Never a Dull Moment-Huge News

I have not been a very good blogger lately, not because I don't have anything to say but because I have been sitting on some very HUGE news, and even though it is not a done deal yet (we still have the last of the 3 hurdles to over come) but I will share some things with you now because, well if I don't I think I will burst!


Ok we have been living in the same house for almost 13 years (will be 13 in Jan). When we had our twins 10 years ago our house became too small for our family but when we tried to sell it (about 7 years ago) to purchase a new larger house, our brother in-law (soon to be ex BIL) who was a realtor tried to steal our house from us. We kept him from doing that but in the process we lost the new house we were trying to build and decided to stay put because we couldn't trust anyone to list our house at that point. Then I started Gecko Quilts 5 years ago and well, lets just say we are now busting at the seams. About 2 1/2 weeks ago, after church we decided to drive by the house we lost 7 years ago because of the soon to be ex BIL, to try to finally put it behind us and move on. At first we had a hard time finding it, but eventually did...I was surprised  that I no longer had any attatchment or feelings to it. We noticed that there was still building going on in the area so we decided to look at the models...well this is the big news.......


We found a Spec House that we fell in love with!! It has 6 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, a loft, a 2 1/2 car garage and a seperate 1 car garge next to a den on the other side of the house (which could be turned into a quilt studio!). One of the bedrooms is on the first floor with it's own bath, would be perfect for my MIL who hates living alone ever since my FIL died 2 years ago.


Ok so here is where the hurdles come in... 
1)what to do with our current home? It would take too long to sell it in a bad ecconomy.
2)would my MIL even want to live with us and our 5 kids?
3)and would we be able to get a mortgage for the new house in the current home lending enviroment.


Well as I said before we have crossed 2 of the 3 hurdles...we don't have to sell because we are going to rent our current house to one of our BIL's (a great guy which we all love) who is going to use it to expand his business. Also my MIL has agreed to move in with us, loves the idea, loves the house and is deeply touched that one of her kids actually wants her and wants to take care of here in her old age. Now everything is hinging on the mortgage app, which we filed for today. Hopefully we will find out soon that it is a go...so I can start breathing again, I haven't gotten much sleep since June 13  :0)


I keep telling myself not to get my hopes up just in case this doesn't turn out the way we want. But have you ever wanted something, and you knew it would be perfect for all parties involed? I mean when we walked through the 1st spec house (I say first because the first one, which we actually walked through was ready to move in at the begining of Aug but was sold 2 days after we saw it, but lucky for us there was another spec house, same model but they didn't break ground yet and that will be able to close on at the begining of Nov., this is the one we are trying to get) everything about it just feels right...but if it is meant to be God will make sure that it all works out.


So now you know...this is a huge step for us and it means I will be packing and moving nearly 13 years of stuff, 5 kids, a DH, 2 dogs, a long arm business, and a MIL before the end of the year. I say BRING IT ON! I am more than ready, LOL!

You Can Quilt That Out

This Video was sent to me by my friend Lorene, couldn't resist sharing with all of you this one is so true and fun, ENJOY! 

At Home With MODA

I came across this video today and thought it was worth sharing with all of you. It is a behind the scenes of Moda fabrics.

Those With the Most Toys Wins....Or Do They?

Well I was quilting along this week, felt good to have my Liberty back home again and running when my new circuit boards on my machine went bad :0(

Called the factory and they are shipping me a new set of boards but this means I am grounded for a few days until my new parts arrive.

So I was thinking how best to use this down time? I could finish Shannon's swap blocks (just need to do 6 more), I could play...I mean LEARN more about my EQ7 upgrade, I could finish piecing my king sz quilt for my bed, I could give my house a thorough spring cleaning (long over do BTW, just never seems to be any time left for cleaning ;0)) teach myself to digitize using my embrouidery software, heck learn beyond the basics would be nice. Well thinking about all of this got me to pull some things out...things that I JUST HAD TO HAVE but haven't had the time to learn them completely and it has been several years for most of this stuff.

 For instance my Bernina 730 Embroidery machine (always wanted a top of the line embroidery machine) but didn't realize that it would involve all of this....

These books/manuals in order to use it. Who would have thought that in order to use this machine and software to it's fullest it would involve so much time in reading to do it. :0(

Then there is the EQ software.....

 I started my EQ journey with EQ5, bought all the extra books (never found the time to learn beyond the basics) and then EQ6 came ou, just had to have that, didn't buy the extra books for EQ6 because I didn't even use them much for EQ5 so I thought why now. Then EQ7 came out and yup, I just had to have that too. But still I only know just the basics of this program, so why do I need the upgrade? To justify the purchase I promissed myself that this time I will learn more. And I am pleased to announce that I have learned more! This past week since my EQ7 upgrade has been installed I learned how to add my Bernina embroideries to the EQ program! EQ only takes "exp" embroidery files and bernina embroideries are "art" files so I was poking around last night and remembered that most of my embroideries I get from embroidery library.com and they allow you to download the design in multiple formats (since now a days it is not unheard of to own multiple machines with different formats). So I went through my order history  and saw that I can download in the exp format as well!!! YEA!!! doing a happy dance :0)

then I was thinking this morning that I wonder if there was a way to convert my other embroideries into exp format, (thought I read some where some time ago in my embroidery sofware manuals that I could) soI poked around in that for awhile and yup I can! I converted it to the usb bernina stick format which is exp!!!yea!!! more happy dancing then I decided if it would all come together and work in the EQ program...yes and no. Yes they were able to downloaded into the program but the thread colors were altered in the download :0( so I poked around in the EQ manual to figure out how to change the thread colors in the embroideries, yup it was there so I changed the colors on one embroidery and it worked! Ok so this is not going to be an easy or quick learning process, but I did learn something today, well several things actually....

1)That you shouldn't buy the toys unless you intend to really use them, otherwise it's just alot of expensive stuff taking up space.

2)Read all manuals from cover to cover when you get the new toys, this way you might learn how to use the new toy sooner.

3)Knowledge is deffinately power :0)

so to answer the title of this post's question, "Those with the most toys wins...or do they?" Yes they do, but only IF they learn to use them to the fullest!  

Faster Than the Speed of Light-Reflection

Well my Liberty came back last week and is back up and running!

I am really loving the new edgerider wheels, no more drag, just smooth as silk. I have already started back to doing customer quilts after my month long vacation. All though it didn't seem that long, I mean I had a list of things I wanted to get done and only a small portion actually did :0(

I was able to paint the master bedroom but never got around to painting the master bath or the closet. I quilted 3 yards of fabric (prior to sending my machine off) so I could make covers for my serger and my sewing machine, this never got finished. I did make a professional tote and my oldest picked out fabrics/notions for hers, here it is....

  

The main fabric is the turquoise. But I haven't found time to make it for her yet, it needs to be done before she heads back to college in the fall.

I also didn't finish my french braid quilt for my bed yet, need to finish the center and then just add the borders so it can be quilted.

I did finish piecing the AccuquiltGo Tumbler quilt though, just need to squeeze it in between customer quilts to be quilted.

I didn't have time to organize my scraps, which I was hoping to do, or get some other projects finished. I just can't figure where all of my time went? Well scratch that some of it did go to reading 5 books, yes 5. They were the Percy Jackson series about greek mythology, two of my oldest daughters are reading them so I wanted to see what they were all about. They were good, the story line/plots were very simular to the Harry Poter books in that they were both about a boy about 12 that find they are very special (Harry a wizard and Percy a Halfblood or part greek god) they both go away to learn about their destinies (one a school and the other a summer camp) they both fight evil and with each book comes a new adventure that advances with their ages. However the Harry Potter series ended after 7 books, the Percy Jackson books have the potential to keep going, at least for now.

Also some time was spent going to BBQs, Confirmation parties and Blackhawk (hockey) parties, We have been invited to parties every weekend for the past month, some times even 2 per weekend. It's hard to get things done when time is not your own, plus with the kids home from school for the summer the first few weeks there is always some adjusting with time managing as well.

Oh I almost forgot, my copy of my EQ7 upgrade came yesterday!

 

At first glance there doesn't seem to be many changes to the basic program, the improvements are mostly with the digital pics you can now add to your quilt lay outs and more improvements to the advanced program, hmmmm I guess in order to feel like I got my moneys worth on this upgrade I will need to push myself to learn more of the EQ program than just the basic stuff, something that has been on my to do list for many years now. :0)