I love quilt retreats, and I love die cutting, so I decided to combine them into a fun quilting weekend.

The retreat is being held in Osseo, WI on June 8-10, which is about a 4-5 hour drive from Chicago.

I’m bringing my Studio die cutter, a bunch of dies, and anyone who comes along to the retreat is welcome to use it to their heart’s content.

I’m also planning to rent an SUV for the drive, so if you want to tag along in the car, I’m happy to have you if you’ll chip in with the cost (if only one person rides along I won’t make you split it 50/50, but if more people come it can be cheaper than driving on your own!)

The entire retreat weekend is $350, which includes accommodations, meals, a nice stuffed goodie bag, and an autographed copy of my new book (which isn’t out yet but will be soon!!)

I like to think of the retreat as similar to a freestyle cruise; there are workshops you can sign up for at a nominal cost ($10-$20) OR you can just do whatever you want the entire weekend.

I think the retreat will be super-fun, even if you have never die cut before.  And, if you have a favorite die by any manufacturer, bring it along. I’ve got all the adapters needed to cut any die.

$100 reserves your spot, and final payments are due the first week of May. Click here to register and get the brochure with all the details.

1. Wake up groggy on the couch with an earache (hi, TMJ!)
2.  Remember I have to finish binding a quilt by 2PM.  Turn on the sewing machine & put on the walking foot.
3. Remember I have an earache, go in search of ibuprofen.
4. Find the ibuprofen, pour a glass of milk, and remember it’s breakfast time, so I grab some biscuits.
5. Eat some biscuits, turn on the TV in the studio, happily crunch away, and remember I’m supposed to be sewing.
6. Sit down & set the stitch length on the machine, then remember I’m supposed to take the ibuprofen.
7. Take the ibuprofen, and remember I wanted to start a quilt for the Modern Quilt Showcase. (Yes, they are due next Thursday. No, I haven’t started it.)
8. Decide I can quickly whip up the design, so I sketch quickly and print it out. Back to the studio to choose fabrics.
9. Decide it would be even easier if I went back and did a proper sketch in EQ7. Because if I do that, it will be that much easier to turn it into a pattern later.
10. Start sketching in EQ7. Look for a pencil to mark up my paper sketch.  Realize the pencil is out of lead.
11. Go in search of lead in the office drawers. Spot my checkbook, which reminds me I need to write a check for a quilt retreat in March.
12. Realize I need more lead, and while I’m at it, probably more pencils (I am a mechanical pencil freak.)
13. Go on Amazon in search of mechanical pencils.  Start to comparison shop.  While shopping, I remember that I couldn’t find my box of page protectors, so I might as well get some of those too.
14. Remember that the whole reason for page protectors is to store prints of my magazine, Blocks to Die For, and that binder is full.  So I need a bigger binder.
15. Debate on whether the binder should be 2″, 3″, or 4″.  Settle on 3″.  Start comparison shopping.
16. I have a lot of stuff in my Amazon cart.  It reminds me of shopping at Sam’s Club.
17. Pop over to Facebook, with my observation about Amazon vs. Sam’s.
18. Look at the time – I’ve been up for an hour, and the only thing I’ve accomplished is popping some ibuprofen and snacking on biscuits.
19. Decide to post that observation to Facebook, but then think posting in the blog would be more appropriate.
20. Spend 20 minutes writing a blog post about my quilty morning.  And remember I still need to write that check, but first I should bind that quilt.

So there you have it… an hour in the life of a quilt maker & designer.  So much for FOCUS! 

If you haven’t already guessed, I chose FOCUS as my word this year.  It’s been a journey to get to this point; doing LESS in 2010, HONING my skills in 2011, and now trying to FOCUS on the things that will help me to be most successful.

I’m not sure I ever shared this with anyone except a few close friends, but I think it’s time to declare my intentions to the universe.

You see, Ebony Love is going to be a household name.  Ummm… not THAT way.    A household name in the kind of households that quilt.  It seems such a waste of a fabulous name to fritter away in obscurity, wouldn’t you agree?

So that’s part of the thinking that I was doing at the CMQG Retreat last November; part of what was bugging me was working on stuff that didn’t seem to have a purpose, and not really making noticeable progress on anything even though I seemed to get a lot done.  A friend of mine (well, several friends of mine, in their own way) kept telling me that I needed to focus somehow, to figure out what it was that I wanted, and to do the stuff I needed to do to make it happen.

What I want is to be a resource for quilters, to be a recognized expert in the areas in which I apply myself, to get my designs and ideas out there where they can inspire and influence the quilting world.  In my head, that’s all possible, if only I apply myself.

This year, every time I pick up a project, or start working on something, or get an idea, I will need to consider whether it puts me closer to my goal or pulls me further away.  That’s not to say I will make the right decision every time, but by putting it in those terms, it brings FOCUS to the front of mind.

As far as my goals for this year, I want those to be focused as well; when I look at the goals I set for 2011, they were a mixed bag both in terms of what they were and which ones I actually achieved.  This year, I want to call out the things that are most important; not that I don’t have other things going on, but these are the things that MUST get done this year.

Goals for 2012:

• Publish a book about fabric die cutting.  If there’s anything to say about this industry, it’s that you’re not taken completely seriously unless “author” is one of your accomplishments; but aside from that, I really honestly believe that I was meant to write this book.  It’s tentatively scheduled for a late April/early May release.
• Attend Spring & Fall Quilt Market.  I have plans to meet with fabric companies, publishers, and distributors.  Spring Market is in Kansas City this year, so if anybody is going and wants to share  room, let me know.
• Release a line of designer dies.  I have so many ideas for quilt designs that would be much easier if there were dies to accompany them! If you don’t have a die cutter yet… maybe you’ll consider getting one when you see what I have in mind.    “How” to get this done is the million dollar question, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
• Raise my profile through writing and teaching.  With a book coming out, I’ve got to make some appearances!  I’ve already got a lecture & workshop designed (contact me if you know of a guild who’d be interested in learning more about die cutting.)  I’m also writing a regular column for an awesome magazine, and continuing to make videos and TV appearances, in addition to publishing my magazine.
• Publish 4 patterns.  Last year’s goal was pretty aggressive, but by making a few changes in how I write them and by combining them with my teaching and dies, this should be totally achievable.
• Let other people do the things that anyone can do, so I can do the things that only I can do.  This is sort of a general principle for the year, but it’s starting to help me let a few things go.  It enables me to reach out for help where I need it, and be more OK with not doing everything myself.

There’s nothing on here explicitly about making or finishing quilts, which is kind of funny for a quilter, right? Rest assured there are quilts to be done – I can’t very well publish a pattern or release a die without a quilt to go with it!

I’m hoping that by declaring my intentions, it will help to cause the things I want to happen, and hold me accountable for achieving them.  It’s certainly a lot, but I am super-excited about the things I’ve already been able to do in the first 6 weeks of this year.  My only problem now is feeling pressure to do all of this NOW, all at once.  I’ll try to pace myself but it’s hard to contain my excitement!

Needless to say, not a lot of sewing has been going on over here, but I have been pretty busy getting things in order. Let me try to catch you up.First, my destashing continues at the studio, and I will probably have my open house on March 23 from about 9AM – 1PM so everyone mark your calendars.  This day happens to coincide with the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild retreat, so ladies on the way, take note… my house is sort of on the way to the retreat, though you have to get off the highway and head west.  But, if you haven’t been to my studio before, consider it an awesome field trip you’re not likely to make again!

Second, I’ve had to pull back considerably from a relationship I have with a major manufacturer.  It wasn’t contentious or ugly, we parted on very good terms, but I realized that in a lot of ways, that very close relationship was keeping me from doing things that I wanted to do and within my own time-frame.  I think people were also starting to get the impression that I was an official spokesperson for them.  I do happen to love their product, but that’s easy to do when you use it every day.  I hope that we’ll be able to work together again, but in the meantime, by severing a couple of ties, I’ll be more independent and be able to do lots and lots of cool things that I couldn’t before.  Lots of mystery, but lots of cool things in store for you and for me!

Third, most of my writing attention has been focused on getting my book completed.  I am very much behind on it, but I’ve made a ton of progress this week.  I’m sending a draft to my book designer this weekend – he’s doing the cover and the fab layout – and I’m hoping to get it published in April or May.  After much consideration, I decided to go the independent publishing route for this one.

When you write a book, particularly a quilting techniques book, you have to be willing to write it and let it go.  The publisher gets to do what they want, publish in their own sweet time, and not pay you very much money for all your hard work.  In return, you are freed from having to make seriously minute decisions like, where to put the page numbers, whether the headers are .375″ or .4″ from the margins, or from having to hire photographers and editors and book printers and distributors, and doing the marketing, and financing, and the list goes on and on.  Because this book is highly personal to me, and I am highly invested in it, I just cannot bring myself to turn my book vision over to someone else to execute. It just does not seem like a fair trade off.

Unfortunately, because of the furious writing I am doing, I don’t get to do very much sewing.  That means a lot of other projects get neglected.  However, I have been able to advance a couple of things on the business front.

One of them was to find a reliable, repeatable source for batik fabrics. I’ve established a relationship with Benartex, so I will soon be offering quilt kits and select yardage over on Quilt Possible.

I also got a lecture & workshop gig for the Northern Lake County Quilter’s Guild.  I’ll be lecturing about using die cutting in quilting, and then doing a workshop on Drunkard’s Path.

Even though this is the workshop quilt, I will be writing up the pattern and making up a couple of fun kits, so you’ll be able to find those also over on Quilt Possible.

Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to my friend Jennifer M.  She is helping me to finish that very last commissioned quilt that I’ve had for a year and a half.  I made some boo-boos and just wasn’t motivated to correct the errors.  Jen came over yesterday and tidied them up, and we came up with a plan to finish it that I am very pleased with.  On top of that, Jen is more of a perfectionist in her piecing than I am, which is very great for me because then I can leave my projects in her capable hands and not feel guilty about not doing the sewing myself.

To me, anyone who can come in and work on a Double Wedding Ring Quilt, correct your mistakes, and insert curved pieces that you’ve partially stitched has mad skills in the sewing department.  That’s all I’m saying.  She fixed these pups in a couple of hours, and now we are well on the way to getting this quilt finished.

This morning I have a super-important appointment on one of my super-cool mysteries… so wish me luck!

Last Sunday, I went down to the city (because despite claiming I live “near Chicago”, it’s still over an hour’s drive to get there) to film three new episodes with Mary.  I don’t know when they will air; they filmed the entire season over a three day period, but presuming that they filmed in the order the episodes will air, they are closer to the beginning of the season than they are to the end.

It’s difficult to catalog one’s time during a taping, primarily because the shoot is so expertly scheduled that there is very little “down” time to just putz around taking photos of everything.  As soon as I got there, I went into makeup, and the filming started within 10 minutes of my arrival.  Quilty is filmed in a downtown quilt shop (Quiltology) which I had never been in before.  It’s very small as quilt shops go, but packed into that space was lots of color, quilts, a display of Aurifil thread, and a sock monkey!  I can now see why people refer to my studio as a quilt shop, because honestly, it looks a LOT like Quiltology.  Except I don’t have the wall space to permanently display quilts.  It has given me the idea though to potentially install a ceiling track so I can hang up quilts and push or pull them around the room.  That would be fun.  Anybody know a handy man?

The episodes I filmed had nothing to do with die cutting, long arm quilting, or anything else you might consider me an “expert” at, but I can tell you that I actually do not care what we do on Quilty, because Mary is tons of fun to hang out with, and we always giggle A LOT when we are together. We are like two little quilted peas in a pod.

I don’t know if I ever told y’all the story of how I even met Mary or got asked to be on her show in the first place, but I can guarantee you it was not through my own efforts.  The more I dip my toes into this business, the more I recognize that WHO you know is 90% of it.  I wish I could say that talent had a lot to do with it, but there are a lot of talented people out there swimming about in obscurity.  The lucky thing though about being in the quilting industry though as opposed to music or movies is that almost everyone you meet is kind, open, and friendly.  If you can’t make friends in this industry, odds are, there’s something wrong with you. 

Anyway, how I came to be on the show last summer has everything to do with Robbi Eklow.  She & I have been on the same email list for years, and although I knew she lived in the Chicago area, I had no idea how close we actually lived to each other, and I still wouldn’t know if she hadn’t been kind enough to reach out to me.  From my perspective, Robbi was entirely too famous and too busy to deal with the likes of me, so I thought the only way to justify contacting her was to ask her to do a workshop with my quilt guild. Unfortunately, my Program Committee position ended before I’d even worked up the nerve to compose an email to her.  (As much as you all might think I am outgoing & extroverted, I really struggle with meeting new people & striking up conversations.  It’s pretty rare for me to reach out to someone and make the first attempt, so I am very grateful when other people do, otherwise I wouldn’t have any friends at all.)

Robbi sent me an email last spring, because she noticed that our mailing addresses are at the same location.  That was an indication that we probably live pretty close to each other, and therefore should get together for lunch.  That first lunch lasted about 4 hours, and I think we ended up having dinner too.   We had so much to chat about and I have to say we became pretty fast friends.  I love when that happens!  She’s been to my studio & I’ve been to hers, we both have long arms, but our quilting styles are very different.  I am totally into pieced quilts, and her work is about 98% applique.  She dyes her own fabric, I am “commercial” until the day I die.  Maybe one day we’ll work on a quilt together, but for now, we’re pretty content just being friends who love quilting & going out to lunch.

What does this have to do with Quilty?  Well, she had been asked to appear on three episodes with Mary last summer to talk about long arm quilting.  I didn’t know it at the time, but she actually proposed to them that they have me on as a guest instead because I actually quilt for other people, and she only works on her own quilts.  I got on the show because Robbi was willing to share her spotlight with me, and the show agreed to the arrangement based on the strength of her recommendation.  I am pretty confident that if I had written and told them they should do a show on long arm quilting with me as the expert, it would not have happened. So whenever anybody asks me how I first got to be on Quilty, I say it’s because of Robbi.

Now the recurring guest bit?  That has everything to do with the fact that Mary & I love to hang out together & we have a clear rapport on camera.  The thing about Mary is that even if you’re not “friends” with her off camera, when you’re at a shoot, she’s so easy going & personable that it feels like you are friends.  The best part though is that I think now I can truly count Mary among my friends, and whether I ever appear on another show or not, that will stay the same.  That girl is a HOOT, and we just have lots of fun, so it just tickles me to no end when I am invited to do a show, because it gives us an excuse to hang out.

So there’s my Quilty story, Robbi story, and Mary story all rolled into one.  As far as what the show was actually about, I can tell you that it was about hand applique.  You all know that whenever I do applique, it’s all fused, and I just quilt the heck out of it to make it stay put, so it was nice to work on a technique that isn’t my area of expertise but is still cool.  I did bring a couple of quilts with me to the shoot, and Jack (the Director) snapped a couple of photos.

]]> http://www.lovebugstudios.com/2012/01/15/quilty-taping-with-mary-fons/feed/ 6 http://www.lovebugstudios.com/2012/01/15/quilty-taping-with-mary-fons/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LovebugStudios/~3/PO03Cd7jp4w/ http://www.lovebugstudios.com/2012/01/14/let-the-destashing-begin/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:14:06 +0000 Ebony http://www.lovebugstudios.com/?p=1343 I started grouping fabrics the other evening, and then got inspired to start snapping photos.  Once the photos got taken, it was a short leap to start listing them in my Etsy shop!

I settled on a price of about $5.00 per yard for things that come off of bolts, and slightly less for collections that I put together from fabrics that are less than 1 yard.  If you are local and you want to buy something & save the shipping, just send me an email through my contact form, and I’ll invoice you separately for the purchase.  I’m still trying to figure out when is a good day to have an open studio sale, but with the snow we’ve had now, I don’t think mentally I can handle the idea of a bunch of people tromping slush through the house.  However… if you want to make an appointment to come by, we can arrange a private showing – just give me a call or send an email.  Just keep in mind that locals must pay sales tax.

I know $5.00 per yard isn’t necessarily a steal, but I do have quite a bit of yardage that I paid full retail for, and as I said, I don’t want to lose my shirt.  The idea is to try to leave me “whole” or to a slight advantage, so that from a tax perspective, I’m still OK. I don’t have everything listed of course, but these were the easiest to put together & photograph.

When I start my life as a fabric retailer, you will know.  Right now, I’m just a business liquidating assets. 

Well, if you’ve been following along, you know I’m on a journey to discover what kind of quilter & artist I want to be.  As I make new discoveries, I become very motivated to shed the things that no longer fit my interests, aesthetic, or desires.

I looooooove fabric.  You might say that I am obsessed with fabric.  I fondle it, cuddle it, stroke it, and the very sight of it makes me giddy.  I loooooooove my stash, but while doing the inventory this week, I discovered that I love the IDEA of a stash more than I love my ACTUAL stash.

There are some true gems in my stash, and others that I feel ok with letting go.  However, I am at the point in my business where I cannot afford to donate or give away hundreds of yards more of fabric… but that doesn’t mean I have to sell it at full retail.

The idea here is to purge the stash of things that no longer fit me, and fill it with things that do.

When I look at the quilts I’ve been making, they use solid fabrics, batiks & other ethnic prints, geometrics, and everything is BRIGHT.  Very few of those fabrics come out of my stash, except for the solids, because I rarely have enough of the thing I want, or the right color.  Fabric fabric everywhere, but not a piece to use in my quilts!!

I want my stash to be a place with consistency and repeatability, so that when I make a quilt for a pattern, I am also able to offer that pattern as a kit.  I can tell people exactly which fabrics were used and where to get them.  I don’t want any possibility of some fabric designer coming after me with a lawsuit because I used their fabric (yes – this happens.)

I also want simplicity… I have to inventory everything that comes in, and when I run out of a fabric, unless it is a Kona solid, there is no way to get that fabric again.  It is gone.  That bloats the inventory numbers and just makes it a bear to manage. Incidentally, this fits in with the word I’ve chosen for the year – FOCUS – which I haven’t talked about yet, but you can see where this is going.

So… anything that doesn’t fit my aesthetic has to go.  In this picture of my stash, that is nearly the entire bottom row! 6 bookcase shelves worth.  That’s a LOT.

My question to you as a reader & fabric purchaser… how would you prefer purchasing fabrics from my stash?  I do not want to list & photograph every single piece – that would be insane.  I am thinking of grouping things into colorways – blues, greens, yellows, reds, etc. and offering half and full yard cuts of groupings.  So I would take a photo of a stack of “blue” and say, you will get “x” number of yard cuts from this stack.  Of course I would also offer some open studio hours where locals could come in and browse and purchase. If you were in a position to buy, what would you prefer?

First, I’ve been quilting my little tail off to try to get all these quilts finished, and… I did!!! I ended up needing to quilt several quilts a day for a few days in a row, but in all, I managed to quilt 50 quilts this year in my first year of long arm quilting, and 18 of those were finished in the last 30 days of the year.  You’re probably wondering when I’m going to post about them, but that’s going to need to wait.

Second, I have a couple of caveats to mention. One, I do have one quilt on the frame for a local artist who I promised to quilt for before I stopped accepting projects. Second, although I no longer accept orders for custom quilts, I do still have two projects that need to be finished. Neither customer is in a hurry, which is good because I won’t be able to spend much time on them in January.

Third, year-end is just a sucky time for small businesses who carry inventory and don’t reconcile their accounts regularly.  Oh, I keep meticulous records about what fabric is used on which projects, how much thread, what was purchased and from whom, etc.  It’s just that… I keep it all on paper in envelopes and in email folders instead of entering it into my accounting software.  I think I’m still a little bit gun-shy about the computer system, since the last one I had got corrupted & I lost the entire year of entries.  That was a complete & utter mess to unravel, but then so is entering an entire year from paper envelopes into the electronic system.  I am promising myself to do a weekly reconciliation this year.  That will make it a lot more manageable.

Anyway, I’m sorry to be a complete & total bore in this post, but I do find it hard to focus on being creative when I have taxes and a physical inventory to do. 

So between that, and my filming some Quilty episodes this weekend, I’m gonna be quieter still!

See you on the other side!

Today, I got a letter in the mail from my mom.  At first, I thought she sent me the wrong letter, because it said, “Dear Mom,” at the top.  But then, I noticed the date, and it was dated August XX, 19XX. The point of the letter?

It was a letter my mother composed to my grandmother, on the day of my 4th birthday. It was quite a chatty letter, but it starts off talking about the real china tea set that my grandmother sent to me, and how I wouldn’t put it down or play with it outside, because “Grandma doesn’t want me to play with my dishes outside because there might be an accident on the concrete.”

Since my mother wrote the letter, I won’t contradict her memory, but I must say I am impressed at the wisdom, insight, and articulation that I displayed at the age of four.   It also gives a little glimpse into the fastidious adult that I would become (notwithstanding the careless teenager & 20-something in between.)

It also detailed my early propensity for bodily injury when I “broke” my arm skating, because my friends were holding my hands and wouldn’t let go when I started to fall.  It’s amazing I still had my front teeth since I couldn’t break my own fall, but in an amazing twist of irony, I lost the adult ones only 4 years later when some idiot boy pushed me down an icy driveway because he wanted to watch me try to “skate.”  If you’ve ever had the occasion to see my blinding-white smile & amazingly straight & flawless teeth, all I can say is… thousands and thousands of dollars, and years and years of reconstruction.

The letter also gave little glimpses of my mother at 26…

Working, and taking her lunch hour to go buy my birthday cake and ice cream & bring it to my school.

Selling her house (that had doubled in value in the four years she owned it), so she could afford to quit her job and start college.

Contemplating her own divorce, to be final on September 3rd, while her baby sister gets married 17 days later.

Musing about how the beauty of Boulder, Colorado would be very conducive to studying.  (Meanwhile, I notice that she has misspelled “conducive”, and it makes me wonder if, at least some of the time while I was growing up, her “look it up in the dictionary” answer to my spelling questions were not merely lessons in self-sufficiency, but a smart way to avoid exposure as a bad speller to her child.)

Detailing out her plan for supporting us during the lean years of school; teaching twice a week, getting money from the VA (but losing even more money in benefits because of the divorce), getting money from the government’s Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, and a work-study job counseling women veterans.

Being so happy she could scream because her boss said that even though she was quitting, she would be welcome back anytime, but not before she got the degree.

Being gifted with an IBM Correcting Typewriter from that same boss as a going-away-to-school present.  A typewriter!!!

Being “scared stiff of unemployment, but it’s a risk [she has] to take to improve [her] situation.”

Me sitting here in 2011… knowing that my mom did not finish her degree at that time.  I don’t really know what happened, but I know she spent the next 14 years being a strong advocate for me and instilling the importance of education (even when I didn’t want to hear it) and making sure that I got exposed to the right opportunities to be able to attend an Ivy League university.  She eventually did get her Bachelor’s degree, but it wasn’t until well after I’d left the house & got settled in my own right.

I don’t always get along with my mother (does anyone?) but I can appreciate and love the fierceness of her spirit and determination to make it, despite being a 26 year old divorcee with a terribly curious and accident-prone four year old on her hands. (And fastidious. Don’t forget fastidious.)

Anyway, I just wanted to share that, because it was so unexpected, and delightful, and heartbreaking all at the same time.  I wonder what other letters she’s got?  Maybe the one I wrote to her at 13 years old, making an impassioned plea to allow me to convert to LDS membership…

So… I’ll bet you can’t top THAT as a Christmas present. 

Happy Holidays to All!

- Ebony

So far, I am happy with the threads and love the colors, but the thread is so new that there isn’t a lot of information about them.  I hacked my own threading & tension settings, combining techniques from other 40 wt & polyester quilting threads.  On my Fusion, I’m getting a bobbin tension setting of about 120 -140 on the TOWA gauge, and for threading, I skip the center hole, loosen the tension slightly, and use a #18 needle.

All that is great, but the ONE problem I have is that these aren’t full sized cones, so I’m definitely going to run out of my favorite threads. Why is that such a problem?  Well, because the colors were experimental, they didn’t have color names or numbers assigned, and there was no guarantee that they would produce all the colors or make them the same way.

Still, once the production of these threads were released, and named with Aussie flair, I thought it would be simple to just ask Superior to tell me which experimental colors were produced & which threads they match up to.  The problem with THAT?  Superior says they didn’t keep any of their experimental cones, so they have no idea which goes with what.

So, I decided to do my own color matching, and publish the chart here.  I’m pretty sure this has a limited audience, because I doubt the people who ordered those experimental cones actually read my blog, but I figured if I was going to go to the trouble of producing a chart, the least I could do was put it someplace where people can find it!

There were 17 experimental colors, but they actually produced 30 different colors for the entire line.  I’m only pairing up the 17 with what looks closest, and my disclaimer is that I’m going by my physical thread cones & the color chart on the web since the entire line is out of stock & I can’t order any cones.  Superior doesn’t know that I’ve done this (yet) and so I would say use at your own risk.

[table "0" not found /]