Step Back, Lawrence Welk

So Saturday morning I met my friend Michelle Banton, she of "biggish font over there on my Cloud thingy" fame, to do an exchange of a quilt she had quilted for me on her new long arm for a check and a hug. Despite the fact that she can now deposit money into her account, which is always a good thing, I still think I got the better end of the deal.

I can't show you much of this quilt at all as it is tentatively contracted to a publication, but I do want to show an extreme close up as so you can see what a fabulous job Michelle did on her very first computerized design.



Yes, you read that right. Her first computerized design. Many people would hear that and politely take their quilt elsewhere, but not me. I'm the type who will make a brand new gourmet recipe for the very first time when expecting 8 dinner guests, so handing over an important project to a newbie wasn't a huge deal to me. Call me a risk taker. Plus as a winner of the "My HQ Story" last fall, I knew Michelle had had lots of lessons and a rolladex full of contacts to help her along the way. Because Michelle quilts in 1986, after all.

I knew I wanted circles of some sort on the pattern, and that was something I would never be able to do on my own. Michelle admitted she couldn't do it on her own either, and that is why she suggested using the computerized design. The one we chose was called "Bubbles" and was completely perfect for the pattern design.

This is not to say there were not moments of panic along the way for both of us. Michelle's first attempt at downloading her "Bubbles" program resulted in a day of frustration for her until she called the company and was told that she must have gotten a corrupt file. Then she had to figure out how to tweak the design to fit my quilt size (remember, she's never done this before). I saw all this on her FB status and started to panic that she was going to give it back to me and tell me I was causing too much trouble and I had to do it myself. I had no idea how to quilt the thing on my own, so this was a serious fear as I saw the deadline approaching. But I said a little prayer rather than panicking, reasserted my full trust in Michelle, and although we were down to the wire, we did it, and it is gorgeous.

Many thanks to all the people who helped Michelle along the way as she did an amazing job on it! Again, I am sorry I can't reveal any more about it than this for now, but stay tuned and all will be revealed in time. I promise.