Thursday, March 9, 2017

Pillow, Printer, and Rain

We have been trying to get our walk in every day but it has been dodgy. Dodging the rain that is. We check the Weather Underground hour-by-hour forecast in the evening and then decide when it looks like we have a window for walking. So far it has been in the mornings, 9:00 to 10:00, except on Tuesday, when there was no rain window. I did ten miles on the stationary bike instead.

Today we got in the first half hour before the rain started back up again, but we were prepared with our rain jackets and just kept going; 3.3 miles - mission accomplished.

It looks like this around here most of the time.


So I have been doing a few indoor projects. last week I got our income taxes filed. I'm always glad to have that out of the way. 

This week I finished the pillow cover I was making when I nicked my finger. 
I did all of the piecing in a class a long time ago. I was adding the border when I let my index finger stray over the edge of the straight edge ruler I was holding to use the rotary cutter. Anyway, now it's done, but not without breaking a needle on my serger when I tried to join the pillow back to the front. I had quilted the front, so there was filler and backing fabric. 

It was too much thickness, I guess, so I had to switch back to my sewing machine, but to do that I had to put the walking foot back on, and then after I was done sewing I had to change the needle in the serger and re-thread it. My hands are clumsy anyway because of arthritis, but even more so with my left index finger bandaged.   It would have been funny, bumbling around, if it wasn't so exasperating. 

At least it wasn't as exasperating as trying to install a new printer last week. That little circus had us both cranky.

My little Canon photo printer quit doing its thing a while back. I like to make photo cards, making them to order for special people for special occasions. My little printer printed photos from my files and knew just how to print my personalized verses inside the card stock, and my logo on the back. 

We have another big printer-scanner-copier, but it is not good with photos. So we bought a new printer, but it is a big do-everything printer. Tom got it installed on the computer, but it wouldn't print photos, which was what we bought it for. To make a long story short, we spent long parts of two days with HP tech support on the phone, at their recommendation had the hard drive scrubbed of malware and paid $100 for that, and finally, after another call back, we think everything is working. At least it does print photos and documents. But according to our Geek Squad tech guys, from whom we purchased our security software, we didn't need to spend the $100. And our computer is on occasion doing weird things. I don't know if this is the end of the story.

My project for today is to see what else this new printer can do, and see if I can get it to print my card stock.

Wish me luck.

And make the rain stop!

18 comments:

  1. All of those things sound maddening to me. I'm hanging on as long as possible to an old Epson printer that I've been able to figure out it's tricks to make it work. I seldom have good luck with printers. My tremors would no doubt play havoc with me trying to sew again.

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  2. Twenty years ago I used to do theatrical costuming for the community theater group that Nigel and I were members of back in Massachusetts, but I don't do much sewing any more. I very much admire anyone who can do the meticulous work required for quilting. I too want the rain to stop, not so I can walk, but so I can work in the garden. I made it partway around the front and had to stop about a month ago.

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  3. My Florida printer is acting very badly. It seemed to be having some argument with the computer. It will not speak with my computer at all lately. Grr.

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  4. New technology can be pretty frustrating. Your pillow looks great. As for the rain and cold, enough already; we all want to go out and play in our gardens (currently muddy swamps.)

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  5. Oh that looks wet. For a prairie boy that's too much rain. good on you for getting out all the time.

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  6. As I'm sitting here I hear the rain beating down on the skylight. I'm glad it's not coming down as snow but I long for sunshine and warm weather.
    Lovely pillow.

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  7. I do wish you luck. You really do have a lot of patience. Glad your pillow turned out pretty after causing you all that trouble. We haven't had much rain lately, but have you heard, we have snow coming on Sunday, followed by a week of freezing temperatures. That's North Carolina!!

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  8. I hate computer and printer issues! They happen when you least expect them and it's usually an all day project to fix. Keeping my fingers crossed for you that yours are behind you now.

    I agree with Red (above) that "wet look" patio really is beautiful.

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  9. Love your pillow! I bought a new printer a couple of moths ago. What a procedure to get it installed. I still haven't figured out where my documents "go" once I scan them.

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  10. Lots of parts of the country are having an early spring. No so much for us, though, with temperatures cooler than normal and that unending rain! I'm so ready for spring, aren't you? Glad you got that printer working the way you want. :-)

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  11. sounds like our story, hubby's computer froze took it to geek squad and for $150 they saud they would transfer the info from the hard drive to an external one then if we bought $200 plan for service for a year we could get the transfer cheaper-ended up costing us $350 anyway to find out his computer mother board had died.So he's still trying to figure out what computer he wants to buy after several months and using my mac laptop! Grr..lol!

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  12. Some day I will post about a disaster that happened on my hubby's laptop with phone help. It is too painful to write about now. I spent a day or so figuring out how to get the two scanners (one with my HP Envy printer) to work after I had geek Squad out setting up everything else!

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  13. Nice foliage in your yard even in the rain. Good luck with the printer and computer.

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  14. Don't you just love hour by hour weather. It may not be always perfect but it sure helps to plan a day. I sure hope the printer does all you want. I finally gave my last one to Staples who recycles them for free. I'm done.

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  15. those are GREAT looking pillows! (and yes, I'm back!)

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  16. I'm looking at the window at the snow that continues to fall and blow, with temps near -17C(0F) and wishing for rain. I know it will come soon enough.

    Good luck with your printer. I find technology daunting and rely on my adult son most of the time to fix things up.

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  17. Good luck with your computer and printer!!! My printer just broke down last week as well:( Your pillows are so beautiful!!!
    Jessi

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  18. Ouch with that printer. That is so darn aggravating. We've given up on color printers and just get photos printed at Costco now. We do have a black and white laser printer though and that's been very reliable, thank goodness. That is a really gorgeous pillow!!! Your are so amazing with your sewing!

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