions i put to him without any hesitation. and showed me anything i wanted to see. i believe this is an awesome product and am really going to have fun with it.

Let's check out the studio garden

Want to see my studio garden?  i thought you would. there is lots of color there right now. we have had so much rain that it is all blooming.

Here is what i see from my window inside......looking through the screen makes it a strange scene. i have a hard time remembering to keep that birdbath filled.

If you are on the street it looks like this....if you look at the bottom right hand corner of the fence you just see Beauregard peeking out....watching you.

Coming up the steps is the fragrant honeysuckle...love that smell.

And sharing this little arbor is a purple clematis...i'm hoping it will get much larger this year. I had them in a previous place and they did really well.

I have day lillies like crazy that were transplanted from the house that are in the front of the bed. they are basically what you see from the road.....but they are so tall that they hide the asian lillies...red ones and yellow ones.

there are also a couple rose bushes hiding in there....the rain has knocked down most of the petals. my uncle johnny planted these for me when we first moved down here about 5 years ago. i have 2 bushes on each side of the steps and they bloom beautifully.

Of course, my mascot, Beauregard, guards over the garden. he lives on a tree stump and peeks out the corner of the fence. he is painted light pink but he doesn't mind. he is huge and weighs about 30 pounds. he might be due for a refresher paint job.

Many years ago, when my niece graduated from college and became a graphics designer, she painted about a dozen stepping stones for me. they have traveled from house to house....garden to garden. the paint is wearing away on most of them but i just love them. she did such a fine job.

I also planted a couple forsythia this last fall and they are coming along nicely. and i have concete pots on the steps with annuals in them. lots of bees and dragonflies and butterflies come to visit. in other parts of the yard i have planted butterfly bushes and a redbud tree and other flowering trees.

I need to start on the other side of the steps and plant that space. so far it has a redbud tree and a flowering shrub. i am thinking of putting some hostas in there since it is shady most of the day.

Now i better get back to quilting....smelling the roses time is over.

God will get you for that!

Ever hear that saying....God will get you for that!.  i used to say it a lot. someone does something not quite kosher and you think to yourself or tell that person.....God will get you for that.

Well, i think God got ME.   it was probably long overdue. LOL

Back a couple of weeks ago....May 21 to be exact....my son came into town for his son's high school graduation. my sis and i picked him up at the airport and then drove him out to her new house to check it out.

We had concocted an evil plan...hahhahha...there was a stove and frig upstairs that we wanted downstairs and was too heavy and awkward for us to handle alone. so we figured we would bring my son out to the house and 'while he was there anyway' we would get him to haul the appliances downstairs. there just 'happened' to be an appliance dolly at the house. hahahhaa

Well, good son that he is....although suspecting our evil plan.....he hauled the stove down the steep back steps....by hisself i might add....out the door and back to the alley for a free giveaway. (it was gone in less than 24 hours).

The frig was another story. we took the shelves and drawers out and removed the doors for less weight. it was kind of tall to go down the steep back stairs so it was to be manuevered down the front stairs....which turned twice.

The first mistake we made was not giving this plan much thought. LOL  he got it down the first 5 steps to a landing. then it was about 8 or 10 more steps to go to the next landing. the problem is it took up the whole landing space and couldn't be turned to go down on its side. so, my son is at the bottom of it and my job is to hold up the back of the frig so the coils don't ride on the steps. i did good for about halfway down. then the frig had to lean over more to clear the top of the ceiling.

That's where God got me. the knuckles of my left hand got between the frig and the corner post of the stairs. ouch!.  it happened pretty fast and didn't really hurt bad.....but.....it immediately started swelling and turned blue and red. dang.....we got the stupid frig down the rest of the stairs to the last landing. then big bad son just lifted the whole thing up and set it down onto the floor from the last 3 steps.

I could make a fist and figured nothing was broken and it wasn't throbbing....but it sure was a pretty color and kind of fat. we had no water there at the house...therefore no ice.  so it was a couple hours before we got back to my sis's house. it was still swollen so i put some ice on it for a while and then wrapped it in a heating pad. it is now a pretty green and yellow and purple.

It is still sore but doesn't really hurt....unless i touch it. but a couple days ago i did some yard work...planting and brick work and pushed the push mower for a couple hours. by the time i was done, i could hardly get my glove off....it was swollen again and once again red and blue. sheesh!

It was the little finger and the ring finger that i hit...right on those 2 knuckles. yesterday i decided to go get a couple xrays just in case i did something i couldn't tell. after all, it has been 11 days and i thought it should be all better by now. the xrays showed no fractures but he said i had arthritis there. well, i already knew about the arthritis so that was no shock. the doc says don't use it a couple weeks so it can heal. shoot....i can't do that. i gotta quilt....i gotta mow.  so, i guess i will have a colorful swollen hand for a while until it gets better.

And you know what else......is it just me?......everytime i hurt something....i keep bumping that spot. so i might have a colorful hand all summer.

my Ah Ha! moment

I had an Ah Ha! moment....ok, it only took me 4 years to get that moment. for years i have been pinned my tops on the leaders of my longarm.

like so...

For years i have been stuck in the abdomen with these pins....sometimes to the tune of bandaids....occasionally it's been a 2 band aid day.   i won't show you a pic of that. LOL

Finally, finally, my brain kicked in and told my fingers how to fix the problem....

like so...

For pete's sake....all i had to do was poke the END of the pin back under. no more poking with pins...no more bandaids..band aid stock will plummet.

Why does it take me so long for my Ah Ha! moments.

I'm Baccckkk!!!

Whew....it's been a rough month of May but I am finally back on track....i think.

I was off to Overland Park, Kansas from the 9th through the 15th for the longarm specific show of MQS. it was my first time there and i definitely had fun. i took 3 classes and filled my brain with new ideas. did not spend a lot of money with vendors, though. (except for one). i got a ruler from DeLoa Jones with 1/4" lines etched on it; some of Irena Bluhm's books. i took a class from her and she is so much fun and i learned a lot.

The biggest thing i bought was the Quiltazoid system. I was looking at the Circle Lord system but they couldn't answer my questions to my satisfaction. a gal in one of my classes pointed me in the direction of the Quiltazoid and told me to check it out. i liked it a lot and ordered the whole thing. they are relatively new in the market...their 2nd year...he is an engineer who builds them in his garage (for now). the price was terrific but i think it will go up as he sells more of them. i have about a 5 week wait to get all my goodies. check them out online   http://www.quiltazoid.com/    very cool stuff.

Then my grandson graduated from high school and my son came up from Texas for the hurrah. we picked him up at the airport  on the 21st and took him to see my sis's house in the country. while he was here we conned him into taking a window air conditioner UP to the second floor. and a stove and frigerator DOWN to the first floor. having a son with muscle always is a plus in my book. we put the stove in the alley for a giveaway and it was gone in less than 24 hours. and the frig will now live in the downstairs kitchen. after the graduation party and ceremony in an extremely hot school gym with about a zillion people in it, we had to take my son back to the airport at 3am  on the 24th so he could catch a 6am flight home. sleep was catch as catch can for the weekend.

here is the graduate...shaking hands and getting the diploma.

and here is my son and his son. i can't believe he wore that dorky straw hat but he loves it. LOL the grandson is going to college close to home and taking nursing classes...hope that works out well for him.

Then my sis and i went back to her house and did yard work for a day and inside plaster work for a day. the house is slowly getting prettied up.

after coming home and chilling for a day or so i am finally getting back into my routine. so, last night i finished my tomato block for the veggie quilt. my dh didn't recognize any of them as tomatoes. oh well.

So, off i go to seeing if i remember how to quilt after all this time away from home. talk to you soon.

Corn

I got the corn done last night. dh thinks the one without the corn showing looks like  a rabbit. when i showed it to him without the other ear he didn't know what it was. i don't think it looks THAT bad but now everytime i look at it...i see a rabbit!  darn him anyway!

There was another type of corn that had the corn showing in the middle but a 'flap' of husk covering it...3D type. it was kind of cool. depending on how i put the top together there might be more veggies in the borders or something.

 

This is probably all you will hear from me until i get back from MQS on the 16th. then i shall probably have lots to share.

Tomorrow is scheduled for packing and mowing once again if it doesn't rain. and it sure looks tonight like it is going to rain.

We went to Bill's funeral today. the graveside service had the full military honors with the 21 gun salute and the bugler playing Taps. it was very moving...i had never witnessed it before. watching them fold the flag and give it to Ruth brought a tear to the eye. Bill had lots of relatives and friends there to tell him good-bye and i believe Ruth appreciated all the support. and they placed one of the shell casings from the 21 gun salute inside the flag when it was folded...i never knew they did that, either. learned new things today....always good.

Would you ask Picasso to paint your garage?

Why is it that people think if you have a sewing machine that you patch or mend or fix things. i used to do that and sometimes still do. this is one of those times.

My hubby's buddy brought me 2 jackets. one had a tiger on the back and dragons on the sleeves. he wanted those embroidered items put onto the other jacket. so i said...'sure, why not'. it sat in the studio for a couple weeks and i looked at it once or twice and thought about it a bit.

Today i decided to tackle it. my first thought was to cut it out and fuse it to the other jacket and then just stitch around it. but they were both nylon and i figured they would melt under the iron. so i cut them out, leaving some space to turn them under. i decided to cut the tiger in a circle. it has letters on top of it but we didn't want those. the dragons and the tiger was a bit too wide for the back of the jacket so i put the circle of the tiger kind of over the edges of the dragons. we won't even talk about the tiger jacket being blue and the other jacket being marroon. LOL

I had to stretch out the bottom of the jacket and tape it to the table then try and pin the designs in place and keep the lining from bunching up at the same time. it was a pain...i think it would have been easier to just sew another jacket. when i cut out the tiger, it did not lay flat so i put some batting under it to take up some space.

Once i pinned them down with about a zillion pins i stitched around them and then went around the tiger and one side of the dragons so the batting wouldn't shift. the designs went from one side seam to the other all the way across the back.

LD liked it and had a big smile on his face so it was a success and that is all that matters. oh, and i embroidered his company name, Stampede Recording, on the front of the jacket, too. he says he bought the jacket because it has the "S" on it. LOL
 

LD is the guitar player for their band, Country Crossroads. They are building a recording studio in part of our barn. My hubby has been learning how to record the music onto CD's. I have a feeling there are going to be some hours of music shenanigans out there soon. but they say they are soundproofing the place so i shouldn't hear anything.

We shall see.