Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 55th birthday. My birthday falls so close to Thanksgiving that usually I am celebrating with family—my mother and the girls and I spent it in Seattle last year—or I take myself on a long weekend trip. Neither of those things will be happening this year and I am kind of bummed. I am reluctant even to travel to Missoula because the weather has been so lousy. I was getting ready to head into town yesterday morning to run errands and had one ear on the scanner. We had gotten some snow and already, fire departments were responding to a couple of motor vehicle accidents. I narrowly missed being hit in town—as I approached an intersection at Main Street, where I had the green light, someone coming down Main Street ran the red light right in front of me. Had I been in the intersection, he would have hit the front end or side of my car. He never slowed down.

Sigh.

I wore my new top all day yesterday. So comfortable. The next time Joanns has a sale on knits, I’ll pick up a few more lengths.

One of my errands yesterday was to track down the totes for my Kratky lettuce system. Home Depot was out of the ones I needed, so I ordered a box of five-gallon totes from Amazon. They seemed like they were taking forever to arrive, so I checked the order status. Imagine my surprise (/sarcasm) when the US Postal Service tracking number indicated the the mail carrier had tried—unsuccessfully—to deliver them last Monday. I doubt she even made an effort. I never received a slip or anything that notified me that I needed to go to town and pick them up, so I printed the page with the tracking number from the Amazon website and stopped at the main post office in town yesterday. The box was there.

This is just another in a long line of issues we’ve had with the postal carrier out here. Back in August, I had to remind the driver that the easement between our properties is not a road and she cannot drive 35 mph on it. On that particular day, our renter and her 4 year-old daughter were outside playing in their yard as she blew past, which is why I felt compelled to say something. The mail carrier apparently failed to notice the sign that said “Don’t drive like an asshole down this easement.” (The sign actually says, “Slow—animals and children playing” but you get my drift.)

I have the totes now, so I will work on getting the Kratky system set up. My mother suggested that I stay home this weekend and work on some of my projects. I have several.

I pulled out a bag the other night so I could press some pieces I’ve been using as leaders and enders:

When I was a freshman in high school, I took a semester of art. Our teacher, Ms. Furey, assigned us a project known as “88 Squares.” We were to draw a grid of 88 squares on a large piece of paper, choose two opposing colors from the color wheel, and fill in each square with a design using those colors in tints (add white) and shades (add black). I’ve always thought that would be a fun project to interpret as a quilt. These are 2-1/2” squares, and there will be far more than 88 of them when I’m done.

One of my other errands yesterday was stopping at the quilt store to talk to them about sit-down longarm machines. I’ve been looking at the HandiQuilter—and this store is a dealer, but they are also a dealer for the Bernina Q system. I am not an impulse purchaser. I like to research and think and research and think some more. I was mightily impressed by that Bernina, however.

The husband is very useful for talking through decisions like this; he doesn’t know anything about quilting, so he asks basic questions about what I am looking for and what I want to do, and that helps me to distill down my thinking. I do not want a longarm quilting frame. I do not want to devote the space to it, for one thing. I also have no desire to do custom longarm quilting, where the quilter moves the machine to create special quilting designs and effects. I would use it primarily to do computer-controlled allover quilting patterns, where the computer moves the machine in a specific design. As frame systems run into the tens of thousands of dollars, however, that seems bit extravagant to me. Most people who buy longarm quilting machines do so intending to custom quilt for other people, which helps pay for the machine.

A sit-down longarm machine is basically a bigger version of my domestic machine and does only one thing: free motion machine quilting. Rather than the quilter moving the machine, the quilter moves the quilt. I’m already used to moving the quilt when I quilt on the Janome, so quilting on the Bernina Q20 came really easily. Interestingly, one of the women working at the quilt store sat down and tried it after I did. She has a longarm frame and she had a lot of trouble quilting on the Q20 precisely because she’s used to moving the machine, not the quilt. You get used to different movements.

The decision now is the Q16 or the Q20. One of the limitations of my Janome is the throat size, or space to the right of the needle. My Janome has approximately 8” of throat space. Quilting anything larger than a twin size quilt gets to be a wrestling match because the excess quilt has to be folded up into that space. The Q16 has 16 inches of throat space—about double the Janome—and the Q20 has 20”. I think I’d be perfectly happy with the Q16, and it’s is (obviously) less expensive than the Q20. The only reason to get the Q20 would be because it could be upgraded to a frame system in the future. The husband says to make sure I don’t buy something I’ll outgrow too quickly. And I could certainly do some custom quilting for other people if I were so inclined.

I am still thinking on this. I have the cash available and could get either one. I also don’t know how long it would take for the store to get the machine after I order it. Input is welcome, if anyone reading has experience with these machines.