The Bobbin Buzz & Stitchin' Bits

We left the Chicago area on Wednesday morning...

... and are heading South for the Indiana Embroidery Conference. We've stopped in Springfield Illinois for a couple days to visit with my sisters Susan and Maggie and to take some photos of intersting things in Springfield. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning to arrive on the shores of Lake Barkley (Kentucky) in the early afternoon. We plan to relax there a couple days and visit with some friends in the embroidery business in the Paducah area, then Holly will make the drive to Indiana for the IEC while I continue working by the lake.

Here's a website showing the place we'll be staying... http://www.eddycreek.com/rvpark.htm and one of the photos from the RV park...

I'll try to get some better pictures while we're there. That one looks pretty old! Anyway -- hopefully the park will be nice and quiet where I can finish up some projects I've had in the fire for a while.

Here in Springfield there a rodeo going on so most of the hotels and RV parks are pretty well packed. It's the National High School Rodeo Finals so there's lots of teenagers here at the park. They're having fun and it's great to see kids involved in sports and fun like the ones I've seen around here the last couple days.

-- Larry

From: Naomi...

"Hey you guys. Glad you are coming to visit in my neighborhood. I live only a few minutes away from Eddy Creek Marina. (in Eddyville.) My husband grew up on Eddy Creek. Hope you enjoy your visit. This is a beautiful area. It has really been hot and dry here this summer. Thanks for all of your designs. Have fun while you are here. I know Mandy and Bart, too. They are wonderful people." Naomi in Eddyville, Ky.

Hi Naomi -

Thanks for writing.

We ended up not staying at the Eddy Creek Marina and RV Resort. Their campsites were too difficult for us to access with our motorhome. There are two entrances there -- one winds up a very steep hill with a 180-degree turn that our coach is too long to make. The other has a metal gate across it that opens up wide enough for a standard pickup truck, but our coach is the size of a GreyHound Bus and would never fit through the gate.

Mandi said she thought we could get through the gate but I've had enough repair bills already for bodywork that I didn't even THINK about trying that one. The campgrounds and marina are beautiful and Mandi is very nice. We decided to head down the road a ways to the Calvert City KOA. It's actually outside Calvert City near Possum Trot and that's very convenient for our stay here.

The area is beautiful and the weather has been great. Holly's up in Indiana at the conference and will be "home" on today. I've been staying here with the girls and enjoying the quiet time and getting some work done. Less than a mile from the campground there is a DQ, a Waffle House, a Cracker Barrel and several other fine eatin' establishments so I'm in hog-heaven. (even though it's really Possum Trot!) -- Larry

PS: They spell it "Possum"... guess the "O" at the beginning was just too many letters to fit on the sign.

Holly and I left Kentucky on Monday morning heading back for Union Illinois. We stayed overnite in Mohamet Illinois then finished the drive to Union Ill on Tuesday. If there's a railroad buff in your family then you may have heard of Union Ill before! The Illinois Railway Museum is located here. There's also a really nice KOA and a great little restaurant called "Checkers II" that serves terrific stuffed green pepper soup.

We're still debating a trip to Knoxville TN for the Hands-On Sewing School in early September. And we'll winterize our RV by heading South at the end of September, starting with a trip to the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. Why the balloon fiesta? Take a look at the photos from previous fiestas and you can imagine what we'll be doing there with our cameras... and the designs that will come out of that trip!

Our house sale is scheduled to close on August 24th and at that time we'll be officially "homeless" or (as I like to think of it) "digital gypsies". Holly got an email a couple days ago from someone that said she couldn't believe we'd sell our house and live in a trailer. LOL! It's true... but it's not a bad place to be until we get tired of traveling!

One of our goals is to visit ALL the states that we can over the next couple years. And we'd love to meet you in person when we get there. If you haven't joined a local UnRavelers group yet, (or started one if there isn't one in your area) then please consider getting involved now. Getting together with the groups will be one of our main focuses while we're on the road.

Well, I'm writing this on Thursday night and I've got lots to do before tomorrow when this post goes out so I'm out of here for now! Thanks for reading Bobbin-Buzz!

In Janary of 2007 we went to Busch Gardens in Tampa FL for a photo outing. We use the photos as artwork for designs and we also find other things of interest for ATW when we visit places around the country. I'll share some of those "other things" in the Travelog section of Bobbin-Buzz as time goes on.

Busch Gardens offers an "Animal Adventure Tour" and Holly was keen to see what it was like. I went along with the idea but really had doubts that it would be anything worthwhile. Okay -- so I was wrong! :-)

There were about 15 of us in the tour and it starts with a ride in the back of a flat-bed truck into the animal habitat area. They've cleverly segregated the animals into compaitlbe species in each area and there are no lions or tigers in the area with giraffes, gnus, iboks, zebras and similar critters.

The first stop is in an area that the giraffes hang out. The giraffes know the routing and seeing the truck load of tourists to them is the same as a kid seeing the ice cream truck coming up the street. The giraffes come a'runnin for the truck!

As they're coming up, the tour guide is opening a cooler filled with lettuce and other treat and handing the food to the people standing on the truck bed. The giraffes stick their heads in among the people and are fed snacks by hand from the visitors. It's really COOL! Here's a photo I took of Holly with a couple of her new friends...

I'll show other photos from Busch Gardens but I have to say it's a blast and you really should take this tour if you go to Tampa. Children must be at least 5 years old to take this tour and be sure you have fresh batteries in your camera and enough space in your memory card. We like it so much that we went back a couple months later for a second and longer visit.

Holly and I had dinner with her favorite uncle (okay -- only uncle) on Tuesday nite. On Wednesday afternoon he was going to a local RV Show and invited us along. He's looking for a small trailer he can tow behind his minivan for some sightseeing across America and he invited us to go with him to the RV Show.

Holly and I had been to the Florida SuperShow in January and it's huge, but we never pass up opportunities to get out and see something so we met him there the next afternoon. It was fun to walk through a bunch of the different rigs but we'd never spent much time looking at small campers before and this was fun too.

The one I really liked for his purposes is called the "Bantam Flyer" and it's amazing how livable it is for the size. One thing I noticed too was that the dealers must be getting a lot of questions along the lines of "How much does this weigh?" now because almost every camper we saw had the weight written on a piece of paper and prominently taped up near the entry door. At the cost of gasoline these days, I can see why people would ask!

Here's a photo of the little "Bantam Flyer" and I'm hoping her uncle goes ahead with the purchase and enjoys this little camper. One thing we've noticed is that it's hard to find anyone that isn't friendly and outgoing in a campground. It must be the common thread of the RV lifestyle.

Holly has been creating a set of designs every month for Nita's ThreadNest starting with the first set released in June 2007. Those designs are now added into our Store at ATW as a set available for purchase. These are "Premier" designs... similar in quality to the Member Bonus design sets offered at ATW every month. The June release was called "Jacobean Splendor" and is available now in our store for those that aren't members of the ThreadNest. As always -- members get a NICE discount at the final step in the checkout process!

While we were visiting Busch Gardens in Tampa we came across a caricature artist. I've always thought it was fun to see what a demented mind can come up with so we sat for our "portraits".

Here's Holly sitting for her drawing...

The rain comes and goes, but when it comes, it comes a lot! Yesterday at about 2pm our weather alert radio said another storm was coming our way. It would arrive about 3:15 in our area. We had planned on going over to work with our of our team that's learning to digitize about 4pm so we left early to avoid being caught in the storm while driving. It didn't work though and we drove through a really bad one. I think it rained 6 inches in about 2 hours. Fortunately we got through the rain without being caught in any flash floods but the storm took out power to about 240,000 people in the NorthWest suburbs including our friends home. Holly taught her digitizing lesson by candlelight. (I know what you're thinking and the answer is "laptops"!)

The storms subsided and we got back home a little before 10pm. The campground ended up not getting much rain or wind at all so we'd have been better off staying home except that Holly did want to work with her on digitizing.

Today's forecast is for... RAIN! It hasn't started yet but probably will be here by 3pm. The ground is just plain soaked and the rivers are swollen from 3 to 6 feet above flood stage. I think we've had almost 30 inches of rain in the last 24 days. The normal total rainfall for this area is 41 inches per YEAR. Normally in August the area is parched and all the grass is yellow and dying. Now however we would have a bumper crop if we had just thought to plant rice instead of grass! The really funny part is the signs the towns put up saying "Outside Water Use Is Prohibited" to keep residents from watering lawns and wasting a precious resource are still up!

This photo is from a nearby campground that sits on the banks of the Chain Of Lakes area. The photo was taken this morning. Most of the campers are now just a few inches from having water inside and the rivers haven't crested yet.

Holly and I are on high ground with our camper and shouldn't have any problem with rising water levels where we are. Not so though for others and we sure feel awful about their situations.

Holly is in Knoxville, TN this week at the Hands-On Sewing School. There are about 170 people attending the classes there. While Holly's there she's getting some hands-on time with the Fuwari finishing machine.

I had hoped to attend with her but there's just too much to do here in Illinois before we head South for the winter. And winter is coming soon! Tonite's low temperature here will be in the mid-30's. That's a bit too chilly for my tastes!

Just two weeks ago it was in the 80's here and we were barbequing in the backyard...

Now the leaves are turning and the sky is looking wintry. It won't be long before Fall is upon us. Speaking of fall, I'd like to share another photo with you. It's from the Fall of 2005 so it's almost two years old, but it was such a beautiful fall that year that we took some time to walk through the woods nearby and shoot some photos.

Here's a closeup of some of the leaves...

Holly used some of the closeups of leaves to make a set of designs later. It helps to see the real thing up close though so you know what you're digitizing!

Wow. Busy day for me!

Holly is still in Knoxville and comes home tomorrow. It's been 8 days now and I'm sure missing her but things happen and plans change so she stayed over to finish up some details there.

Meanwhile, today I took the girls to an appointment in Bourbonnais Illinois to see our vet. Her name is Karen Shaw Becker and she is a holistic vet and homeopathic doctor as well.

So this morning I was up at 4am to feed the girls and leave by 5 for the 3-1/2 hour drive. Was it worth it? Absolutely! I had a full typed sheet of questions and concerns and she took the time to cover every one of them with me in detail. They weren't "biggies" -- just little things that we wanted to know about.

For those of us who love their pets like their own kids, it's great to have a source for reliable answers. And on that note, I'd like to introduce you to our vet. Once you click to her website, BE SURE you click on the "Meet Karen" link...

Holly got home from Knoxville on Tuesday and we've been making last-minute preparations for our departure on the 25th, along with working like crazy to get all our regular work tasks done. When we arrive in a campground we're often asked "Are you guys retired?" LOL! Far from it as we each put in way over a 40-hour work week. Holly with digitizing and me with website work.

We're very excited to head South for the winter. Normally we would hang out here in the Chicago area until late October but this year is a little different. As I've mentioned before we're heading to the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque this year to see and photograph hot air balloons up-close. You might imagine what kind of designs you'll be seeing soon!

We're looking forward to seeing many of our old friends on this winter's trip, as well as to making new friends too. If we're going to be in your area for more than a 1 night layover then please feel free to contact Holly about meeting us in person. If you have an UnRavelers Group in your area, please let her know too as we'd love to meet with the whole gang!

Yesterday we went into a nearby town called "Woodstock" but it's Illinois, not New York. Woodstock has a wonderful old-fashioned town square. It has a park with a large gazebo and there's often music and other entertainment in the square on the weekends. If you've seen the movie "Groundhogs Day" then you were looking at Woodstock. The streets around the square are all old brick or cobblestone and most of the businesses around it are boutiques.

We parked the car and headed towards the restaurant where we planned to have lunch but my eye was caught by the sewing store on the corner. It's a Janome dealer and I had to peek in the windows. That drew us both inside where we met the owner and chatted with her for a while. She was a delightful young lady and in no time we were making plans for next year when we get back in the area. We hope to do some kind of event with her next summer in the area. There's a hotel in nearby Crystal Lake Illinois that would accomodate a good sized crowd so we'll see what we can put together for next summer.

I hope you are having a good time this weekend and look forward to talking with many of you inside our forums.

This photo was taken in February of 2007 when Holly and I were walking around Universal Studios in Orlando. Do something FUN today and laugh out loud. Be a kid again, even if it's for only a few hours.

We're leaving this morning on our first of 3 days of driving. Going from Nita's place in San Leon Texas and landing in Kerrville Texas tonite. Then on to an overnight stay in El Paso and then to Albuquerque New Mexico for the Balloon Fiesta.

The sun is just rising and the sky is beautiful. Maybe we'll have nice weather for the drive. It's pretty early but it will be a busy few days and we need to get a good jump on this day.

Looking at the map last night to figure out our route was a bit astonishing for one who has never driven through West Texas. There are LONG, LONG stretches of Interstate-10 with NOTHING but highway! I grew up in the Baltimore / Philidelphia area then moved to St Louis and then to Chicago so I'm used to town upon town upon town. It will be interesting to see what it's like with nothing but cactus! LOL.

I'll post a couple photos here when we pull in tonite for our stopover.

A lady called this evening as I was hooking up water hoses and taking care of other chores outside the camper. She was having problems with downloading a design set and I took the info needed to help her out.

After the details were out of the way she asked if I was THE LARRY that writes the articles for the website and was traveling around the country in an RV. I said "Yes - that's me!" She said "You must be baby boomers!"

We had a nice conversation and after we hund up I finished my hookups, all the while wondering what "You must be baby boomers" meant? LOL!

I'd have to guess it's either "Only baby boomers" would have a dream to travel around America in an RV for an extended period of time, OR that only baby boomers would be young enough to do this.

Suprisingly, there are more than 2-million Americans who travel around the country at for at least 6 months or more per year. And those that we've met range from the Greatest Generation (WW2 vets) all the way to 30-somethings. The vast majority are retired fairly recently which puts most in their 60's but a good number are in their 50's and took advantage of early buy-outs from their employers.

Another worked as a mortgage broker while traveling. Where he was located had no effect on his ability to work. Another owned a circus and only works 5 months a year. Still another made signs. So why not a digitizer?

As for the baby boomer status? Yep. We are and it's both good-news and bad-news. The good news is that it's been a terrific generation to be a part of. The bad news is, I don't think any of the money we've been paying into Social Security will find it's way back into our pockets.

Time for me to turn int. Tomorrow morning we're up early and heading for El Paso.

We stopped last nite near El Paso Texas after driving 500 miles through the high-desert of West Texas. It's beautiful but would be just as beautiful if it were only 100 miles across!

We had supper at the Cattleman's Steakhouse and are heading out again this morning for the last leg of our drive to the Balloon Fiesta. Here's a picture of the desert taken last night...

Photos from yesterday and this morning...

We've had several emails and phone calls from friends and members to see if we're okay. Yes, we are fine. The tradegy this morning in Albuquerque happened to the folks in another balloon. It wasn't ours. We were flying at the same time and I think we flew over the incident but again, it wasn't our balloon.

Here's a photo Holly took this morning just after takeoff...

It's a "Travel Day" for us! We'll be pulling out of the Balloon Fiesta RV parking this morning and heading for Amarillo and a 1-night stopover, then on to Dallas and San Leon for the next two days of driving.

Holly and I had originally planned to stay in New Mexico for most of October but we've run into some things that need to be done in collaboration with Nita so we're heading for Texas this morning. Is that one of the beatitudes... "Blessed are the flexible"?

We hope to return next year to see more of the New Mexico and possibly other areas nearby. Meanwhile, we've got lots to do and we're heading out. Look for my next login from Amarillo!

-- Larry

We travelled from Amarillo to Fort Worth yesterday. Today we'll make it the rest of the way to San Leon and the home of Nita & CJ Okeefe. Then we can start in on our next several projects!

Watch for announcements here shortly. Nita will be opening up her sewing studio and inviting a few of you to come by for a day of playing together. That should be pretty fun.

Houston's Quilt Show is coming up in just a few weeks. We'll probably be there visiting in one or two booths. Look for details on that soon too.

Okay -- time for us to pack up and hit the road. Talk to you soon!

-- Larry

My dad's 85th birthday is next Wednesday. He knows my sisters are coming up for a visit and to visit with him this week. What he doesn't know... and only one of my sisters knows... is that I'm coming too.

I will be flying out of Houston this afternoon and land in Burlington this evening. Then I'll stay the night in a hotel and tomorrow will drive over to dad's house after my sister calls to let me know she "arrived safely in Vermont". The secret code is so my other sisters won't know I'm coming too. It should be fun to surprise them by walking in the door a little after they all arrive.

Fortunately I'll have my laptop with me and hopefully will be able to access the internet with my wireless card from the lake where he lives. If not, then I'll be driving the 10 or 15 miles it takes to get in range of the internet on a daily basis.

If you have an elderly loved one, why not take a few minutes today to call or stop by for a visit?

-- Larry

I've changed the name of the category here previously called "Tavelog" to "Travels With Me & Thee". I think the new name suits it better. We'll put our travel info in there from all of us here at Me & Thee.

-- Larry

Larry and I are spending our first Full-timers Thanksgiving in the coach today.

It is a bit cold here in Southern Tx. About 45 degress and I just put the Turkey breast in the crock pot with seasonings and a butter/wine baste. We'll have some stuffing, potato casserole, cranberries, pie, etc. We'll have a relaxing day and stuff ourselves this evening. 8-)

The campground is pretty with the leaves falling around us. We'll make some calls home and to friends and then maybe watch a movie this evening. Oh yeah! Some work will get done today too!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

-- Holly

From the official website of The RiverWalk in San Antonio...

"At 7:00 p.m. on the Friday following Thanksgiving, the switch is thrown and approximately 122,000 twinkling lights form a magical canopy over San Antonio's River Walk. The lights shine brightly every evening through January 1. The lighting ceremony is the official kickoff to the Paseo Del Rio Holiday Festival."

That's where Holly and I will be this evening! We're so excited to see the Christmas boat parade. We'll be sitting in an outdoor cafe` watching the boats go by while we have supper. I'm sure we'll be taking lots of photos too and hopefully some of those will turn into embroidery designs for our members :-)

Here's a photo of The RiverWalk in San Antonio...

It was COLD!

Okay - not cold by "Chicago standards", but cold by our current standards! With the temperature dropping into the upper 40's and wind gusts of 10-15 mph it was cold enough to want several layers of clothing on, but we went in spite of the wind chill and had a great time.

The riverwalk in this area is lined on both sides by tall buildings and trees, keeping the wind from finding it's way down to our level except for the strongest gusts that arrived at our table as a gentle (albeit cold) breeze. I came prepared with 4 layers of clothing on my top, including a well insulated vest, warm gloves and a Navy-style watchcap. Holly wished she's brought one more layer, like maybe a stadium blanket like some others had brought.

The walkway shown in the photo from the 23rd (see "Christmas Parade") was transformed into a standing-room-only (or sitting room for those with restaurant reservations) view of the boat parade or "Paseo Del Rio Holiday Festival".

At 7pm someone flipped a switch and the thousands of light came on that were hanging from the trees lining the riverwalk. Here's what the scene looked like from our table...

Looking across the river you can see people at another restaurant dining al-fresco under the lights and waiting for the first of the parade boats to come past. There was a mariachi band strolling and playing at their restaurant and since the river is about 100 feet wide at this point, the band was close enough to hear from our table.

It was 7:30 when the first boat came past our area carrying the parade's Grand Marshall and a beattles-knock-off band called "The Krayola's". Here's a photo of the Starbucks boat as it came past us...

Dinner ended with a piece of green-colored cheesecake shaped like a Christmas tree and decorated with a red berry sauce forming lines and ornaments on it. The graham cracker crust was the pretty good and so was the sauce. The cheesecake itself could have taken a few lessons from Eli's. :-)

Holly and I caught a cab back to the campgrounds since catching a bus would have been "iffy" with crowds like that. I didn't even dream of driving down there and trying to find a parking place. The cab driver told me that the city charges $250 for towed cars so I was glad I made the choice to take public transportation instead.

We were back home before 10pm and no frostbite! And while I did take a bunch of photos, Holly will have to look through them to see if any would be suitable for a set of designs.

(Comments or questions? Click the pink "comments" link just below this article!)

Holly and I left San Antonio Wednesday morning and headed back to the Houston/Galveston area.

We had to stop first at a truck tire shop and have one of the tires checked on our camper. It was leaking about 15 lbs of air per day and that definately meant there was a problem with it. About an hour later we pulled out with a new valve stem in place and I'll keep an eye on the pressure in that one to be sure it's fixed.

It took about 5 hours driving to get back to San Leon where we'll be until just after Christmas. Then we head for Florida. Meanwhile we have lots to do here in the next 4 weeks!

Holly has digitizing to do and hopefully will also find time to be in a few new videos we're producing. I've got some website maintenance to do and some video taping and editing, as well as producing covers for new CD and DVD releases coming out.

So we're "here" for a while and have lots to do. That's kind of "normal" for us! I hope your holiday season is filled with family times and fun, and that you still find time to enjoy your hobby.

Here's a new PHOTO GALLERY from Dickens On The Strand 2007...

http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/1919.cfm

-- Larry

The Northern Illini Unravelers meeting was held on Saturday Dec 29th at Panera Bread in Saint Charles Illinois. Here's a photo Merrilee sent to me...

Holly and I have been to several of the Nothern Illini UnRavelings and always enjoyed ourselves. It's great to get together with others that understand our hobby, and in our case - understand what we do for a living. :-)

Do you have a local group you can enjoy meeting with? Here's a list of local UnRavelers groups...

There are 5 missions built in the early 1700's in what is now San Antonio. The most famous is what we now call "The Alamo". Holly and I toured 4 of the 5 missions while in San Antonio in November.

Here's a photo I took of one of the missions... (Click for closeup look)

You can read more about the missions at http://www.lsjunction.com/facts/missions.htm

Holly and Nita are in Las Vegas at the VDTA/SDTA Show. The alphabet soup means "Vacuum Dealers Trade Association / Sewing Machine Dealers Trade Association" That's where your dealers go every winter to see what's new in the marketplace that they can bring to their store for you. And they're getting an eyefull this year at the RNK booth where Holly and Nita are showing off two new product lines...

First is the Fuwari line that you've heard so much about lately here on Bobbin-Buzz. There are 26 sets of designs being released initially with more to follow every month. Here's a project photo from one of the sets...

Next is the "Signature" line from "ME And Thee". This is a line of designs for the dealers from Nita and Holly. They will start showing up in stores as early as March for those dealers that are ordering while they're at the show.

Of course this is very exciting for us as it's the culmination of many months of long hours and hard work. Here's a photo of the ME And Thee section of the RNK booth. Just the ME And Thee section is a 20' x 10' booth and our team brought enough projects with them that there wasn't room to display all of them in that size booth!

There are 20 sets of designs being released initially for the Signature line with more to follow every month. There's also a "Club" being set up for both the Fuwari and SIgnature lines. Your dealer will have details when they get back from the show. Ask them!

Holly and I left Texas Thursday morning and stayed the nite in New Orleans. We plan on having breakfast at Cafe DuMonde in a couple hours then on the road for another 200 miles or so to land us in the Florida panhandle for a couple weeks.

I'll bring my camera to breakfast and post a photo for you!

-- Larry

Holly and I went for breakfast yesterday at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. We only had a few hours of layover on our way through from Texas to Florida but we couldn't pass up a quick visit to the French Quarter for breakfast.

After breakfast we packed up the camper and hopped onto I-10 eastbound. Late in the afternoon we arrived in Navarre Florida where we'll be (mostly) for the next three weeks. I say "mostly" because I'll be here the whole time but Holly will be going to Knoxville to work with the RNK team for a couple days then up to Atlanta for the AEC for a few more days. So I'll have 21 days here and she'll have about 14 days.

I guess beignet's and coffee don't qualify as a "real" breakfast but it did the trick for me. Besides, I think I've had enough "real breakfasts". LOL! I stepped on the scales this morning and it was UGLY! The scales groaned and coughed up the number. I've set a new personal record. That's not good!

So I'm off the beignet's (and everything else I can think of) until I get the weight under control. But I can still look at a picture of them. I don't think that's fattening. :-)

Holly is flying today from Fort Walton Beach Florida to Knoxville Tennessee for a meeting tomorrow. At least that was the plan when we bought the tickets! It may be flying today AND tomorrow instead of today since she's now in Atlanta and the connecting flight to Knoxville has been cancelled.

I know that airlines fly based on weather. Being delayed is not what's agravating about it. It's the lack of care that they take of their customer's needs that drives one up a wall. Rather than announcing that the flight was cancelled over their loudspeakers, they just waited until their customers looked at the ARRIVALS/DEPARTURES video display and noticed the cancellation on their own. When Holly asked them why they didn't make an announcement, the employee said "It was shift change time and that makes it so difficult to process all the people at one time". WELL DUH!

So there's a slim chance that she will be able to catch a ride on one of the next 3 flights leaving tonite. If not - then it will be a 2 day flight. I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm tempted to take an airline flight to save time. :-)

The meeting in Knoxville is to work with the RNK Distributing team on what Holly and Nita have learned in stitching out about 1,000 Fuwari designs on home machines. That's more Fuwari work than anyone in America has done and more home-machine Fuwari than anyone in the world since it was until now only possible on commercial machines. Their expertise will go a long ways in helping the teams teach others about Fuwari as they travel across the USA and other countries.

Over breakfast we were discussing the similarities between Fuwari and Free Standing Lace. Not that the finished product looks similar, but that FSL was an entirely new concept when it was introduced a few years ago. And because the technique was new to the world - it took a little bit of information about exactly how it is done before people could make it work. Fuwari is the same in that respect. It can be done by almost any home machine but there are a few things that you need to have demonstrated first in order to get it to work.

When Holly and Nita were at the VDTA (Las Vegas) at the end of February, people from all the major sewing machine makers stopped by the booth to see and touch the Fuwari. Of course they're wondering how it's done and if their machines will do it. The answer to the second question is YES... almost every home machine will do Fuwari. The answer to the first question though -- "how's it done" -- will take a bit more to cover and we'll get into that shortly.

-- Larry

I hear the Gilligan's Island theme song playing in my mind as I'm writing this... ("A 3 hour tour...")

Holly's flight yesterday that was supposed to take 2 hours ended up taking 15 hours instead. She left here at 8am and arrived in Knoxville at 11pm. I could have driven her up there from here in 10 hours! On top of that when she opened her suitcase at the hotel she had to wring the water out of the clothes inside because they'd left the suitcase out in the rain somewhere along the journey.

Ah - the joys of flying. Makes the Chicago city bus system look attractive!

-- Larry

First of all, let me apologize for not having a news letter item for you last week. I had a problem with my back and was under doctor's orders to stay out of the computer chair and since I was in a great deal of pain, I did as he said.

After several trips to the Chiropratic Center and several treatments, I am doing much better. We did cancel our trip this week due to the back condition also. However, we will be headed for the panhandle of Florida on Saturday and then on to the American Embroidery Conference next week in Atlanta.Hoping to see many of you there.

This will probably be my last conference for a while as I intend to stay home and get many things caught up here and also to prepare for the trip that we are planning to Australia in the fall to promote the ME and Thee Signature line of designs. There's lots of work to do for that one.

Easter is coming early this year for sure. Can you believe that is it Easter and almost spring already? Here on the Gulf Coast, we have been having some beautiful days and also some windy ones. Guess the March coming in like a lion is holding true this year. We have also had lots of rain, so do not really need any April showers though. "Smile"

Guess that is all for this week. You all have a great Easter weekend and Happy Stitching!

Nita
www.nitasplace.com

Holly and Nita are at the American Embroidery Conference in Atlanta this weekend. They left on Wednesday morning with a crew of 8 and should be home on Monday afternoon. I know they'll have a great time there hanging out with many of the folks they chat with in our forums thoughout the year.

Nita will be teaching a few classes in digitizing and they'll also have a table set up in the vendors area as well as a trunk show too. There normally are about 150 people at the AEC each year and about 1/3 of them are members of ArtisticThreadWorks and NitasPlace.

CJ (Nita's husband) and I are hanging out in the campground while the girls are gone and have been relaxing a bit in-between the work. We watched a movie last nite together on DVD. "I Am Legend" starring Will Smith. It's a remake and update of "The Omega Man" that starred Charleton Heston back in 1971. They did a great job on this remake. One of those rare instances where the remake is really better than the original with plot updates and special effects that have come a long way in 37 years.

-- Larry

Holly and I are leaving the Emerald Coast today (near Destin Florida) and heading towards Tampa. There are tonado warnings in the area now and severe storms coming this morning so we hope to get out of here in the next few minutes. For that reason - I'll cut this very short and just say I hope you are enjoying your embroidery hobby (or business) and look forward to talking with you again soon.

-- Larry

UPDATE @ 6 PM: We pulled in for the evening about 40 miles west of Tallahassee. Our weather alert radio came on and told us they were experiencing 60 mile per hour winds and had tornado warnings in Tallahassee so we decided to just pull in at the nearest campground and stop for the night rather than going on into the storms.

-- Larry

Holly and I arrived in the Tampa campground (Lazy Days Rally Park) yesterday afternoon. If you were watching the national weather yesterday (or if you live in Florida) you'd have seen that most of the state was covered with thunderstorms. It rained all day and some of the time it rained HARD. We slowed down for the heavy stuff and it seems like any time we stopped to get out and fuel up, walk the girls, or just stretch our legs, is when it rained the hardest.

One time we pulled into a Flying J to refuel and Holly said "I'm going to go for a walk and stretch my legs". When she opened the door, the skies opened up and let loose in a torrential downpour with the wind driving the rain sideways! She decided to just stretch a bit inside the coach, but I still had to get out to refuel. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. It would have been really cool though if the rain had stopped again when she closed the door! :-)

I walked across the lot to get inside and pay for the fuel and got soaked AGAIN. Our shower is about 1/4 full of clothes that were soaked in the two days of driving down here and still haven't dried out. We'll use the laundry facilities today and get them washed and dried.

One good thing yesterday was that Holly found out that she IS able to digitize while I drive. So that opens up a whole bunch more time for her to be productive during those days we're traveling. That's very helpful.

Speaking of travel, we're staying near Tampa for the next 6 days then we head for Port Charlotte Florida which is only about 90 miles away on the 13th of April. We'll meet up with Nita and CJ there and on the 16th we'll all be in a Viking dealers store doing the first ever in-store "Fuwari Party".

Holly and Nita will be teaching Fuwari techniques, CJ will be finishing the stitchouts using the Fuwari machine, and I will be video-taping the whole thing. We hope to create a teaching video all about Fuwari from this visit as well as create the first Fuwari Club. If you're in the Gulf Coast area of Florida you can make reservations to attend. I'll have more details about the location in a follow-up post shortly.

-- Larry

Yesterday morning Holly and I had breakfast with one of our ATW members Denise Embury from Zephyrhills Florida. Actually - Denise is from New York but moved to Florida a few years ago. Many people move here after they retire, Denise and her husband just made the move a little sooner and are enjoying the winter weather here a whole lot more than in New York. We had fun talking with Denise and getting to know her.

Today we're working on digitizing (Holly) and the website(s) (me) and plan on having dinner with our friends Ron and Mary this evening. I also have to dump the tanks today and prepare for departure tomorrow morning when we'll leave for Port Charlotte, Florida.

Tomorrow's trip is the last outbound leg planned for this season. When we leave Port Charlotte on the 18th, we'll be heading for Illinois to see the family. It's good to see Illinois family between April and October. After October, they'll need to travel south to see US! :-)

-- Larry

(Photo of Holly during road-trip!)

Hi to all my member family,

As you know we have been traveling a lot lately. CJ and I drove to Florida last month and stayed in a cabin in Navarre Beach campground. We met Holly and Larry Pike at the campground. It was pretty neat. I was there for a couple of days and then went with the Florida friends and members ( Missy, Ina, Dot, Kelly aka KC, Denise ) and Holly up to Atlanta, GA for the AEC conference for embroidery. It was a great conference and I enjoyed it very much.

I especially enjoyed meeting all the members from NitasPlace that attended the conference. It was a real joy to put names to faces. I do think that the next time, we will use the log in names of the member along with the real name so that we can recognize them. I hope that all of you who went enjoyed the conference and I hope that those of you who did not go will get a chance to attend a conference at some point.

CJ stayed at the campground while I was gone and went fishing with Ina's husband a couple of days. He and Larry hung out together a lot too.

After our return from the conference, we stayed at the camp another day or so and them started making our slow way home. Since both of us were under treatment for back problems, we were just driving aroud 4 hours a day and then stopping. SO it did take us several days to get home.

We will be leaving again on Sunday to fly to Port Charlotte, Fl and meet up with Holly and Larry there and conduct the first ever "Fuwari Party". Stay tuned for more news of that event.

-- Nita

Holly and I finished our work in the Florida area yesterday. We're taking today to get things gathered up then we'll begin the drive home tomorrow morning. It's about 1,400 miles and I like to drive less than 400 miles a day with the camper since driving it is a whole lot different from driving a car. So we'll be back in Illinois about the 23rd or 24th of April.

We'll be on the internet most of the time as our WiFi works from most everywhere except one place we stayed for a few hours in the hills of West Virginia a year ago. And Holly has found that she can digitize while I drive so that helps with her being able to get a bit ahead on digitizing work too. Unfortunately, it doesn't help me get ahead on anything LOL!

Summer is almost here! Yeah! Looking forward to seeing our summer friends soon.

-- Larry

Holly and I stayed in Valdosta Georgia last nite. We found a very pretty little RV Park right off I-75 exit #18 and pulled in for the nite. We'll be leaving again this morning and hope to make another 475 miles today taking us to Knoxville TN and the home of RNK Distributing. We plan on visiting with Ricky & Kay Brooks there for a few hours on Sunday. The weather channel is showing rain for today so that makes the trip a bit more challenging!

While we drive, we listen to books on audio quite often. We've heard many books read in their uncut version this way over the years and it makes the time go by quickly. Right now we're listening to David Baldocci's book "Split Second". If you've got a long drive ahead of you, give it a try!

We video-taped the "Fuwari Party" in Port Charlotte last Wednesday and I plan on editing all the Fuwari tapes as soon as we land in Illinois. This video will be for dealers and I may be able to get a shortened version up here on the web too, showing those parts that will be interesting to our customers.

I have been using Windows-based software for video editing for several years and finally decided to move to a Mac a couple days ago. So on Thursday we drove to an Apple store and I picked up a MacBook computer and video editing software. From what I've seen so far, their software for video editing is WAY BETTER than anything available on Windows computers. It used to take me about 40 hours to edit a bunch of tapes down to a 1 hour video. I think with the Mac I'll be able to do it in 10 hours or less.

Of course, the other use for the Mac is to try out all the embroidery programs I can get on it too. I'll let you know what happens when you run (or try to run) embroidery software on a Mac as soon as I've tested the programs out. Stay tuned for that!

-- Larry

Holly and I stayed in Knoxville TN for the last 2 nites. We had a trying day on Saturday when we ended up having to replace both rear tires on our Jeep and then had to have one of the new ones re-mounted again on Sunday morning because they goobered up the installation the first time. We finally left Chatanooga on Sunday afternoon and got to Knoxville a little after 4:00pm. We had plans to meet Rick and Kay at 5:00pm so it was a rush to get the camper set up in time to meet our plans. But we made it and had a great evening with them.

It was my first visit to the RNK warehouse and it is bulging with embroidery products including Floriani threads and stabilizer, and litteraly TONS of other products. It was fun to look through everything they did and what's new there too. I spent 20 years walking through one of the worlds largest warehouses and going through RNK's brought back lots of memories.

Holly and I plan to leave this morning for the rest of the drive back to Illinois. We're about 750 miles away right now to that should be a 2 day drive for us. The hills around us are green and beautiful. It's a little cooler here than we're used to now but it's really gorgeous.

Below are several new articles today about Nita's Place and what's going on there. Help yourself to the freebies and enjoy the articles.

-- Larry

We stayed in Somewhere, Indiana on Tuesday nite, then arrived back in Union, Illinois on Wednesday afternoon. It's nice to be home! We're looking forward to seeing friends and family while here for the summer. The first thing we did after getting the camper parked on our space was to head over to see the god-kids. Samantha and Jake will be 2 in June and they're really fun now.

The prices of diesel fuel sure changed a lot in the last couple months. The lowest we saw was $3.99 per gallon in Indiana to as much as $4.29 a gallon in Illinois. Of course, you can't forget the 9/10 of a cent at the end too! LOL! It used to make sense way back when to add the 9/10 to everything when gas was 29 cents a gallon. That 9/10 then was an additional 3% added onto the price. Now at $4 a gallon it's less than 0.2% of of a price change and is toally silly! I suspect nobody wants to be the "pioneer" that does away with the 9/10th of a penny. Come to think of it -- pennies themselves are kind of useless today too!

Well now that we're settled into one place for a few months we both have long to-do lists and are anxious to get started on them. Holly will be working with both Mary and Carol on upgrading their digitizing skills. I'll be working on some new website areas as well as a couple new videos. At least that's the plans for now. It seems though that we never get everything done in the time we have set aside for it. I wonder if other people have the same problem?

-- Larry

We're back in Northern Illinois and it's spring again! We saw spring in Texas, then again in Tennessee, and now we're seeing it in Illinois. Must be my favorite season or I wouldn't keep repeating it. LOL!

Here in Illinois, spring means lots of thunderstorms. One last nite went on for several hours and included a power outage for a couple hours. Fortunately, we have a generator and didn't have to wait in the dark. Unfortunately, our TV reception is via satellite and that goes out in a heavy storm. While the storm was raging, a couple pulled into a tent-camping site in front of us. The husband, wife, and what looked like a 6-year old, got out of their car and set up a tent and started a campfire in the rain. I admire the guts but questioned the sanity of the dad! When I woke up about midnite, the storm was past, the power was back on in the campground, and the tent campers had already packed up and left. :-)

It's nice to be parked somewhere for a while and settle into a work routine. Holly's been digitizing a lot the last couple days and I've been working on another project we'll be showing off soon. I hope you enjoy the fruits of our labors in your embroidery hobby.

-- Larry