Have you ever planned out your day right down to the last-minute only to encounter a blip that throws your whole schedule of kilter? Well of course you have! Not too long ago I had a pile of customer quilts waiting their turn on my long-arm quilt machine. The time allotted was very tight. I was racing against the clock that was ticking down the days and minutes until I would leave for several weeks at my Little Cabin In The Woods. Things were flowing along rather nicely until the day that ruined my plans.

It was early in the morning. My plan was to make major progress on the quilt that was loaded on my machine. When I had closed shop the previous evening everything about my machine was fine. Other than being a bit out of level, all of the bells and whistles were operating smoothly. Expecting everything to be as it was when I walked away the previous evening, I plugged in my machine and flipped on the switch. As is my typical habit I walked from the rear of the machine on around to the front. The control screen sits directly above the handlebars. In order to operate the machine the screen must power up. Once finishing its start-up routine the screen displays a menu listing the available options.

On this very unfortunate day things did not go as usual. The screen on my Tin Lizzie didn’t respond the way it should. Rather than loading the menu I had been accustomed to seeing, the screen displayed vertical columns of blue and red lines.

Never before had I seen anything like it. Unsure what or why I was seeing this I decided to wait a spell in hopes it would somehow miraculously correct itself. When it seemed no further changes would take place I felt the best think to do was turn the machine off, wait a while, then turn it on once again. That’s what we do with computers when they aren’t responding….right? Hopefully this time everything would return to normal.

I repeated my typical routine then waited for my miracle to occur. Unfortunately nothing changed. The same screen filled with lines appeared. This was NOT supposed to happen. Time for equipment failure was not included in the schedule. For a brief moment panic set in. After overcoming the desire to burst out into tears and throw a tantrum I gathered my wits and made a plan.

I had recently made friends on Facebook with the owner of the shop that had sold me my Tin Lizzie. Knowing that an open line of communication was now available between the two of us I thought why not take advantage of that resource. The first thing I did was grab my phone and take a photo of my screen. Next I attached it to a message in the Facebook Messenger app. Once the message was in transit the only thing I could do was wait for her to reply.

To my surprise she responded quite quickly. After trading a few messages back and forth plans were made to meet at the store early the following week. Fortunately for me the screen was covered under warranty. Even if it hadn’t been my machine was worthless without it so I would have needed to expend whatever funds were necessary to get things back in working order.

After returning home with my brand new part I went through the procedures to install it and bring the software up to date. With very little effort my Tin Lizzie was back in operating order and I was once again off and running. The equipment failure had set me way behind in my schedule so very little time was wasted. I focused all of my attention on conquering the tasks I had set before me. After working diligently, with barely a break to breathe, I finished the last quilt just in time. Phone calls were made to the respective customers and arrangements were made for them to pick their quilts up. By the time the last customer walked out the door, grinning from ear to ear, with her quilt snug beneath her arms, I had only hours left to pack and get ready to leave.

The wonders of the internet had saved the day!! Hurray!