I had fun yesterday playing with my Circle Lord.  I found that the Featherz template works a whole lot better when you rotate the disc the right direction.  DUH! 🙂  I’m still getting some backtracking issues, but the 3rd wreath I did was better than the 1st or 2nd.  Like anything, it’s going to take some PPP to get the hang of it.  But so far, me likes!

I also did just a bit of playing with some freehand fillers and feathers. Nothing fancy, it was just fun to lay down a bit of thread.  I have recently made some adjustments to my longarm, retiming, and some adjustments to the electronics that affect the stitching speed, etc., and I wanted to make sure I have the tension back to good, and that I was getting pretty stitches. 

Sometimes it’s fun to just do some quick, easy stitching just to watch the pretty thread stitch out. 

I also used my practice piece to try my hand at a couple of stencils.  Becoming proficient at freehand stitching of stencils is one of my longarm goals.  My first attempt at this beautiful stencil by Anita Shackelford.  I still need some practice, but I was very pleased for a first try. 

I had to purchase this stencil, after Carla B. over at Feathered Fibers kept posting beautiful quilts, on which she had used this stencil.  One of the quilts can be seen here.

This is a stencil I am planning on using on one of my 9P & Stripe quilts.  I wish I could credit the maker, but the sticker came off of it, and I don’t know who designed this one.  I really like it, it was easy to stitch, on the very first try, and I think it looks really good. 

I haven’t started on my Storm at Sea, as I got up with stupid muscle spasms, under my left shoulder blade and around my left rib cage.  Usually it’s my right side.  DH massaged the muscles, I have iced it a couple times, hot tubbed, and taken Aleve and some pain meds with some muscle relaxer in it.  And, it seems to be working, so I don’t want to overdo.  Darn, guess that means I’ll have to take it easy on the housework, too!  I am so happy to report, that since I added massage therapy to my chiropractic treatment, my usage of Imitrex has gone way down.  I was going through a 9 dose refill every single month.  Sometimes, having to wait a few days before I could get a refill.  After starting chiropractic treatment, I noticed a refill was lasting me about 2 months.  Since I started massage therapy earlier this year, even more improvement.  I took the first dose out of my last refill on 3-1-08.  I took the last dose on our way home from our vacation trip (and I think that headache was prompted by the heat and sinuses after being on the golf course four days in a row) on 6-27-08.  So far, I haven’t had to take one out of my new pack.  That is a little over four months!  Anybody that suffers from migraines will understand how significant that is.  It’s a huge improvement to quality of life. 

My son told me last night, that the baby girl (her name is Riley) is also battling Salmonella.  So, I don’t know for sure if she has e. coli and salmonella, or if something has gotten lost in translation between two teenagers, and they have changed the diagnosis to salmonella.  Whatever, she is still very, very sick.  He said they haven’t been able to get much food down her, and what she has taken in, has come right back up.  God bless her.  I do hope the next news is good.  Thank you for your prayers and concern.

BTW, I didn’t mean my last post to sound like I was upset with any of my readers about my snake.  Just saying that I can’t make any promises! 🙂  Have a good one! Chat at ya later!

I hope all my American readers are having a Happy Independence Day! I should be using this holiday off from my day job to be cleaning up this messy house around me, but instead I’ve been playing with my new toy that arrived just in time for this three day weekend.  I purchased a practically brand new Circle Lord , and a few extra templates, from a fellow longarmer, that has gone to a computerized set up.  So far, I really like the Squircles (the square templates you use to make circles), and I think I’ll get a lot of use from them.  I tried the Featherz template briefly, last night, and can tell that will take a bit of trial and error to get right.  The Gingko template is pretty cool.  I’m having troubles getting my stops & starts to match up neatly, and not look so messy.  Lots of thread snipping…I know some of that will just take practice, and getting comfortable with it. 

I’m hoping to find a way to use it on my Storm at Sea top, which I’m just about mentally geared up to quilt now.  Hopefully, I will start on it this weekend.  Cross your fingers for me!

I feel I must apologize to everyone who was offended by the snake in my previous post.  In my defense, I never even considered that it would be so upsetting to some.  I have never been afraid of, or disgusted by snakes, even as a small child.  In fact, they fascinate me.  Can I promise to never post anymore snake pictures, ever again, on my blog?  Hmmm…no, I can’t promise it won’t ever happen again…but I’m sure it will be a rare event. 🙂 But I’ll try to warn you not to look if you don’t like snakes!  And just out of curiosity, did anybody like my snake pic?

And, on that note, I do want to share with you some old pictures of me.  This first one was taken when I was 15.  The snake belonged to friend of ours.  It’s an Indian Rock python, measuring 6.5 ft.  (DO NOT SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE A SNAKE) 😉

The next photos are one year later, I’m 16 and the snake is 7.5 ft.

If anyone is still reading at this point, have a great holiday weekend! Remember to be careful with those firecrackers!  And Happy 8th Birthday to my sweet Liberty Belle (Libby).

Now I must quit playing for awhile and do some actual housework.  Will I get it finished before I go back to playing with my new toy? I seriously doubt it!

I don’t have much to post today, but I wanted to share a new favorite thing I found yesterday.  I went to the local Hallmark to pick up a wedding gift, and saw this by the register.

It’s Bee Bar Lotion.  At first glance, I thought it was soap.  But it’s a little lotion bar.  Just perfect to run the ends of your fingers over when they feel dry from hand stitching.  Or any other time.  Smells good, too. 

I was going to give Corky (my longarm) her spa treatment today, but I decided to give my sewing hook a close look, since I’d experienced that thread breakage on the last quilt.  I thought I might have it timed a bit too closely to the hook.  While cleaning it thoroughly, I noticed that the tip of the hook felt quite rough.  Hmmm…could this be a thread shredding burr?  I gently polished it smooth, and then I went to tweak my timing.  Not an activity I usually have trouble with, but today, I was all thumbs.  I lost a set screw, finally found that.  I had a terrible time trying to get the timing set today.  And things got a lot worse before they got better.  First, I had lots of skipping, so I knew the hook was too far from the needle.  So I scootched it in some.  Then, I kept getting worse breaks, even having sanded out the burr.  I think, I hope, I finally got it back to good.  I have good tension, anyway! Longarming…it can be such a love/hate relationship.  Mostly love!  But it does have it’s moments of misery.  How does the hook get a burr? Anyone know?  I fiddled with it til I got it stitching good again, and the thread (Rainbows) didn’t break after quite a lot of stitching, even at a fast speed.  I won’t get to even touch my longarm again, til next weekend at the earliest.  So I’ll have my fingers crossed til I can give her a good test.  I sure thought I had her screwed up good, there for awhile.  I didn’t even get around to giving her the spa treatment. Have a great week everyone!  I prolly won’t be around much for a few days!