Fish wall hanging

Fish wall hanging workshop starts soon! This is an intermediate “English Paper Piecing” project working with squares and half squares. Workshop starts March 13th and signup closes April 10th.

Come join us!

You can signup for the workshop at
http://program.quiltcampus.net/004QC/?p=705

Flowers All Around

Calling all beginners! We are going run one of our past workshops called Flowers All Around at My Quilting Buddies forum. You will need to register to the forum in order to participate in the workshop.

When you register to the forum, scroll down to My Quilting Buddies – Group Projects section at the bottom. Click English Paper Piecing to get to the workshop.

The workshop is scheduled to start in March 13th.

Come join the fun in this easy project!

cindy aka MsDesigns

I love snow

I live near Dallas Texas and snow is something we do not get very often.  We always wish for at least an inch each year.  It is not enough to make a snow man but we do enjoy looking at it.  We are not equipped to handle snow, so when the first snow flake falls, the town just about shuts down.

Thursday morning, mother nature decided to give us snow.  I was so excited to peek out the window at 6am to see snow on the ground.  It was still snowing too!  So pretty!  Well, it kept snowing and snowing and snowing.  By Thursday night, 9 inches of snow had fallen in the town I live in.

Our trees can not handle so much snow.  limbs started to break off.  My poor cherry laurel in back, where I hang all my bird feeders, has lost many limbs.  They snapped right off from all the weight of the snow on them.  All over the city trees were loosing limbs and bringing down power lines with them.

By midnight, over 200,000 homes and businesses had lost power.  We lost ours at 10 pm.  We waited and waited for the power to come back on, but it did not.  The longest we have ever been without power was three hours and we figured this was going to be bit longer.

My sister-in-law was over for a few days to visit.  With all the snow, she was stranded at our house without electricity.  We got out lots of blankets and snuggled up in bed for the night, hoping it would come back on in the middle of the night.

We woke up the next morning with a chill in the air.  The electricity was still off.  We have an all electric house.  Therefore there is no way to cook and there was no hot water.

All day long sister-in-law and I tried to entertain ourselves.  We spent time playing cards and putting puzzles together.  During the day was not so bad.  There are many windows in the main living area so we had sun light to brighten the room.  But as night started to come, the house got really dark.  I pulled out a hurricane lamp and many candles.  They provided enough light to get around without stumping our toes.

I started to worry about the food in the ice box, so we boxed it all up and placed the boxes in the garage.  I checked the freezer food in the garage and it was still frozen.  So that was OK.

“Papa Johns”, our local pizza place, had power.  The roads were pretty clear, so we decided to order pizza.  Something warm would be nice after a day of cold food.  We sat in the living room eating pizza in candle light.

It was only 8pm, but with it being so dark, we decided to grab more blankets and head to bed.

The next morning was even colder than the previous as the house lost its residual heat.  We listened to the news (battery radio) and they said that 50,000 of the 200,000 had electricity now.  There were volunteers coming from all around to work on the power lines.  They were going to work all weekend to get the power back for the rest of us.

Buy the time my hubby needed to go to work, the roads were clear again.  He headed off to work, but with out a shower since we had no hot water.  The sister-in-law packed up her things and headed off for home as well.

I was in the cold house huddling will my kitties to stay warm.  We spent much of the afternoon sleeping under lots of blankets.  It is funny how cuddly our cats get when it is cold…hehe.  They were huddled under the covers with me.

I was so hoping the electricity would come on before night.  Hubby would not be home till 9:30pm and I would have to sit there in the dark waiting for him.  I sat and watched the clock…tick…tick…tick…tick.  It was battery powered of course…hehe.

It started to get dark so I pulled out the hurricane lamp and candles again.  Around 8:30pm I stepped outside to look around.  Other neighbors were outside too.  All of a sudden our porch lights came on.  We all started jumping up and down and yelled “power!”.  “We got power!”.  I ran back in the house to see all the lights were on.  Just then the phone rang.  It was hubby checking to see if the power had come on or not.  I told him it had just come on.  He was so excited!  He was checking to see if we had power before he headed home.  If we did not, he was going to pick up hamburgers since I could not cook.  But we were so excited; we decided to have him pick up hamburgers anyway.

It was about 45 mins till the hubby would get home, so I decided to put the food back in the fridge.  Most of the food I was sure was ok, but I did discard some of it just in case.  I also cleaned the kitchen that had been collecting dishes for two days.

We had a wonderful warm supper and watched TV.  We headed to bed around 11pm and the house was all warm.

It is now Sunday morning.  Our power was out for just under 48 hours.  The house is so warm and the kitties are so happy.  I downloaded over a 100 emails and all my workshops are a day past due.  I will spend the day making up for the last two days.

oh … I still love snow.  8o)

cindy aka MsDesigns

Different weights of shapes

There are many different materials you can use for your shapes to english paper piece. There is printer paper, freezer paper, card stock and plastic.

Printer paper is very economical and easy to find.  You can print the shapes using an inkjet or laser printer and then cut them out.  Since the paper is thin and does not have much body, it would be difficult to work with sharp cornered shapes like the half diamond.  It would be very hard to get the sharp point for you will most likely bend the paper when folding over the fabric.  When using an inkjet printer, please remember the ink is water solvable.  If you were to get your project wet, while the shapes are still inside, there is a chance the printer ink could bleed onto the fabric.  If you make your own shapes out of printer paper, it would be best to use a laser printer.  When basting, it is best to stitch the fabric to the shape.

Freezer paper is thicker and has more body than printer paper.  It is a little more costly but still very reasonable.  Many local grocery stores will sell freezer paper in the section you find foil and plastic wrap.  You can unroll and cut the paper into sheets so you can print on it with your printer.  Of course, you want to print on the paper side and not the shinny side.  You can get freezer paper in sheets, as apposed to a roll.  However you may have to order it via the internet.  It is OK to use an inkjet printer to print your shapes.  However it is very important that you *DO NOT* put freezer paper in a laser printer.  A laser printer has a heating element that can melt the plastic on the paper and thus muck up your printer.  When basting, it is best to stitch the fabric to the shape.

You can usually purchase card stock at your local office supply store to print shapes to cut out.  I use 67lb weight myself.  However, you can also purchase the shapes already die cut.  It is more expensive to purchase your shapes already cut out, but really worth all the time it saves.  Not to mention that die cut shapes are very accurate.  Card stock is more durable and depending on the shape, it will last for several uses. I have found that the 1″ or larger hexagons can be used over 50 times. The card stock is still flexible and will bend when stitching tight corners. With basting, you can stitch your fabric to the shape or just gather the corners of the fabric.

Plastic shapes can be cut from old plastic lids like butter containers.  You can also purchase die cut Mylar shapes. Plastic makes a very durable shape that will last just about forever.  The draw back is they do not bend easily and this is sometimes needed when stitching a tight corner.  If you make your own shapes, you may want to put a hole in the middle of the shape to make it easier to remove it after whip stitching. When basting, you have to gather the fabric around the corners of the shape for you can not stitch thru it.

There is one thing to consider.  The thicker the shapes being used, the greater chance your work will not lay flat when done.  This is especially true for very small shapes.

cindy aka MsDesigns

Why can’t hackers spend their time making quilts?

Have you ever had one of those days?  One that you would like to wake up and find out it is all a dream?   I have gone thru a horrible two days and I am ready to tell you about it.  What happened to me is something that all web designers fear.

My QuiltCampus website was hacked and it took forever to fix the problem.

It all started with an email from a customer that they were getting a malware warning when visiting www.quiltcampus.net.  Then I got another email from another friend “I’m getting a warning that your page contains malware. Thought I’d let you know”.  I of course freaked out.  There is nothing like having your web site hacked.  It is like being violated.

I got with tech support on the issue and their response was

Permission set of files confirm this is an FTP based hack.
Here are immediate measures you should take:
1. Scan all computers that have FTP access to this account, or have had access to it in the past. This is to be done until an infection is found and cleaned.
2. Change password of the main and the sub-FTP account.
3. Re-upload fresh/un-infected files.

Re-upload the infected file?  Geeze!  Which one?  QuiltCampus’ web site is composed of over 8000 files.

I never found any virus on my computer, so I wiped it and restored an image I made of it about 4 months ago.  I spent several hours reloading and updating software that was done after that image.  I changed my FTP password on all my websites and started to re-upload html files at my web site that I had uploaded in the past week.  I spent 10 hours that day working on the problem.

After all that work, I asked my friend to see if she was still getting the malware message when visiting my website.  Her response was “Yes, for that page and even for your home page. I’ve attached a copy of the window that comes up.”

I contacted tech support again to let them know I did all they asked and there is still a problem.

There response was “You can run google safe browsing test on quiltcampus.net. Which shows your site clean.”

I had already run a google safe browsing test and found the same results.

But then I got two more emails from customers.

” I tried to view your website but got the following error message: The page you are trying to access has been identified as a known exploit, phishing, or social engineering web site and therefore has been blocked for your safety. Without protection, such as that in the AVG Security Toolbar and AVG, your computer is at risk of being compromised, corrupted or having your identity stolen.”

“When going to the QuiltCampus site a malware warning pops up. You better have your site checked out. Pretty scary.”

 There is a problem here!  Tech support can not find it.

 I did a search on the phrase “simpleworldhouse.ru hack” at google and came up with …

 http://blog.unmaskparasites.com/2009/12/23/from-hidden-iframes-to-obfuscated-scripts/

 This is a recent article about web site hacks like the one at my web site.  After reading the article, I starting searching the web pages visitors got the warning with.  I just could not find the special script mentioned in the article in any of those web pages.

 I downloaded my whole website to my hard drive.  Boy! That took forever!  QuiltCampus’ website is over 200meg in size. I did a search on all the files for the phrase “GNU GPL”.  There it was in the fw_menu.js file.  I forgot all about this file.  It runs the side menu bar for the web site.  That is why the warning message showed up all over the place for visitors.  Most of the web pages access that file.

 I re-uploaded the correct fw_menu.js file and had my friend check the website again.  She reply’s “I’m going through as many pages from QuiltCampus as possible (the links on the home page and the drop down menus for each) and the warning window is gone from some of them where I got it before. However, it still comes up for these pages. (she list pages here)”

 As the article mentions, the hacker also changes index.html files.  Geeze!  I have almost 200 index.html web pages in about 300 folders.  So I painstakingly went thru each folder and sub folder and re-uploaded all files that were changed on 12/20/2009.  That was the day of the attack.  Every single index.html file had been altered.

 After two 10 hours days, the website is now fixed.  This is one tired designer.  I think I need a vacation!

 oh, my friend that helped me thru this.  She is a geek and a quilter!  You can visit her site

 http://mariamichaelsdesigns.com/

Two of the emails I received after this attack, I was not able to respond to.  One was lost when I wiped my computer and one was sent with out an email address.  I want to thank everyone that emailed me when they found a problem with my website.

Update – 12/30/09 11:30am central time
I thought it was fixed but there are still Trojans.  I have wiped all the files at www.quiltcampus.net.  If you try to visit any of the web pages, you will get a page not found error message.  The only exception is the home page where I put up a note that the site is down.   I will spend the next few days rebuilding the site from scratch.  I will keep you posted of my progress.

Sites that work are
programs.quiltcampus.net – EPP workshops
workshops.quiltcmapus.net – Guild workshops
blog.quiltcampus.net – My blog

Sites that *DO NOT* work are
class.quiltcampus.net – class forum and gallery
www.quiltcampus.net – main web site

Update – 12/30/09 4:30pm central time
Ok folks….I need encouragement here.  I am so distraught about all the time I will be spending to fix QuiltCampus.  Sometimes tech support of one is good for you know all that is going on.  But when the poo poo hits the fan, it can be very overwhelming.  Do me a favor; leave a post cheering me on. I think I can … I think I can.  8o)

Update – 12/30/09 6:30pm central time
I just got done copying all my data files to Topcat, our file server.  Yes, we have a file server at home…hehe.  That is what every geeky hubby has to have.  This took about 1-1/2 hours to complete.  Earlier today when I tested my website, a trojan was downloaded to my computer.  My virus program caught it, but you never know what may have been sliding down with it.  I am now going to wipe my computer and restore the image I made 4 months ago.  This will take about 2 hours.  During this time I will see about supper.  Yall have a great night.

Update – 12/31/09 11:00am central time
Sorry for the late update.  Right out of the blue last night, I got very ill.  It was like the sensation of food poisoning.  I do not get sick often, but when I do, I really get sick.  I took some nausea medication we keep on hand provided by our doctor.  It works great, but also knocks me out.  Here it is 11am and I am still half asleep.  I will take it nice and slow today.  I do not feel sick like last night, but I am tired and have some pretty sore tummy muscles.  The image restore to the computer went find last night and I just got done transferring my data files back to my computer.  My kitties are fed and I still need to do the litter boxes (I know, I have way too many cats…hehe). After that, I will see about getting the CD Designs newsletter out and then start copying the core files online for QuiltCampus.

Update – 12/31/09 3:30pm central time
I got CD Designs newsletter going out and then I went and took a nap.  That medicine really drags me down.  But the good think is I had a nice lunch and now I am going to start uploading files to QuiltCampus.

Update – 12/31/09 6:10pm central time
The core files for www.quiltcampus.net have been uploaded.  This means you should be able to visit any web page on the site except the protected areas, class forum and class gallery.  The protected areas take special care to upload for they contain the .htaccess files.  These files are used to talk to the apache program on the web server.  They request a login to access the files in that area of the web site.  I have to upload them one-by-one so I can change the CHMOD for each.  The CHMOD setting provides the permissions allowed by the web site visitor.  Can they read the file, rewrite the file or execute the file.  I think I will save this till tomorrow.  Yall have a great night!

Update – 12/31/09 7:15pm central time
Well Geeze!  I thought I was done for the night.  Then someone let me know that CD Designs was hacked too!  So I went ahead and deleted CD Designs web site and uploaded it again.  It is much smaller than QuiltCampus and does not have any installed scripts.  There were only 3 .htaccess files to deal with.  Therefore it was much easier to fix.  However, it did take an hour to re-upload the 1300+ files.  Now I am going to call it a night and go see about supper.

Update – 1/1/10 10:15am central time
Good morning and Happy New Year!  My friend tested the QuiltCampus web site and I am happy to quote her report.  “What a lot of work!  You’ll be happy to know that I used every working link on your home page and they all came up beautifully!  No warnings anywhere!“.  Thank you Maria!  When I saw her email come thru, I was so scared to read it.  The last few she sent me was to inform me the problem was still there.  Since I have the core of QuiltCampus fixed, I am going to jump tracks and catch up on some business things that have been piling up the last few days.  After that, I will see about re-uploading and setting up the protected area of QuiltCampus.  That will be this afternoon or tomorrow.  Thank you all for the encouragement and the support.  It really helps me to keep going.  Please keep posting!

Update – 1/2/10 5:00pm central time
I have the protected section of the web site up!  That went pretty smooth.  Just a little tedious changing the CHMOD settings for each the .htaccess files. Next will be the class forum and class gallery.  I have to reload the scripts from scratch and then link the two programs together so that they use the same username list.  If I am lucky, I will be able to salvage the old databases.  I am going to save this task for latter when I am fresh and ready for a challenge.  We are slowly getting there!  Thank you so much for the support!

Update – 1/19/10 12:30pm central time
There is good news and bad news.  The good news is the class forum is now working!  The bad news … I still do not have the class gallery up and running yet.  I hope to have it fixed soon.  8o)

Update – 1/19/10 5:20pm central time
The class gallery is now online.  I had to do a lot of “cut and paste” so I hope it is back to normal.  Cross your fingers for me.

 cindy aka MsDesigns

Paper Piece Shapes Skill Level

Sometimes it is hard to decide if an EPP project will be easy or hard to make. It all depends on how complex the design is and what paper piece shapes and sizes are being used. With my past experience I have found some paper piece shapes easy and some very difficult to work with. I use the card stock shapes so this post is about them.

Basting is the first step in EPP. The wider the corner for a shape, the easier it is to baste. Wide corner paper piece shapes, like hexagons and octagons, are more durable and reusable several times.

Sharp corners, like for the half diamond, are difficult to work with. It is hard to get the shape point and many times you bend the paper piece shape by mistake, making the corner too short. Sharp corner shapes do not last very long and sometimes are worn out after a few uses.

Very large shapes are cumbersome for you can not fit them into your hand to whip stitch. Very small shapes are challenging since you find that you want to whip stitch where your fingers are holding the basted shapes together.

From my experience, I love working with the 1″ hexagon. It has nice wide corners and is the perfect size to fit in my hands for whip stitching.

I have worked with many paper piece shapes and sizes. Below is a chart I put together that shows the skill lever for each paper piece shape.

Paper Piece Skill Level Chart 1 = beginner, 5 = advanced
Shape Size Skill Level Hexagon 1/4″ 5 1/2″ 3 3/4″ 2 1″ 1 1-1/4″ 1 1-1/2″ 1 2″ 2 3″ 2 Half Hexagon 1″ 2 1-1/4″ 2 1-1/2″ 2 2″ 2 3″ 2 Jewel 1/2″ 3 1″ 2   Octogon 1″ 1 Diamond 6 Point (Matches Hexagon) 1/2″ 4 3/4″ 3 1″ 2 1-1/4″ 1 1-1/2″ 1 2″ 2 3″ 2 Pentagon 1″ 2 2″ 1	Shape Size Skill Level Triangle 1/2″ 5 1″ 4 1-1/2″ 2 1-3/4″ 1 2″ 1 3″ 2 4″ 2 Diamond 8 Point 1″ 3 2″ 2 2-1/2″ 2 3″ 2 Half Diamond 6 point 2″ 5 Square 1″ 2 2″ 1 3″ 2 Half Square 1″ 3 2″ 2 3″ 2 Honeycomb 1″ 1 Elongated Hexagon 1″ 1

cindy aka MsDesigns

Kaleidoscope table topper

Quilt With Us is an online community sponsored by Connecting Threads.  They have a special discussion forum just for EPPers.  About a year ago I stared doing EPP workshops for their group and we are going to start our third workshop near the beginning of January.

The project we are going to make is called Kaleidoscope table topper, an intermediate EPP project.  There is a picture of it in this post.

Click here to visit the workshop page and to get more information.

Click here to see pictures from past workshops.

I hope you get to join us!

cindy aka MsDesigns

Baskets and More Baskets

The first of the year we are going to start a new workshop at CD Designs.  We are going to make Baskets and More Baskets.

The pattern comes in two versions: patchwork and appliqué.  We are going to make the patchwork version in our workshop.  You can see a picture of it in this post.  We are scheduled to start January 16th.

 Click here to visit the workshop page and to get more information.

Click here to see pictures from past workshops.

I hope you get to join us!

cindy aka MsDesigns

Quilters and Kitties

As we all know, quilters and kitties go together.  There is no exception at my house.  I would love to introduce you to my babies. You can click the smaller picture to see a bigger one.

Coalby Jack is our newest family member. I think he is one of Freda’s grandchildren. We took him in when he was about 4 months old. He is a little bit wild but we love him anyway. He is all black with a itty bitty spot of white on his tummy and one hip.

Freida Lay was a stray and her main job was to have kittens. We said “that’s enough!”. So…off to the vet she went to get sniped like all our other cats. Course after the surgery she had to become a member of the family. Freda has a nick name and it is Freedy or Flea Toes. She has these little black specks on her feet that are the size of fleas.

Zefrem Cochrane was rescued from a stray litter. The mummy cat was wild and lived behind our popular store “Wild Birds Unlimited”. The owner took two of the kittens and we gave the other two a home at our place. Zefrem is an Egyptian Mau and when he stands up all those strips turn to spots.

Abby Normal is one of Zefrem’s sisters. It is so strange for she is our smallest kitty and Zefrem is our largest kitty. I call her my beady eyed cat.

Hezekiah Monium is our token idiot. His name Monium is from the new periodic element which is a very dense material … hehe. This cat can walk along the back of the couch and just fall off. We tired to have Hezekiah as an out door cat. But when he came home after being sprayed by a skunk, I decided we do not need an out door cat. As with all new cats we took him to the vet to be checked and snipped. The vet made a comment …. did ya notice that Hezekiah smells sorta funny? We told the vet that Hezekiah is to dumb to know that skunks do not like to play as he does. Hezekiah is a sweetie pie. Always eager to greet any guest with a happy howdy do. Hezekiah is hard to say so he comes to the name of Hessy. When he does something wrong I yell “Hessy get your butt over here so I can beat you!”. He comes running to me. Oh! did I say he was dumb…hehe

Heidi Ho was rescued for an alcoholic that was not taking care of her 15+ cats. Heidi was very ill and we made arrangements to snatch her. To the vet she went and several $$ later she was all well. We call Heidi “The Turd” for she has such a bad attitude. She growls if you just look at her. Heidi is very intelligent and is the second cat we have had that loves to play fetch. This is hubbies cat and they are very much in love with each other. Each night she sleeps in his arms.

Here are my babies that have gone to kitty heaven

Booger Butt was rescued from an animal shelter just after we lost our first love Callie. Even though my hubby picked Booger and named her, she had become my cat. She bonded with me and insists on being in eye sight of me at all times. Needless to say she slept on my pillow with me every night. Booger went to kitty heave at the age of 19.

Sandy Wheeler came to our open window one summer day and screamed “Let me in”! I opened the door and in she ran. I guess she knew we were cat people. Thing about Sandy is she only had three legs. We put an ad in the paper “Found unusual calico cat”, but no one claimed her. We found out when she was fixed that one back leg was surgically removed as a kitten. At first it broke my heart to see a poor animal with a missing limb. However Sandy had no idea she was handicapped, and could out run all the rest of the cats. The vet said she was a challenge to fix for she had one less tie down. When playing we called her, Sandy Wandy. Sandy went to kitty heave at the age of 14.

Specs Poo was a stray in my neighbor hood that was being sucked dry by her kittens. She obviously needed a home with a good owner to take care of her. We rounded her and her two kittens up and brought them inside. Even thought it was hard, we let the kittens go together to a new home. We kept Specs and she went to kitty heaven at 12 years old. Specs nick name was Specky Poo.

Kellie Butt was Booger’s sister. When Callie moved on to kitty heaven I had to fill that void by getting another cat. We went to the animal shelter too look for a calico as Callie. We found Booger and Kellie and they were only 2 months old. It was no decision that we wanted to take both of them home. Kellie was our other fetching cat. Kellie went to kitty heaven at 8 years old.

Callie was the first cat that lived in our home. She was the family cat that I took with me when I left home. Callie lived to be 18 years old. I will always have a spot in my heart for her.

cindy aka MsDesigns

First your SEO and then you wait

As you know I have a new web site and it is called FindAQuiltPattern.com.  Like all brand new web sites, it can be a long hard struggle up the ranking ladder of the search engines.

To help in that task, you need to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the web site.  There are many ways to SEO a website and I use four of them.

The first part of SEO is picking a very descriptive domain name.  In my case it was “FindAQuiltPattern”.  This is the short and sweet of the service that FindAQuiltPattern.com provides.  So picking the domain name is the beginning of my own SEOing.

Another part of SEO is linking.  As more web sites link to a web site, it moves that web site up in the search engine ranks.  Part of my promotion for the designers is to provide them free pattern listing in exchange of them having a link to FindAQuiltPattern.com on their web site or blog.

You need to make sure to add key phrases in the meta tags of the web page headers.  This is part of the html coding.  Do not use more than 10 key phrases.  If you have too many, it upsets the spiders that search web pages.  Spiders are the programs that search engines use to study web pages on the internet.

 The most important part of SEO is how you present the website and how you talk about the web site within the web site itself.  This means you provide precise information on what the web site is about within the web pages of the web site.  This can be rather challenging for someone like me for I am verbally challenged.  But it has to be done if you want to move up in the ranks of the search engines.

 Pick up to three of the best key phases in the meta tags.  This will be the three phrases that you think folks will most likely use when searching for your web site. For FindAQuiltPattern.com, I picked “quilting pattern”, “find a quilt pattern” and “quilt patterns”.  The web site talks about these three phrases so that the search engines spiders will know what FindAQuiltPattern.com is all about.

 When you SEO a web site, it can take up to 6 months before you see results, if any at all.  It all depends on how well you did the job.

 I have been keeping an eye on the search engines and am excited that a search with one of my key phrases will display FindAQuiltPattern.com on the first page (using Google).  It has a lot to do with the domain name, but if you search on “find quilt pattern” or “find a quilt pattern” you will find FindAQuiltPattern.com on the first page of the search.  This is not bad being that FindAQuiltPattern.com is only a few months old.

 Now I get to wait and see if the search engines list FindAQuiltPattern.com with the search phrases “quilting pattern” and “quilt patterns”.  I am hoping this will happen by the first of January, 2010.

 I have my fingers crossed!

cindy aka MsDesigns