Friday, May 22, 2015

Everyone told me that an Apple Mac was so much easier to use than a Windows
PC. They said it was so intuitive, clear and clean, so user friendly. So since my Dell PC is over five years old, starting to slow down and labor over tasks and so "not cool" I decided to make the change egged on by the fact that our son was leaving his job at Apple and it would be the last opportunity to get his significant discount.

So for the last six months, I've been trying to get as comfortable with and "in sync" with my stylish iMac  as I was in my 25+ years with my PC. First I tackled email - that was pretty easy - but when I started installing Mac versions of my much used software programs it all became a lot more complicated. Everything is in a different place!! The commands are different!! I miss My Computer and Windows Explorer!!  I used to know where everything was! It has been a huge learning curve made just a little easier because I have loved my Iphone and iPad and use those for a lot of things. Some things do cross over.

I gave up for a few months, but decided that was ridiculous - there was this very beautiful and stylish iMac perched like a useless brick on my desk-  so in the last month I've really persevered, taking some very useful online webinars and classes from David Cox of PC Classes Online  and transferring data from the PC into my new Apple software.

I'm now proud to say that I have figured out how to save and organized documents and files in Pages and I am now editing all three websites that I manage with a new version of Dreamweaver CS4 for Mac. And just yesterday I managed to transfer all my financial data from Quicken 10 to Quicken 2015 for Mac!

There are a few more hurdles... I have yet to figure out a good Mac database for 40 years of inventory and sales from our antiques business and its accompanying mailing label list. Maybe I can just be really 21st century and forego all snail mail advertising? We'll have to think on that.

One big success - moving all (some 4000 business and personal images) of my photo files off the PC and into IPhoto. Of course right in the middle of doing this I woke up to find IPhoto had automatically changed to the new Photos app and I had to learn to use it all over again. But as part of that I figured out how to do a Photos slide show complete with music. I've added it to the home page of my website through a YouTube link. It replaces another slide show I had used, but this one was much easier to make, will be easier to change and update and best of all is free!

So here , at last is my newly made slide show "Sally Gould Wright Textile Artist" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q69TmZDPDyA

The  journey continues,  don't let anyone tell you that migrating to Apple is a cinch.....

Check out Off the Wall Fridays at  http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Thursday, May 14, 2015

The SAQA Benefit Auction is coming in September....


So the donation deadline for the 2015 SAQA Benefit Auction is looming - June 1 - so I was motivated to get my little 12" quilt finished and in the mail. I had put it off and put it off waiting for this new cactus plant we were given to bloom. I had been told it would be spectacular and I had hoped to photograph it and use in the quilt, but when it finally burst open last week it was a very disappointing color and almost too prehistoric looking... So I opted for a yellow desert rose I found amongst a lot of old photos. 
I had the background... Actually the practice / warmup scrap of faux leather that I had quilted in copper metallic ( inspired by a great class with Jerry Granata) to prepare for my "I'll Be Seeing You" which is currently on show in North Carolina in the PAQA South  Reminisce exhibit. The tooled leather inspired floral pattern looked vaguely southwestern, hence the desert cactus idea. The nopales paddles are three dimensional, stuffed with a little batting and hand stitched with pearl cotton thorns. The flowers were printed on cotton and then machine and hand stitched. 

The desert lizard was drawn and coloured in with Tsukineko markers and then machine stitched .


Another lizard decorates the back label.

The auction begins online at SAQA.com on September 18. there are already many, many wonderful little works on the site. Hope you'll take a look. 

check out Off the Wall Friday's at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com