Comfort Table

 Oh no! I broke it! 😢

Just under a month ago I wrote about the "Comfort Table" that I have for my long arm. It has been wonderful.  It allows me to easily raise and lower the table at the touch of a button. I have been working on a quilt for a while (years, actually!) and chose to use micro-quilting for much of it. For those who aren't quilters, micro-quilting is very dense, tiny quilting stitches used in the background. It is slow going, and I chose to move the table low enough so I could sit in a chair while I worked on the quilt. It was perfect! It surely saved my back some ache!

I finally finished the micro-quilting and was ready to move on to regular quilting. When I am doing FMQ (Free Motion Quilting) I move down the quilt fairly quickly and trying to scoot in a chair as I am quilting just doesn't work well. So, I pushed the little "UP" arrow button to bring the table up to waist-height. The table didn't move. Nothing happened. And this message showed up on the screen:

I had no clue. I looked online and couldn't find anything about this. I read about 'resetting' the table and tried that. I received two different messages; E25 and E26. Again, no information online except suggestions to unplug the motor, wait and plug it back in. 

Although it was after-hours, I sent an email to my selling dealer. She got back to me shortly after indicating she had never heard of this and suggested that I contact APQS. She also told me that she had forwarded my message to APQS. 

The next morning I grabbed some paper and a pencil and looked online for the phone number I would need to reach service techs at APQS. While I sat there I looked over at the machine, one more time....and noticed..... amidst the dust, dog hair and stray threads....

Do you see it? There is an electrical transformer box wedged under one section of the leg. I went over, yanked it out (with a bit of difficulty...it was really wedged in there) and the table suddenly moved down. The signal for resetting that I should have heard the night before sounded. I tried the up button and, voila! The table responded and moved up. It is level. It goes up and down. My problem is resolved. 

I replaced that black box back under the frame on the sticky part of a velcro strip, where it had resided previously. All was good.

And, on a positive note, a representative from APQS called me later in the day. Even though I had not contacted them, my selling dealer had forwarded my email to them. Now, that's wonderful service! 😁

The Long Arm...of the law?

I wanted to share a wonderful feature of my long arm....and it should be a law! 

The Mister mentioned the "Comfort Table" as a selling(buyer's) feature of the new long arm, when I was considering it.  I knew that it would be really nice to have, and yesterday it proved its weight in gold (even at today's prices!) The Comfort Table has an electric motor that raises and lowers the table, and thus the machine and the sewing surface. On my previous machine I had to release clips, one by one on 5 different legs, sliding the legs up or down to the next spot the clip could go in. The only way I could do this was assuming an "Atlas holding the earth on his back" posture, hunching under the table and lifting while releasing the clips. Not exactly great for one's body. Suffice it to say, once the table was at the correct height, it stayed there. The correct height being, for most quilting, at such a height that you have a 90° bend at your elbow when standing at the machine. 

Usually that's where my machine, on the comfort table resides. However, my back/hip/sciatic have been problematic recently. I also had a lot of tiny quilting to do. I lowered the machine, pulled up my chair, and went to work. It was perfect! 

At one point in the quilting process I needed to do some stitching at the very top of the quilt. It was difficult to see what I was doing at a seated height, and even standing, leaning over at the usual height was painful. I raised the table until it was almost chest high, allowing me to lean over without pain and quilt the portion at the top of the quilt, 

I have the best of all worlds!

What Makes Me Happy?

 Earlier this week I was asked to pick a word that described or defined me. I chose JUGGLER. I've written about it before, but the suggestion made me rethink it, and I realized that I am happiest when I am juggling several things at one time, and moving forward with each thing. 

Now, don't get me wrong, if I have too many things up in the air, or if there are deadlines that are out of my control, or if my time is limited, then the juggling may produce stress, and that brings no joy at all. I do not thrive on stress.

But, this week I juggled a number of projects. I worked on cleaning up our lanai and front porch. The weather is perfect for sitting outside, and the oak trees are finished with most of their pollen production that results in a coat of yellow dust on everything! I worked a bit in the garden, pulling annoying weeds, removing some plants that didn't make it through the winter, and repotting and replacing a few plants to fill the voids. I wrote a letter to a friend; a real paper and pen sort of letter! And, I worked on quilting a few quilts on the long arm machine and sewing pieces of fabric together for another quilt. 

Working with the long arm machine has brought me the most satisfaction this week (I think!). I am getting to the point where I know what buttons to push to tell the machine what I need it to do. And I can do this without laying the manual out on the quilt next to me so I can follow each step, moving my finger along the text! Today I am finishing my "Pinwheel" quilt. I finished the top of this quilt two years ago. What I especially like about the finished quilt is that I changed it up to make it mine! This is the original pattern. 

I used fabric that I had purchased at Missouri Star, the publisher of the pattern, in 2016!

So, here it is 2026...ten years later, and it looks like I might actually finish the quilt!

Once I finished the quilt in 2024 I realized that I did not care for the open spaces in the middle of the stars. That's where I changed up the pattern! I ripped open the seams and inserted folded triangles in a way that made the four pieces look like a child's pinwheel.

I knew when I put those pieces in that I would have to be careful quilting around them. I didn't realize that I would be telling a machine not to quilt around them! 

Here's a closer look at the pinwheel. You can see how the foot and needle of the machine could easily be tripped up by the pieces of the pinwheel. 

Here's a shot of the computer screen and the block.

On the screen you might be able to see the red line forming a square, set on point.

That's where I told it not to stitch....

and it worked! 

I'll soon be on the last pass of the long arm quilting machine. Thus, I will need to roll the quilt up, one more time and realign the needle to where the quilt is now positioned. I'll need to redefine the edges and the bottom of the quilt, and push "Start". 

If all goes well....my quilt will be sewn according to the design!

The Long and Short of it

Moving day finally arrived....as in, time to put my sewing room together. The long arm sewing machine pieces have been residing in the corner of the tack room in the barn. We brought them over to the house, and unloaded them. 

Between the two of us we found another 8-10 cartons of craft supplies, and those came over to the new sewing room/studio, creation space, whatever I'm going to call it.  

Then I had the fun of unpacking, putting everything in its place, and assembling the long arm machine. 

We are finally getting there!