Pinwheel fireworks quilt

 

 

 

 

<~ From this

 

 

 

 

 

<~ to this

 

 

 

 

 

 

…in just a few hours. I’m improving in my focus and stamina in making quilts.

I had planned out this quilt using mywebquilter.com. It’s handy because I don’t have quilt designing software on my own computer, and it helps to be able to see what the design I’m thinking of will actually look like when finished.

I started with 1 1/4 yards of this bright fireworks print fabric. Here you see the blocks and borders I need for the quilt, and the little bit of scrap leftover that I can incorporate into another quilt.

I’m using a technique for half-square triangles I had found online (since removed), using two squares sewn together and cut apart. Here are the squares I have cut, ready to sew together.

First, I placed the white square on top of the colorful square. Then I stitched all around the straight edges with a 1/4″ seam.

Then I cut the block apart at both diagonal lines.

Press the blocks open, and I have four half-square triangle blocks. What I didn’t realize when I began this process is that the HST blocks would have bias-cut edges to sew on later. Luckily, I managed not to stretch everything out of proportion.

The borders and the HST blocks. The next step was to combine 4 HST together in a pinwheel.

My original plan called for 32 pinwheel blocks and 31 white squares, but on second thought, I decided that was too big for a baby quilt. I ended up leaving off one column and one row, for 48 squares total. The end result today is this, a quilt top without a border.

Technology hates me. (tale of woe)

I have a home embroidery machine, but I cannot write designs to the memory card. I could in the past. Too many upgrades means I’m way behind. Maybe you can help me solve this dilemma, find a way out.

My machine is a Brother PE400-D. It’s small, it wasn’t too expensive, and it’s just right for the few times I need to embroider. What I want to embroider right now is quilt labels. What I don’t want to do is sink a lot of money into something I only use sometimes.

I have Embird software on my computer, no problems there. I paid the upgrade fee. I can digitize all I want. On this part of the whole she-bang I was willing to spend a little money.

I have an Amazing Box, in order to get designs from my computer to the memory card that goes into the Brother. Here’s my problem: the Amazing Box works with Windows 98. Yup. When I got the XP on the “new” computer 6 years ago, I downloaded the free upgrade. I couldn’t make it work with the memory card I have, because PE400-D was not an option listed, and all the others I tried didn’t trick it into working. I tried tech support with Amazing Designs, but what they suggested was to choose a different machine from the options. Lady, I tried that. She had no further ideas. No problem, I kept my old laptop (circa 1999) that still has Windows 98 on it. I simply transfer the designs I want to use to the laptop, write to the memory card via Amazing Box, and I’m good to go.

Then it gets tricky. I had to buy a 3.5″ floppy drive that runs from the USB port in order to write designs to the laptop. From the desktop, I would write designs to a floppy, put the floppy into the laptop, and write to the memory card. Problem solved, for a while. Now the USB port on my laptop isn’t working. My son gave me a card thingy with USB ports on the end of it, to plug into my laptop. Now the laptop won’t boot up with the card thingy in it, and it won’t recognize the card thingy if I insert it after the laptop is booted. Twelve years is a good run for a simple laptop, and I don’t blame it for wanting to go to the hardware graveyard.

Still with me?

Back to the main desktop computer, which has again been replaced with one running Windows 7. I tried loading the Amazing Box software, and it doesn’t know my hardware.  The USB port is working, it just doesn’t find my Amazing Box. I really don’t want to put a couple hundred dollars into a more current reader/writer. If I could make this work for about $40 or less, I would do that.

My final idea is to put a barter ad on Craigslist. If someone would transfer designs from a flash drive to my memory card in exchange for something I could do as a return favor, I might try to work out a deal.

Can anyone relate? Anyone have any good advice for me?