Fiber Arts & Furry Critters

Upgrading a MacBook hard drive

This is going to be a geeky post.  I decided to put this up here because I didn't find much information online about this, or the process. I may be all wrong about how I proceeded, but what I did worked.  With the exception of the time needed to do this, I'm not unhappy with the procedure.

Yesterday I upgraded the hard drive in my MacBook Pro.  It is a 2011 model, 13-inch, and it came with a 320 GB hard drive.  Most of what I have on my computer is not critical - knitting and quilting patterns, lots of photos, some videos that I've ripped from my own DVDs, some that I've downloaded...  nothing that's going to change the course of history, but all important to me.  I was down to about 30 to 40 GB on my hard drive on a regular basis, less if I've downloaded a whole bunch of video podcasts recently.

Everything I've heard about swapping out a hard drive on a MacBook Pro says "It's easy." "Do this, and this, and this, and you're up and running again."  Mine didn't go nearly that smoothly.

Hubby picked out a WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB hard drive, and we ordered it.  It arrived yesterday.  After unboxing the drive, I opened up the back of the computer.  This required a size 00 Phillips screwdriver.

After removing ten screws on the back (7 small, 3 long) I needed to loosen two small screws on a rentaining bar between the current hard drive (silver square in the upper right) and the CD/DVD drive (bigger silver square).  Those screws didn't come out.  I lifted out the retaining bar, unplugged the cable from the drive, plugged the cable in to the new drive, and put everything back together - retaining bar, back cover, screws.  I cleaned the back of the computer and the inside before I replaced the back cover; there was a bit of dust in there!  This was by far the easiest part of the process.

Before I took the hard drive out I had run a new backup; that goes to a 1 TB WD "Passport" drive.  I wanted to make sure that all current information (like a quilt pattern I had recently purchased) ended up on the new drive when I was done.

After putting it back together, I turned it on and put my original OS X DVD in the drive.  It started going through the process to install the OS on the new drive, but when it got to the window that said to select which drive to install to, the entry was blank.  It didn't see my new hard drive!  I tried going through that process a couple more times, same result.  I tried restoring from my backup with no luck as well.

As it turns out, I believe the problem was because my new hard drive was either formattted for a Windows computer or was not formatted at all.  I started over with the install disk, but instead of trying to install the new OS, I chose "Disk Utility." Then I chose "Erase" the new disk.  This created a new format on the disk.  It only helped a little; I could now "see" the disk, but the backup still would not install.

The new problem was that I needed to have some part of the operating system on my computer before I could restore from the backup!  I started over (again) and managed to get the original CD to install the operating system.

Now the backup would not run because the version of the operating system on the computer was older than the one on the backup!  I updated my version of the OS (Snow Leopard) - I think twice.  Then I did the Mountain Lion upgrade.  Then I wanted to restore from backup.  I started the restore from Time Machine.  The first thing it did was shut down everything running - including my backup drive!

I went back to the original install disk and the original disk utility, and ran the restore again.  This time it ran - the backup and the hard drive had the same OS on them.  It took another 4 hours, but I was at last back up and running, basically right where I left off.

So it took all day, but now instead of 40 GB free, I have 740 GB free!

The next step will be to install Boot Camp, and Windows 7.  I'm going to set up a partition to give Windows 7 about 250 GB.  I only have a couple of programs I want to run on the Windows partition - a couple of things that won't run on Mac.  Maybe I'll give it a few days to recover from yesterday's procedure before I do that.

Happy Mother's Day!

Today was Mother's Day, and I had a lovely one!  Mine actually started on Friday, when I drove down to Logan Airport in Boston to pick up this:

This is Remy, short for Remington Steele.  He's a 9 week old Border collie puppy.  He's gray - officially "blue" (without the merle) with lovely silver-gray eyes.

Friday evening and yesterday were spent mostly acclimating the new puppy, as well as taking a trip to the feed store for dog food, puppy food, and a new collar and leash (as well as a couple of chewies & new toys). 

Today, after church, my wonderful hubby decided to "babysit" the puppy and let me go to the New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival by myself!  I had a great time - I'm sure I spent more time chatting with old friends than shopping!  I've always said that most of the fun of these festivals is having the chance to talk to friends I only see a few times a year!  Hubby finds it tiring to stand around while I stop to chat so frequently. 

I spent almost three hours at the Deerfield Fairgrounds, and came home with this:

A new (purple) "I only spin" T-shirt from Ingrid Byrd at Ward Brook Farm (my others are wearing quite thin); a New England Border Collie Rescue 2013 calendar at a bargain price! (I admit, I bought it for the pictures!); two pairs of purple Knit Picks scissors.  They're not great, or fancy - in fact the handles are plastic - but they are purple, so they have that going for them.  And last but not least, two skeins of yarn from Mad Color Fiber Arts.  The purple is a skein of laceweight in Dionysius; the other one is a sock yarn in the color Aquarium.  I love Heather's colors!

Now I need to get back to work on those swap blocks, so that I can then play catch-up with my block-of-the-month blocks.

 

A finish!

A fnish is a fantastic way to get the creativity flowing, and I finally finished the Hubble quilt!  This came off the frame two weeks ago.  Yesterday I put the binding on it (with the White Rotary treadle!) and today I sent it through the washer & dryer.

Next up, I'm working on swap blocks for the Backyard Chickens group.  Someone in the group had to bow out due to other commitments, so I volunteered to make an extra set of blocks.  I had originally cut some fabrics for this block, but changed my mind and bought new fabrics.  Now I'm using the ones I originally cut for my extra set.

Here's the set with the fabrics I bought at one of the quilt shows.  I have the rows sewn together, I've ironed the rows, and they are ready for final assembly.

These are the fabrics for the extra set of blocks.  This morning I washed and ironed the white.  Now I need to cut the white fabric - 4" blocks for the half-square triangles, and 3" blocks for the corner squares.  I've already started marking the diagonal sewing lines on the light green fabrics.

I feel like I'm falling behind on my BOM blocks, but I'm sure I'll get caught up.  I'm having a lot of fun sewing on this White Rotary - it's so smooth, and sews wonderfully!  I'm looking forward to spending plenty of time on it - this has to be one of the best sewing machines I've ever had!

A thing for sewing machines...

Check out what followed me home today!

This is a White "Family Rotary" treadle sewing machine, in a "Twig" cabinet, with what appears to be yellow milkpaint.  It came with three bobbins (bobbins for this machine are still relatively easily obtainable) and a belt on it that broke fairly quickly.  I did minimal clean-up on this, oiled it a bit (with Tri-Flow silicone spray), and replaced the needle.  This actually takes conventional sewing machine needles, too!  I put my last remaining treadle machine belt on it, and started sewing.  It sews wonderfully!  I had to pause for a bit because I forgot to oil the pivot points on the treadle, wheel, and pitman arm, but that's done now and it's great!  I'm not thrilled with the quality of the treadle belt, but I'll order some better-quality new ones.  And I just love this cabinet!

This cost me $50! I saw the Craigslist ad weeks ago, and couldn't believe someone else hadn't picked this up already.  It doesn't have the prettiest decals, but it runs wonderfully!  Hubby asked me how many of these machines I need, and I told him that I feel like I'm saving them - the ones that run, anyway, and that I can afford.  I'm saving them from the people who buy them, toss the machines and cabinets away, and put a piece of wood, or some ceramic tile on them and sell them as tables.

Another New Home came home with me, too, for less than the price of this one.  It needs a little more work than this one, including a piece of cable or wire to repair the lift mechanism, but it turns smoothly and has a shuttle & bobbin in it.  It's going to be wonderful!

I give lots of credit to my wonderful hubby for putting up with my strange habits.

Good days & bad days

Sometimes life hands you both.  We don't get to choose, unfortunately.

I went all the way to Hanover, NH (over an hour and a half away) on Saturday for the Northern Lights Quilt Guild show.  It was a very good show.  They had some very bright and colorful quilts, and some amazing scrap quilts.

On my way through Hanover after the quilt show, I passed the area where the Appalachian Trail heads out of town.  To the right of that bright post sticking up is a tree with a white blaze on it...  Afterward I noticed, driving back through town, that there are white blazes on every 2nd or 3rd utility pole, following the trail through town.

Monday we had to say goodbye to our last Australian Shepherd, Q.

They are with us for such a brief time.

Quilt Show & BOMs

I went to the quilt show on Thursday, and spent quite a few hours there.  Some of the quilts were wonderful, some of them were ...  well, let's just say some people really like putting bling on their quilts! My quilts are all meant to be used - on the bed, on the couch, for babies - crib, floor, in the car, etc.  Bling just wouldn't work on my quilts.  I did find a few that I loved, however.

This is Pennsylvania Hears & Hands, by Kelley Cunningham of Stevensville, MD.  I have already ordered this pattern.  This was probably my favorite quilt in the entire show!

This is Nana's Hannah, by Rebeccah Joyce of Rollinsville, CO.  It's a little dark, but it uses the Farmer's Wife Sampler pattern, and I love that!  It's definitely on my to-do list, but I'm planning to do my version in purples.

This is "Under the Southern Stars" by Pat Cunningham of Albany, NY.

This is "Birds in Hand" by Mandie Burrell of King George, VA.  I loved this one enough to get close-ups of the pattern and the fabric she used.

Oh, this is another pattern I adore, and I love all the scraps!  This is "Stars Around the World" by Michelle Wyman of Acworth, GA.  I do believe I have this pattern on my "to do" list already, and it's been there for at least a decade.  I remember seeing it done in a variety of blues in the stars, in a very old quilt magazine.

This is "Garden in the Sky", by Marquita Rich of Kingston, NY.  It uses two blocks, and the brights are absolutely dazzling.

This is "Flashy Spectrum Play" by Fern Harvey of Mt Vernon, OH.  Another awesome scrap quilt. I love the rainbow arrangement, and I love this block!

I also found the machine I'd like to get if we ever have enough money to afford a $17,000 quilting machine!  This one is a Gammill, and it's purple! 

I never made it back to the show; I had hoped to on Saturday, but other things intervened.  We had someone over to swap out our old exterior lights for new ones.  I've been waiting for new exterior lights for a long time!  I am a huge fan of oil lanterns - hurricane lanterns, railroad lanterns - and wanted something reminiscent of that type, as well as something that was easier to change a bulb.  On the left is the old light, and the new one is on the right.

I also went up to D&D sewing and picked up my block of the month (pics later, when it is sewn up), and sewed up the Month 10 House Sampler block from Quakertown Quilts.

I still have to do the two log cabin blocks that go with this house block.  This week I will also be sewing up the Bear's Paw sampler blocks from D&D, and working on my Hunter's Star blocks for the BYC swap! 

Spring, chicks, quilt blocks

Spring may finally be springing!  The maple trees outside the front windows have some gorgeous buds on them, and my lilacs have begun to bloom!  My iPhone doesn't have a great macro feature on it, but I've been able to figure out how to get a close-up of my lilacs - I just have to block out the background so that it knows what to focus on.

The chicks that hatched at the end of March, now between two and three weeks old, are getting some beautiful feathers!

I can't tell just by looking which ones are two weeks old and which ones are three weeks old.  Right now they are living in the trough, with a red heat lamp, and the trough is in the "growing room" in the barn.  When the rest of the chicks hatch next week (they are due to hatch on Monday and Saturday) the current chicks may be moved into the growing room itself, to make room for the new chicks.  The new chicks will be the ones I plan on keeping to add to the laying flock.

I've been working on some sample blocks, using the pattern for the BYC June 1st Quilt Block Exchange.  I had two fat quarters of green batik fabric - not enough to make the 16 blocks I need for the exchange, but enough to make some extra blocks for the resulting exchange quilt.  I ended up with 5 blocks (12-1/2" square, they will be 12" square "finished" size) using the two fat quarters and a white-on-white background fabric.

Today I'm off to a quilt show in Manchester, NH, after which I'll be coming back and working on either the swap blocks or trying to finish off the quilt still on the frame.  I am now about 2/3 done with that one, and can see the bottom edge!

New Treadle Machine!

Technically, I should probably say new (old) treadle machine, or new-to-me treadle machine.  There are still new treadle machines available - check Lehman's.  With very few exceptions (like my Elna 3007) I prefer the antique cast iron machines.

This one was a Craigslist ad, but it was listed in Providence, RI, which is a bit far for me to drive (Google maps gave me a drive time of 1 hr 45 minutes).  It's my favorite kind of machine, though - vibrating shuttle machine with leaf tension (tension is controlled by a thin, flat metal plate and tension screw, on top of the machine).  Furthermore, it was listed for $35!

I contacted the seller, and he said the machine had to go quickly; he'd had to move, and had to clean out his remaining possessions soon.  I have a brother in law who lives nearby; he agreed to pick up the machine and bring it up when he came up to visit.

He came up on Saturday, and I met him and picked up the machine.  As the seller had said, the cabinet was in rough shape.  I was taking my chances, even for only $35, based on the one picture the seller had posted.

This is the front.

The sides are in far worse shape, but most of this is only cosmetic.

The machine itself was very grungy, but everything seemed to be moving okay.

Inside the cabinet are the wheel & treadle mechanism.

So I spent a day and a half cleaning it up, scavenged a belt from another machine, and it's working quite nicely! 

The decals are not in perfect shape, but they are very pretty.  I did quite a bit of scrubbing on the silver parts - slide plates, the turning wheel on the right, the pieces of the bobbin winder, the metal parts of the leaf tension mechanism, and the stitch length regulator (oval shaped plate with thumb screw under the bobbin winder).

The bobbin winder is working beautifully, too!  I love winding bobbins on treadle machines!  You can see a good close-up of the stitch regulator (it's a slide mechanism) and some of the decals here, too.  It's not exactly a complete restoration, but I'm more concerned with the functional aspect over the cosmetic.

It stitches very well; I need to see if I can substitute a regular machine needle, which might stitch more smoothly.  I'm going to have to do more "junk" stitching for a while, too, to allow all the cleaning fluid and oil to work their way through so it doesn't stain quilting fabrics or blocks.

I really like this cabinet! It actually has more room for my knees than the machines I have that are in traditional treadle bases! All in all, this may be the best $35 I've ever spent.

Goats & BOM Update

The goats are doing well; the babies are eating well and will be going to a once-a-day feeding schedule after this Sunday, which means we'll actually be able to keep some of the goat milk for ourselves!  I'm looking forward to that!  I managed the other day to get a picture with all 3 goats - not easy.  Every time you try to get a picture of a goat, they come running toward you!

I think I'm also ready to combine all the chicks into the one trough, any day now.  The five that were the last to hatch are growing like weeds!  Even the one chick who started out with "spraddle legs" now looks like the rest - can't figure out which one it was anymore!

Today I sewed up the blocks for Susan's Folly, Month 3.  I was trying to get them done before the April blocks come in the mail, and I have succeeded! 

I still have to get over to the quilt shop and pick up the next set of Bear's Paw sampler blocks, however - maybe next week.

I'm also working on a block swap for the Quilting group on the Backyard Chickens forum!  That one will be Hunter's Star in greens, and we're supposed to have the blocks in the mail on or before June 1.  I need to do 16 blocks for that one - all squares and half-square triangles!  I have my fabric picked out; need to get squares cut and marked diagonally for sewing next.

 

First plantings

Yesterday I started a few plants, but not in the ground.  I picked up 4 flower box hangers, and a bag of organic dirt.  I had to work hard to find something that was not Miracle Gro, which I won't buy because they are a Monsanto company. 

I also picked up some strawberry plant starts.  I put two packages (different varieties) of strawberry plant starts into four hanging baskets that hang on the ends of my clothesline, and planted four flower boxes with spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, and two kinds of lettuce.  These are things that (I believe) like cold weather.  I've tried planting these before and lost them all to groundhogs.  I'm pretty sure the groundhogs can't get them, up on my deck rail, with the dogs to protect them! LOL!

Still trying to figure out where to plant some peas...