Excitement in Big Boxes

 So a week or so ago, Hubs and me made the journey to Carroll, Iowa to pick up a hunch of boxes from the APQS store.

We borrowed my sister's horse trailer to fit the long boxes-10' long- but wouldn't you know it, there's a small issue. The APQS folks pack everything in a 12' box-no matter what length it really is. 

Thankfully, they've been around the block a time or two and quickly used the saw to cut off the excess box. All went well and we got home safely.

Here's the boxes ready for me to unload. Now you may be wondering, gee Bonnie, why didn't you have it delivered? Well, let me tell you. Because it costs $650 for delivery-that's just freight delivery-they'll dump it in the driveway! So If I have to move it into the house, then I might as well save my money!

Those long boxes are a challenge! There are two of them with the quilting frame rails in them. They are HEAVY- at least 100lbs each! 

Anyways, I got them all in the house and started assembly the next day.

The directions aren't too awful-a little hard to follow which steps should follow because you have direction in more than one manual.

But the table supports are on and the front and back rails are on.

I measured the room to make sure I'd have room and it's a good thing I did. It's a good fit!

The next day I got the support bars installed-kind of a hinky way to do that if you ask me. 

I find it hard to believe that this little clamp on the support bar is going to hold up for much. 

Anyways, more progress....the lights above are installed-they come with short cords-there's no way to plug them into an outlet, so I ordered extension cords........time to switch manuals.....

Time to install Quilt Path-that's the computer link to the machine.

And look at that! I'm level!

Time to set the machine in place!

Awww, they sent Freddie with a bow!

And there he is in place.

And look after a little issue getting the quilt path part on the correct rail, it all fits together!!!

Here's the quilt path part on the correct rail.

But see in the picture, I marked the wrong place to set the it on the rail-oopsy, took me a few minutes to figure that out!!

And here we are all complete-I'm waiting for my UPS(uninterruptible Power Source) to come from Amazon. It supposed to act like a surge protector as well as a power source in the event of a power outage or other power interruption. 

So all together, over the course of 3 days, I spent about 13 hours on assembly. SO if you're wondering if APQS offers assembly, yes they do. It's $750 to come to your house and assemble only. Yes, they probably get it done in 5 hours or less, but I now know where everything is at!

I took a picture of the tablet connections, because you're supposed to be able to use it off the machine to work out designs and stuff. 

Here's one of the first test designs I made!

I'm getting the hang of it, and actually made a little project. 

I had this panel around for awhile, so I thought I'd practice on it.

I need to figure out the ending, I thought I had it set, but I guess not!

Pretty good for a starter!

I'm sure I'll do better as time goes along.

Quilt Progress.

 I took this quilt over to my long armer.

I just love this fabric line, I can't wait to see how it comes out!

I'm pretty sure one of these two will be the binding!

I 80 Shopping & Snow-of Course!

Cabin Fever has set in, so we masked up and headed over to Williamsburg, IA for the I 80 Shopping Spree. DD went with me! Love to spend a little time with my girl.

Lots of stuff to see! So many beautiful quilts and fabric!

And they served food and had the signature cocktail too! They're all fancy! I also took the display Nolting long arm for a quick spin. Hmmmm, I am in lust for sure.

I didn't take a picture, but here's one from the Nolting website. It was such a nice relaxing time-easy to keep our distances and of course masks!

And of course the snowblower broke down. My faithful old workhorse up and died on me.  SO Hubs bought this beauty.

It's an Ariens-Made in the USA. Kind of pricey, but those heated hand grip-WOW!!

I took her on the maiden voyage to clean up a few snow piles out in the driveway.

It worked very well. It's a lot heavier than my old one. It's all metal-no plastic on the chute at all.

Unfortunately, I think we'll have a few more trips down the driveway before it's time to store her away for the summer.
 

Back To Real Work....

Gosh, how time does fly! Vacation is over, darn, so I've been busy at home.

Look at this awesome piece of wood. I've started getting it sanded down a bit to make into a table using those awesome hairpin legs I got a couple of weeks ago. Here's the inspiration/idea..(photo from axsoris.com)

You can just see the pretty woodgrain starting to come through. I have quite a ways to go on this project though!

The "garden" is starting to produce some tomatoes! Yay!

And I spied these little green guys eating the parsley, it turns out they are the kind that turn into butterflies, so i guess the parsley isn't as important as they are.
Oh I almost forgot, I also spent some rental time on the long arm machine.

As it turns out, I tend to make bad design choices. Surprised? Yeah, me too...not so much! Anyways, I started out with the large pebble, stones, design, and thought I would do the whole quilt in that way. Well, it takes a lot of thread to do that let me tell ya. I used more than 2 whole bobbins to do the top row(5 blocks across). So, I thought well, I'll do some out line/echo quilting around the center blocks of the quilt. Much better, less thread and less time. But I STILL used my whole 3 hours & 6+ bobbins & an entire cone of thread and got only half way done!! More rental time when I get monied up on payday!

Long Arm Class

So today was class day for me at Common Threads Quilt Shoppe

Peg showed us how to get all set up to quilt. She showed us different ways to get our quilts onto the machine.

How to get the backing, batting and top all smooth and ready to quilt on.

And finally , how to quilt on the machine. It's a very detailed class. I can hardly wait to book some time to try out my new skills.