Good morning Friend,

You know those nice, peaceful days at the quilt shop?

Machines humming.

Quilters quilting.

Everything behaving exactly as it should.

Yeah.

This was not one of those days.

One of our renters was happily quilting away on the Amara 24 when, all of a sudden...

THE MACHINE JUMPED OFF THE CARRIAGE.

She screamed.

We screamed.

And the Amara?

The Amara just kept stitching.

Because apparently no one had informed the machine that we were having an emergency.

Without the carriage moving beneath it, that needle was happily stitching...

in.

the.

exact.

same.

spot.

Over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

How many stitches can an Amara put into one tiny spot before somebody reaches the machine?

We don't know.

We were a little busy screaming.

Finally, someone reached the EMERGENCY STOP BUTTON.

You know the button.

The button nobody wants to push.

The button that feels like it should be protected by a little glass cover that says:

BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF FIRE, FLOOD, OR FLYING LONGARM.

Because once you push it, you're committed.

The machine has to be shut down.

Then Pro-Stitcher.

Then everything has to be started back up again in the proper order.

But this definitely qualified as an Emergency Stop Button kind of day.

And here is the most important part of this entire story:

SHE HAD SAVED HER WORKSPACE.

Which meant that after we got the Amara safely back where an Amara belongs, restarted everything, and recovered from our collective heart palpitations...

her Pro-Stitcher workspace was still there.

So this week's Friday Funny is also your friendly Fox Country Quilts public service announcement:

SAVE YOUR WORKSPACE.

Save it when you start.

Save it while you're working.

Save it before you walk away.

Save it because computers occasionally get cranky.

Save it because electricity occasionally disappears.

And apparently...

save it because longarm machines can attempt to leave the premises without giving two weeks' notice.

Happy Friday!

May your stitches be beautiful, your carriage wheels remain firmly attached to the carriage, and may you never need to discover exactly how many stitches your longarm can put into one spot.

Donna