Cat art dolls, figurines, stuffed animal plush toys, miniatures, sculpture, fine art, doll clothing
After sewing today, I played around with Aperture a little, and switched some of the photos my mom took of me to black and white. Aperture is my current subject for my Apple classes. I just thought I’d experiment.
And you can see my new haircut. I like it short like this.
I think I’ll take my camera in to class with me, eventually, so I can get some tips on using it too. My mom is more knowledgeable about cameras than I am. One more thing on my list of things to I want to learn more about.
This is my very first harvest from our little vegetable garden…a big zucchini. I watched it grow, debating over whether or not it would amount to two cups of shredded zucchini for zucchini bread.
It did indeed, with a third left to spare. A friend suggested that someday, they will develop vegetables with a variety of easy-to-read measurements on them, or vegetables that grow to a programable size. Until then, I will have to hone my eye-balling-it skills.
As much as I didn’t even want to face doing this again, I packed up my Viking Platinum 775, and we hauled all twenty-two plus pounds of it to the Post Office. All week, I’ve been going through my usual, but completely pointless, “Why can’t people just be decent? Why can’t people just be honest?” ruminations, while looking back on the whole ordeal, along with any and all related ordeals that seem to bring up the same questions. I wish I could just accept one short answer and be done with this, and all related conflicts, forever: “Because that’s who they are.”
In contrast, here is a continuing display of devotion. Mr Anole has come to visit Mr Kitty almost every sunny day we’ve had. The two continue to stare at each other, while the anole does his tricks. He ‘s quite amusing.
At one point, our kitty got so excited, he tried to paw his way through the windowpane. He purrs when I look over his shoulder at the anole. The anole is no where near as excited to see me though. His show is intended for an audience of one.
Some of us have been taking the weekends to relax. This is my model for relaxation. He’s mastered the subject. I have much to learn from him. I’m still heading to Apple class too, and learning a lot there too, only about computers and programs.
I picked up some non-software-non-computer-related reading material, for fun and inspiration too. Material Obsession, Modern Quilts with Traditional Roots by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Feilke seemed like the perfect book for me. I read the whole book when I got it home, over last weekend. I loved the combinations of fabrics and the quilt patterns. The authors own a fabric shop, and, as the title implies, they’ve used traditional quilts to inspire some modern designs. I really enjoyed it. It gave me ideas for combining fabrics for my toys too.
I picked up a couple of magazines too, Fiber Arts and Quilting Arts. I was taken with these hand-stitched animals like the “Fennec Fox” on the cover of Fiber Arts, and Quilting Arts had a good article on stabilizing art quilts and another on branding, I wanted to reread. As usual, I have more I want to learn, and more I want to do than I probably will be able to get to.
I’ve been wanting to explore art quilting much more, combining painting and fabric and sewing. I have so many ideas for projects. Of course, right now, my biggest project is redoing our Ruffing’s site. I think that will be an all-summer project. I’m still excited about it, even though I don’t want to relaunch it until it is organized enough to navigate. I’d also like to start adding more original art to the site, paintings and art quilts.
I’ve been fiddling with my hair again too. Even though this photo was taken just the other day, it has turned out to be a “before” photo, because I’ve just cut my hair again, in more of a Jean Seberg style, even shorter. It’s been in the 90’s this week, which is always good inspiration for a new haircut.
I’ve got to get some toys finished up and mailed off. I might even add a couple to my Etsy shop this week. If you haven’t already, be sure to find us on Facebook, where I’ll post the available art dolls and figurines as I continue to get their photos edited.
But first, I hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend. Jude made a cute and curious new friend.
Jude had company today. He’s befriended an anole. They’ve been staring at each other for over an hour. The anole is showing off here, puffing out his red pouch under his chin. They were fascinated by each other. Just like cats do, when one gets tired and starts to close his eyes, the other closes his eyes too.
That doesn’t last long though. They are soon back to staring at each other, tilting their heads this way and that, to take in every angle. They seem to be enjoying themselves, getting to know each other, even if it is through a windowpane.
We have a patriotic display of color by the side of our house. The blue lace-cap hydrangeas are in bloom, with all the red and white petunias I have to plant in our hanging baskets. Very appropriate timing, for Memorial Day.
So, as I mentioned in my last post, I have an update about my Husqvarna Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine, and it’s quite the soap opera.
I spoke with the sewing machine repair technician who worked on my Viking Platinum 775, when I sent it across the country to be repaired. He is in CA. I am in NC.
He thinks he can get it fixed, and so I’m planning to send it to coast-to-coast again. He filled me in on a lot of missing information in regard to my sewing machine repair saga.
This is the lowdown, according to him…The guy who sold me the machine did in fact used to be an authorized Viking dealer, as we already heard.
Before he retired, he bought a million dollars worth of sewing machines, legally. They were all new. He put them in a warehouse, intending to sell them on the Internet, at lower prices than the other dealers, which Viking forbids. The only punishment Viking has, if a dealer does this, is to take away his or her dealership. But, this dealer retired. So, that didn’t effect him.
For the past three years, he has been selling the machines online. Husvarna Viking knows about this, even though they wouldn’t tell me that. They can’t stop him because he isn’t breaking the law.
The people I contacted at Husqvarna Viking, when I first had trouble and contacted them for assistance, told me my machine might have been stolen. Later, they told the Viking dealer I went to here in NC, that the online seller I bought the Husqvarna Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine from had been an authorized dealer, but he retired. Either way, they wouldn’t honor their factory warranty on my machine. I don’t know if they told the local dealer the whole story.
According to the repair technician in CA, because this seller was selling Viking sewing machines online after he retired, Viking rewrote all its dealership contracts, to stop anyone else from doing this in the future, retiring and continuing to sell machines online.
The other dealers who have found out about him selling Husqvarna Viking sewing machines on the Internet, have been very angry about it. Husqvarna Viking sewing machine retail prices are not listed on their web site, and so dealers can set their prices, without worrying too much about being undercut by competition.
My Husqvarna Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine was, in short, bought legally, by an authorized (at the time) dealer, fair and square. It was sold to me, after the dealer retired, and after the model was discontinued, when other authorized dealers had the same machine on closeout sale. So he wasn’t really undercutting anyone at the time.
My Husqvarna Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine itself has two step motors. One was replaced the last time I sent it to CA, because it was faulty. That was the one causing the machine to sew backwards, the feed step motor.
The repair technician said that, judging from my video, it looks like the second step motor is bad too. That would be the one making the needle swing off in the wrong directions.
It seems that, according to the repairman I spoke with, at the time my machine was made, there were a bunch of bad step motors made, by whatever company makes them, and they were put into lots of machines across the country. The repairman used to see one bad step motor a year, and suddenly he started getting in a couple per month.
He said he can replace the second step motor for me, and the button patch, which he thinks has a severed connection. If I leave a thorough note, they can take care of the other issues too, since there are a lot of little issues. I asked him if the seller would be paying for this, and he said yes.
The repair technician confirmed that this is a new machine, but it was in a warehouse. He said it is probably old, but according to the mailing label, it was only about a year old when it was sold to me, which seems like an average turn-around time to me.
I’m sure the repair tech doesn’t like this seller selling the machines online either. He told me to never buy one off the Internet, “buyer beware.” He was very nice, and filled in the missing information for me.
But, honestly, if the Husqvarna Viking company had just been truthful with me, instead of implying I was dealing with a criminal, I would have just sent the machine back to the seller to have it repaired it in the first place, instead of taking it to an authorized dealer here, who wanted to charge me over $700 to replace different parts entirely, not the two faulty step motors, which were the real problem.
Maybe I would have a working machine by now, instead of having to wait for months more.
My Husqvarna Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine has been broken since October 2009!
It is additionally offensive to me that the faulty step motor issue has to be known to the company as well, and yet, even though the local dealer had another Viking Platinum sewing machine in his repair shop, at the very same time as mine, also sewing backwards, he had no idea what was causing the problem. Why wasn’t he told about the step motor issues?
I still maintain that, if Husqvarna Viking would just sell machines directly, in a way that is fair to consumers, as I was suggesting in one of my previous posts, none of this cloak-and-dagger secret nonsense would have happened. This is all because they have built up a society of dealerships, which, in my opinion, puts buyers at the mercy of dealers, and allows for price gouging.
Apple does just fine, selling directly online and in their stores, and also selling through authorized dealers. It seems archaic now to treat Internet sales as something to avoid at all costs. Tell that to Amazon.
And Viking knew they sold this man sewing machines, which they knew weren’t stolen or used. They could have checked for me. They could have looked up the serial number I gave them. I feel they wouldn’t honor their warranty on my machine because they wanted to punish me for buying it over the Internet, and they wanted to punish the seller, indirectly, because what he is doing is now against their dealership rules. They should never take that out on someone who bought one of their sewing machines.
A warranty should be on a machine, if it is new, with its serial number and bar code right on the box, which I’m sure they can trace. If they can’t, they should fix their system so they can. But, I bet they can. The seller, I hope, will be honoring his personal warranty on the machine, but I, of course, have to ship it to CA, when, under normal circumstances, I would be able to transfer the warranty to another dealer.
Anyway…I’m sure it will take another 2 to 2 1/2 months to get Viking to send the step motor and the buttons to the repairman. Then, we can just hope it works, because if anything else is broken on it, it will take longer.
Even if I’d bought this very same Husqvarna Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine from a currently authorized dealer, it would have had bad step motors. At least the seller should be paying for them to be replaced. I would have been at the mercy of whatever dealer I’d bought this machine from, and we’ve already seen what happened with the last dealer I went to.
So, as I said…what a soap opera!
Update: None of this worked out. The online seller didn’t pick up my box, and it got sent back through the mail, where the sewing machine was broken. It was obvious someone dropped it from a significant height. The seller said he never got a notice asking him to pick it up. I had to file an insurance claim and turn the machine in to the Post Office. The Post Office depreciated the value of my sewing machine, which seems arbitrary, since they have no way to know its value. So, my sewing machine, that I so carefully picked out, and liked so much, is gone and I am very unhappy.
I’ve been knocking myself out, cleaning and organizing my workspaces. I’m still working on it. My kitties are competing with each other over who gets to sit on the new shelves, or on my old desk that I moved into my bedroom so I can sew while I watch, or at least listen to, TV. I’ve got lots of aches from hauling things around, and I feel a bit like I’m living in a storage facility. Still, the new arrangement sure beats having to lift eight boxes to get to the right color fleece!
That’s a good thing, because, in spite of my new organization, I still couldn’t find my light pink fleece this week. I pulled a few boxes off my new shelf, only to discover the pink was hiding in a bag on my table. But don’t worry…I went out and got more boxes! I should have supplies floor-to-ceiling, everywhere, soon.
As you can see, I turned my pink fleece into a pink fleece Hug Me! Slug. She left for her new home this morning, along with this cheerful pink polka dotted Hug Me! Toad, who is on her way to Australia.
Lately, I seem to be attracted to this pink color. When I was five, I think that was probably my idea of the best color there was. I had a fuzzy toy box that color. I picked up some more pink fabric, which is sitting on my ironing board, since I prewashed it. The fabric with the stars is fleece. I thought that was a good find.
I have some interesting information about my sewing machine, but I’m just waiting for confirmation about where to send it first, before I give an update about it.
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