Norma's Baby Quilt

I worked on the baby blanket Norma needed to have quilted for her granddaughter Rachel, whose baby was due most any day.  It takes a lot longer on my Bernina than it would have on the quilting machine, but there are certain things that can be done on the little machine that can’t be done on the HQ 16.  Or at least I can't do them.  Yet.

A man from Illinois wrote while we were at church last Sunday night, offering to help get the HQ 16 retimed (something went wrong with the timing, and it wouldn't pick up bobbin thread) if Larry wanted to call his cell phone.  Larry called him Tuesday.  The man is named Mike, and he owns The Machine Shop in Highland, Illinois.   He's so helpful, and he won't take a thing for his time.  He sells HandiQuilters in his store -- and travels around the country, setting them up for his customers.

Well, Thursday night Larry gave Mike’s timing instructions a try.  It wasn’t long, and my HQ 16 was fixed.  Yes, it woiks, it woiks, it woiks!  In fact, I think it sounds just a little smoother than it did when I first got the machine.  I'm back in business.  I would be done with Norma's quilt in no time.  I finished a border that I'd started on the Bernina, then loaded it back onto the frame… and there I was then, quilting away — and done in about 15 minutes.  Wheeeeee!

A lady on the Yahoo quilt-talk group said she times her own machine.  I replied:

You tryin’ to tell me I could learn to do such a thing??!  <hair standing straight up on end>  But. . . but. . . but. . . <stuttering>  it wasn’t in my job description!  I thought Larry should do stuff like that, and all I should have to do is hold the handles and make the thing go this-a-way and that-a-way.

Actually, I once amazed myself by taking off the dryer door and reinstalling it so that it opened from the other direction.  After I passed smelling salts under Larry’s nose and revived him, he was surprised, too.  And then there was the time I hooked up my entire computer, external hard drives, routers, modem dish, and all – all by me little ownself.  None of us have ever gotten over that, yet.  Now, things that happen on the screen of my ’puter, I cope with, and love doing so.  I can delve into the registry and do all sorts of magical things.  But if the battery on my Yukon goes dead, or if a tire goes flat, or if the back of a kitchen drawer falls out, why, the only thing I know to do is cry out in loud and anguished tones, “Larrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeee!”

Maybe. . . <whispering> . . . maybe I do that, because iffen I done larnt how to do too many things around here, well, then, maybe it could just be that I’d be expected to keep right on a-doin’ them, from now and henceforth.  (But don’t mention it to Larry.)

By midnight, I’d finished the Winnie-the-Pooh baby blanket.  It doesn’t take long at all, with the HQ 16, and it turned out pretty good, I think. 

Quilt back

Yessirree, it turned out pretty good.  Ladies on a certain machine quilting group were all appalled and disapproving when they learned I was actually going to do quilting on someone else's quilt  <gasp> -- and it's only the third quilt I've put on my HQ frame.  They 'strongly discourage' anybody quilting for customers (even family!) (maybe especially family!) before they've done, oh, something like 1,302,626,986 hours of quilting on 'practice quilts', consisting of corn husks and Sears & Roebuck catalogue pages, which they can then donate to the dog pound.

Yeah, well, ugh.  I prefer not to waste time, money, energy, and enthusiasm.  Howz about I jist quilt thees heeuh quilts the vewy, vewy bestest I can, huh huh huh?  I have two big quilts a-waitin' in the wings, and they're a-goin' on my HQ frame -- next.  (One at a time, heh.)  So there.