Rachelle Keller

After a freezing few days on the Utah Tundra, we are back in SoCal picking up where we left off. We ran the Big Bad Barudan right up until the moment we left. We were hoping to complete the latest design before we left so we could take it with us. No such luck. High stitch count, would have taken a few more hours. We looked at the design and Big Al said, "Why is it doing that color?". Hey, it's a machine. Garbage in, garbage out. I said I programmed the color sequence exactly as he "told" me to. I had the color sequence written down as we were making changes. I asked him to VERIFY it. He did, but apparently missed something. NOT a big deal. I have figured out how to advance forward, backward, and pretty much get right back to exactly where and what color and/or stitch I need to be on…but I boogered up this time too. I can advance the machine and assign the proper color as long as I push the appropriate button once . I guess if I push the button twice it goes a...

UTAH BLOG: Aug 12 Moved to our new home in Utah. It is so beautiful here. The mountains are so majestic, can hardly wait to see snow covering them. Oct 14 Utah is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves have turned all colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the beautiful mountains and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they are the most wonderful animal on earth. This must be paradise. I love it here. Nov 11 Deer season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. Hope it will snow soon. I love it here. Dec 2 It snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won) and then the snowplow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place. I love Utah. Dec 12 More snow last night. I love it. The snowplow did its trick again to the dr...

A pro gress report and some photos I didn't get to before. A completed wing. White parts laid down first, outlined by black parts. Some mystery misregistration occurred. Later found that it was probably fabric stretch. The design should have been built and stitched from the center out. In addition, a heavier cut-away stabilizer should have been used. Overall, not great, but not too bad. Now black laid down first and white stitched on top. This worked much better, but the stitch count is still very heavy. Didn't have any misregistration problems because the entire shape was laid down in black as a background and the white was stitched on top of it. A few threads to trim here and there, but it worked. Another successful "test". Big Al does most of the digital work and digitizing while I fiddle with the technical aspects of the machine. He often complains that he can't get anything done. Wonder why? When Schmoopie wants lovin' & scratchin', she wants lovi...

When I last left off, I was having problems with the machine coming unthreaded. I did finish the white wing project, one-unthreaded-needle-at-a-time. It was a B-I-T-C-H! I did every trouble-shooting solution in the manual and even tried a few things of my own. I cranked the tension waaaayyyyy down hoping that would help but to no avail. I unthreaded and re-threaded the machine and did everything I know of using my knowledge of normal sewing machines. But that particular project being done, the things learned are filed away for future reference and Big Al changed the original wing file for yet another round of experimentation. The new file was bigger and better than ever. However, he changed the sew order of the colors so I started out sewing black, the needle came unthreaded early and he said, “No, that's supposed to be white.” I had to remember how to change colors/needles on the fly to get the right color down first. You can't see it but the white sewed back down over the bla...