Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Current Project

I've got both the Mac and PC running and have been faithfully practicing digitizing lessons. I found the lessons I've been doing from Australia are great but difficult to do because I have to read the chapter, try to remember what they said, then do it. Since I'm not familiar with what all the tools do, this is proving to be extremely difficult. I'm a watch then do kinda gal.

Artistic Thread Works sent me a newsletter a week ago and in it was a lesson by Holly. It's obvious she used to be a teacher because she's precise and explains exactly what she's doing, when she's doing it. She got me hooked immediately and I wanted to learn more. I joined ATW for $20 a quarter but was disappointed there weren't more lessons on her website. Her husband says she's working on some now.

Anyway, Holly got my juices flowing to learn more so I put in Volume 1 of my Design Creations lessons. These lessons are instructed by James Lyman who does/did digitizing and embroidery for Disney, Charmed, Lucas Films and others in the entertainment field.

Anyway, he does beautiful stuff but is very soft spoken so the volume is really high. He also has the habit of doing an edit and forgetting to tell you what tool he used, if he left clicked or right clicked, etc. That means going back and playing the step over and over until you see what he did.
So here's what I did. It's a blend of lessons from Holly and James. D wanted his signature embroidered on his HD apron. He'd already written it in dark black ink and HUGE. I scanned his apron. Which is the weird picture above.
Previously I let Generations auto digitize the signature then tried to edit it from there. Size, move stitches, etc. It was a nightmare. This time, I digitized from scratch and what a difference that made. This is the machine sewing out the sample.
Once I sewed out the first part, Dave looked it over and decided what he wanted to change. He wanted some major edits on the cross bars at the bottom of his signature. That means the signature won't be a nice neat sew out on top of the original written version.
I decided to make a background fill but didn't want it heavy so it would end up being a hard shield on the apron. I gave D a choice of three levels of fill. Of course he took the most dense affect.
Nope, this isn't the apron but it gives the general idea of what it will look like. This density for the background is actually a good choice. It should cover any of the black ink on the apron the design can't hide. Yet, it isn't filled so tightly to take a gazillion stitches or end up not the least bit flexible when he has to stoop down or bend over.

Holly took me from, "I should learn to digitize so I don't have to send designs out for someone else to do it." to "Holy cow, this is fun! What can I digitize next?"

Boy oh boy....what a difference the right instructor makes.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Treasure Chest????

Okay Shannon, you need to share this post with Morgan because it's dedicated to him. I found a box with all kinds toys S used to play with. There are He Man figures, tons of 'I don't remember what they are' figures and some Transformers - 1st Generation.

This little goodie was actually sold during the Tranformer fad in the 80's. McDonalds sold it. It starts out as a big breakfast then turns into this wonkie little robot. I thought it was hilarious and was surprised I actually had two of them.
This is what the box looks like. I was able to pull a couple of T's out of it that were still intact. I kinda remember S had a huge Prime but I insisted he throw it away because it was broken. He just wore the poor guy out.
I don't know which is my favorite. The tape player or the earth movers. The tape player is very...very worn so it must have been a favorite of S. It's average size while the other three in front are very small.
I put these guys back together with confusion. I think the one on the left is suppose to have the wings on top. I think they pull out and plug into the top but I don't want to break it. The one on the right I got all four wheels on the ground but don't know what to do with the legs. Obviously I'm in need of an expert like Morgan to set things straight.
Cleaning the shed has been a treasure hunt. I found these brand new totes in a box of craft stuff. They're really nice. I'm definitely going to put them to use.
I like the paint holder but have way to many to fit in it. I'm thinking it might hold some embroidery stuff. Check out the apron. That's just cool. It needs some embroidery on it.
I woke up the other morning around 6:30 to something hitting me in the eyes. It was the day we had thunder and lightening storms. The car was parked just right so when the sun peeked through the cloud cover it hit the curve of the back corner just right. Luckily the camera was on the counter because this lasted about 15 or 20 seconds.

No...the car isn't dirty. If you've ever owned a house with windows and a dog or two...or three.... then nose prints are what you look through day in and day out. The dream of clean windows is just that, a dream. LOL!

Friday, September 11, 2009

The Adventure Begins!

As most of you would agree, there's no such thing as having too many bags. So after embroidering goodies for the Bear, I decided D needed one for his car/truck stuff. Yep, those are the current brands in the fleet right now.
Monday, we began a secret mission. I finished up part one of an order for a customer so I could clear my schedule. A few days earlier I ran around town doing banking & stuff in preparation for the trip. I got maps, packed everything we'd need and put the bear in the truck.

Here's D waiting patiently for me to take a picture of him so we could leave. It's hard to tell but he's waiving.

Hmmm....where are we going? Why are we going there?
D actually made it almost to Lodi before he experienced his first Starbucks withdrawals. I think he was experiencing the DT's. LOL!
Here's your first hint of where we're going. Yep, we're headed North.
This picture actually makes Lake Shasta look fuller than it is. In person, it's actually frightening at how low the water level is.
Speaking of Shasta. There it is. I'm hoping for a nice hard winter that will put tons of snow back on it's peak.
Pete, California is one of the most beautiful states in this country. We have so many micro climates. From desert to mountains. This is between Mt. Shasta California and Weed. Just when you think all you'll see are miles and miles of tree covered mountains, you round a corner and here's this huge rock mountain peaking out above the trees.

Now continue down the blog postings to see where else we went. There are 5 posts in all. One right after the other.

The Adventure Part II

Ya know the song...."Sometimes you're the windshield..sometimes you're the bug". This guy apparently never heard it before. D just can't drive without putting some big splat right in my line of site. I give this guy credit for color. It looks like a bug wearing a bright yellow raincoat.
I know...I know... Shasta again. I loved the tree covered foothills so I took this shot. That means we're still in California.
Pete here are the flatlands outside of Weed, California. This is a huge valley surrounded by mountains. It's beautiful!
As you can see, the Bear is soooooo stressed. She actually went from being nervous to being more sure of herself and tolerating strangers without feeling the urge to flee. This was a good trip for her.

She looks crowded here but she actually had room to sleep and turn/walk around between the bucket seats. She had much more room then the humans did.
Whenever D and I head up north, we love to stop at this rest area in Yreka, CA. This has great memories for us because we stopped here on our honeymoon trip to Canada.
This is our favorite rest area. Look at the Klamath river that flows along the back side. I was surprised at how full it was.
Pete that's the Klamath River which flows from Oregon to California.
Here's one more clue as to where we're going. That's Ashland, Oregon. What beautiful country. We actually looked for property up here a couple of years ago. It's crowded with retired Californians so the prices of land are equal to the Bay Area. No deals to be gotten here.
When you're driving, you always have something to do. When you're the passenger sometimes boredom seeps in. I was just wondering if I took a picture of the polka dots on my skirt, if they'd come out. Yep....you can take a picture of your skirt.
I just love this tabletop plateau. It's north of Ashland. I've tried to see if it has a name but can't find anything on it.
Oregon cracks me up. There's no sign when you enter the state welcoming you but the first rest area greets you. There is a sign on the California Oregon boarder that says, "You are now leaving Oregon, thank you for visiting". Hahahahaha!
This is a cool little restaurant about a mile from Azelia, Oregon. We always stop there. They make homemade jams, jellies, pies, etc. Last trip I came back with some fantastic sugar free cherry jam and apple butter. They didn't have any sugar free preserves this time. Bummer.....next trip we'll try again.
I thought this stretch of road outside Roseburg, Oregon was pretty. I love it when I come down a hill and there's a pretty stretch of scenery to look at.
It was starting to get late and we'd been on the road since 7 in the morning. We were actually hoping to make it to Portland (another hint) but our eyes were crossing and we were really starting to drag. We pulled into Tigard, OR which is just south of Portland. I'm thinking this isn't the camera....this is how the world looked to us at that point in time. LOL!
We got an early start in hopes of missing the Portland commute traffic. Nope...we were caught up in it. I think the traffic would have been easier to put up with but the cold and fog was depressing.
Pete, Portland is a city of bridges. It's not my favorite city to go through because it's dirty, crowded and industrial looking. It's one of those cities that always looks depressing. Oh....it also has a funny smell to it.
We were greeted in Vancouver, Washington with this weather. D whinned about it but I told him it's the rain, snow and fog that keeps WA and OR so green. The explanation didn't help much though.

The Adventure Continues Part III

As a kid I always loved the green bridges of Washington. I thought painting the bridges to match the landscape was cool. I was sad to see how neglected the paint on the bridges was. Washington used to take pride in keeping everything green, pretty and fresh. I guess it's just another sign of the economy.
Okay, here's another clue. We're now in Tacoma, WA and D is at UHaul renting a trailer. The good news is we reserved it so it was ready when we arrived.
The bad news is....they didn't specify the size ball, so ours was too big. D didn't think of putting in a smaller ball and they didn't indicate what size we needed. Soooo....they sold us a ball we don't need for $30. D was on the phone with the rental center trying to cut a deal because of the error but they wouldn't budge and we had to buy something we had sitting in the garage.
This is Fred and I can't remember her name. Shirley, Sherry????? Anyway, they were very nice and saved us a Ferry trip to Vashion Island with a truck and trailer.
Ahhhhhh.....now you're getting the picture. Fred was selling a 1959 T-Bird. His dad has Alzheimer's and this was his car. Fred is liquidating (including selling his towing business) and moving up to Montana or Wyoming to take care of his father.
We ran into a bit of trouble with the securing of the car at this point. UHaul was suppose to include some sort of tie down to secure the back of the car and they told D he didn't need it. We went to two auto parts stores in search of this elusive part because we didn't want to do the side trip back to UHaul. Finally, D asked someone where there was a Home Depot because he knew he could find a substitute for the part there.

We were hoping to pick up the car and be out of Tacoma in an hour but the parts search put us behind schedule by an additional hour or so.
Pete this is Mt Rainier in Washington. It's my cousin Chris' favorite site. She drives a bus for Seattle and it makes her day each time she sees it during the commute traffic.
I kept telling D there was this strange car following really, really close. Talk about tailgating!
Pete this is Mt. St. Helens. It errupted some years ago leaving ash and soot all over Oregon and Washington. I remember seeing pictures of my Uncle in Spokane sweeping up ash and debris from the volcano. It's a reminder that we have several sleeping volcanos on the west coast. Including in California.
I thought this was interesting. I'd been under the impression Washington and Oregon were Obama states. In talking with my relatives on my last visit, they continued to give me the same feeling. Along the way, there were signs or billboards to the contrary.
I figured my dad would appreciate this. We passed a VW micro mini bus while pulling a car trailer. I remember years ago my dad getting upset because he was passed by a VW bus while driving up a mountain highway. If I remember the story right, he came home and put that vehicle up for sale. LOL!

The Adventure Continues Part IV

When you go from California to Oregon the welcome sign is some miles in at a rest area. When you go from Washington to Oregon, the welcome sign is in the middle of a bridge that crosses the Columbia River.
Again, we were hoping to sneak through Portland and miss the commute traffic. The hour delay in Tacoma with the trailer nixed that plan. At least the drivers were polite.
Check this out. I almost missed it. If you look real close at the tops of the trees, you'll see a tram. It goes from one side of the freeway to the other. I don't know if it's for commuters or tourists but it surprised me when it shot by.
I thought this was cool. Look at those trucks all lined up like ducks in a row. I didn't include our pick up in the picture because it looked soooooo out of place and tiny.
I almost missed this guy. Check out that green car. It's a taxi. It almost burns your retinas when you see it. You definitely can't miss that taxi going down the street.
Hey Pete! D wants to know if you'll buy him one of these so he can pick up more cars at once. LOL! He was drooling and getting the front of his shirt all wet.
I thought Pete would appreciate seeing this. I don't know if they're allowed to put 3 trailers on the back of the big rigs where he lives. This is only allowed is specific states. California is not one of them. This is in Oregon.
I missed out on this. This is between Roseburg and Medford Oregon. When we drove by on Labor Day it was covered in American flags. I was hoping they'd still be there when we drove by on our way home. No such luck. It's a pretty bridge anyway!
Pete, you're not the only one who loves all American. I swell with pride when we go down the street and there's a huge American flag waiving in the breeze. Just when I took this picture the wind stopped so the flag wasn't billowing. Darn!

Alright, alright...enough of the Shasta stuff!
Just north of Sacramento off highway 5 are these acres and acres of rice fields. It's green as far as the eye can see this time of year and really pretty.
Pete, these are silos for the rice/grain. This is actually one of the smaller structures we passed.