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Health & Fitness

Lemonade: Day 4 - Help from Sew Vac and a visit with Quilts of Valor

When life gives you lemons, please, please, make lemonade with me! Making Community Lemonade in Long Beach, CA. Day 4 - I had two visits. The second? A visit with Quilts of Valor.

We're making Community Lemonade in Long Beach, CA.  Come and make lemonade with us!

!  I'm on a 100 day odyssey for community and creativity in Long Beach, CA.  We've got such an amazing city, and I'm a huge fan!  I want to share it with you!  I'm seeking out the creatives and the facilitators of creativity.  The art and the locations that inspire art.  Bringing them to you, here in this blog, and to others, on the streets of Long Beach.

I call it .

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Today was Day 4 of Making Lemonade.  I got a little help from our friendly Sew Vac and dropped in on the Quilts of Valor team.

Help from Sew Vac

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July 5th (before ) - I'd decided to make a collage of some of the images from the 4th, and worked late into the night to Photoshop the scene together.  My intent?  To digitize the scene into stitches with my Bernina software, download it and stitch it out on my Bernina Artista 180.

I DESPERATELY wanted to get something...  anything... completed.

Of course, nothing goes the way you want, and my embroidery hoop decided to lose a screw.  Hm... Not good.  My fancy embroidery machine is in the plan for some future activity.  No hoop means no machine embroidery.  Remember, I can't spend anything during the game.

So I dashed over to our friendly Sew Vac, where I meekly asked owner/operator Scott Noble what was wrong with the hoop.  He said.. "Oh, you've lost a screw... I think I have one."  I cringed as I wondered whether there would be a charge for the repair.

I thought, "I should just explain the game.  Maybe he'll understand."  Part of me just wanted to see if I had to, so I held the explanation as my last card.

Scott is such a nice fellow.  There was not even a question of a charge!  Yes!!! I could continue with the embroidery!

If you're wondering what I would have done if there was a charge, there were several thoughts that ran through my head.  I could borrow a hoop from someone at the store, I could ask another patron to pay for the repair, I could tell Scott the whole story and perhaps he would just let it go.  I'd decided that if the image couldn't be done in embroidery, it would be done in some other medium. 

Luckily, none of this was necessary.

Quilts of Valor

July 5 (after ) - I knew that I wanted to put a face to the frenzied emails, so I introduced myself to Barbara Winkler who leads the local Quilts of Honor team.

The group meets every Thursday afternoon, from 1-5 PM.  During this time, the ladies sew, sew, sew to complete as many quilt tops as they can.  The count before I left?  EIGHT!!! quilt tops completed and readied for sending out to be longarmed (I sure hope I have the terminology right.)

Now, ANYONE can help sew quilt tops with the group.  You will need to take your sewing machine.  Barbara usually cuts the patterns from fabric donated to the group.  You will just need to help assemble the quilt.  Straight stitch to Barbara's direction, iron and stitch again.

I received an invitation to come back some Thursday to sew with the group.  Oh... Good idea!  I think I will!

Did I finish the Quilt Piece?  Da... da... da...

Now, I must admit that I own an advanced version of the Bernina digitizing software.  It's the reason I bought the machine in the first place.  It lets me create stitched images from the artwork around me... , my child's friends' artwork, .

As with any technology, it permits me to create challenges of my own.  And this, I have done.

So, I have a collage to embroider, but need to read the manual a bit more.  It happens.

No, not even a single square to deliver to the ladies today!  I'm sad, but I understand.  Sometimes things don't go the way you want them to go.  I really like the new image, I just need to adjust my plan.  Maybe I'll do something like the

In the meantime, there's the collaged image that I can offer to you in the photos.  The source images were the ones collected at

Thanks to Barbara Winkler and the folks with the Quilts of Valor team for understanding!  Thanks to Scott Noble, your friendly neighborhood Sew Vac owner, for being so friendly and neighborly!

Want more lemonade? 

And TOMORROW!!!!

Day 5: Mystery Project!

Tomorrow I will be at an as yet undecided location doing an as yet undecided project.  That's the way works.  Some days we have planned out, some days we don't.  Rest assured, there will be something.

Items Needed

Nothing!

Need to contact me?  info@handmadepenguin.com

Trish Tsoiasue writes as herself about creative and maker topics for the Belmont Shore Patch and as Handmade Penguin for the Handmade Penguin Blog.

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