APQS Maintenance

I've just come back from a day of learning the proper care and feeding of my longarm machine. I have had quite a bit of hand on experience with it so I was expecting to largely pick up little tips. It turned out that there was one piece of maintenance I hadn't been doing at all and if left can turn expensive. Given you are supposed to check the motor brushes every year and I've never done mine we figured it was about time. From the look on Marks face I got the impression it was a sooner rather than later kind of job. so I came home and took mine out.

The handout says they start 1/2" long and if your are only 3/8" you need to replace them. I tried measuring mine and it seemed to be 1/2" so I figured the best was to be sure was to compare it with the new one I got today. Mine is the top one in the picture. It's clearly worn, although not as badly as we had feared. This is fortunate as I have a quilt on the frame and I really didn't want to have to clean out the motor with a quilt on. I would have done it if the wear had been really extreme but I am comfortable with leaving this for another 10 hours then doing a through job. I will also finally get my gearbox done. Neither job takes long and they do make a huge difference to the machine. We got to repack Chris's machine today and it was amazing how different it sounded.

I think the best thing I got today was a kick up the backside, these jobs are quick, easy and will keep my machine giving me good service. What is my excuse for not doing them?

Planning a Show

I recently asked for advice on what I should or shouldn't do when planning a show. I got a lot of answers, which seem to agree where they overlap, which is great. As a few people said they would like the advice
too I have summarised it here.

• The first thing after booking a venue is to get a press release written and out there. I was surprised that it needs to be done ASAP given my show is only five months away. Apparently this is very short notice in the press world. This one piece of advice was worth asking for. It scares me that I would have happily waited a couple of months before worrying about this.
• Advertising, this needs doing now too. I need to be thinking about brochures and posters. I need to prepare my mailing list and start thinking about who needs to be invited to the private viewing.
  
• Select work carefully, less is more. This was phrased in many ways by different people. I think the general message is only show my best work and try and make it one coherent voice. If it has different tones, then split the venue into regions and hang like with like.
  
• An interesting rule of thumb for selecting the amount of work needed was to aim for half the linear wall space to be covered. Great and specific advice, as I scientist I love something this precise to work from.
  
• Be prepared to take advice, again this was voiced in many ways, but the two that stood out to me were listen to the gallery director and ask them for advice. Also get a trusted friend to double check the show and be prepared to change it at the last minute if needed.
• Insurance, for some reason that had never occurred to me but it is rather important to make sure the work in covered when on display.
• Have a guest book. Again a fantastic idea, not only can I use it to collect details of the people who are there but it might be a good memento of the event, and I doubt I would have thought of it.
• Get help, not for being nuts enough to do this, but to help man the show, hang work and generally assist in making things go well.
  
• Not entirely show related, I was given advice on how to handle complements. I don't know about anyone else but I find that very difficult. However I can manage to say thank you and the tell them something interesting about the work. Thank you for that one.
• Finally, feeling like a fraud is exactly right for this situation. Good to know I've got something right. I just have to carry on and ignore it.

I am sure there are going to be a lot more things I find as I go along, but this advice should help me avoid a few of the mistakes I was about to make and hopefully make this work. I am feeling a little more calm about it but boy it is one heck of a learning curve. I hope these hints will help other too. If you think of things I have missed please let me know and I will add them to the list.