Friday, April 08, 2022

A Silver Lining

 Right before Christmas last year I started having trouble with my design program so I went to the website to see if there was an update available that would fix the problem. Instead of finding the website I found a notice that said the software was going sundown and would no longer be supported. Well that's just great, I thought!

Shortly afterward, my laptop died completely and I had to replace it. Even though I use my computer pretty much everyday I wouldn't consider myself computer savvy so I wasn't freaking out...yet. And that was only because I didn't realize how screwed I was at that point! 

I had been using my design program for over 20 years and had created hundreds of designs but without a copy of the program I can't access them. It's like they are locked away in a safe that I no longer have the combination for.

After the initial shock wore off I purchased a different design program and started playing around with it to learn how to use it. 

My angel pattern has always been my best seller even though I had never planned on publishing it. In 2010, the angel design had been in my files for a couple of years when I found out that one of my friends had been in a very bad car accident. My friend was badly injured and spent 6 months in a rehab hospital healing. But even worse than that, her 7 year old daughter had been killed in the accident. 

My friend also lost the baby she was carrying at the time. Fortunately, her younger daughter survived. My friend and her husband were struggling so I asked my local quilt shop owner if she could help me raise funds for the family. If you've ever had the pleasure to meet Mary Beth who owns Quilters Corner in Finleyville PA, please know that you have met an actual angel.

Not only did she agree to help but she generously made my very small donation into something so much bigger than I could have ever done on my own. I gave her my files for my angel pattern, which she printed out and then created kits that included the pattern and fabric. She sold the kits and every cent went into a fund set up for my friend's family. It made a huge difference for my friend.

After my friend recovered and the family was able to support themselves again on their own I decided to make my angel pattern available for sale and it has done very well for me. I had thought about updating it and making some changes but since the only copy I had when my computer died was a pdf copy I couldn't do much with it.

When I purchased my new design program one of the first things I decided to do was redraw my angel and make the changes I had been thinking about, so pictured above is my new and improved (in my opinion and hopefully others) angel. This pattern is not available yet but my original one is. The new one should be available soon!

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