What a strange feeling.

Today has been very odd. I've been teaching my book quilt for a year now, and I had thought I largely let students get on with it. Apparently not. I guess thinking about it I do watch the classes (well I am there to teach) and I am very aware of anyone having to think too much, that frown just before you get stuck. So what has been causing me the confusion today? The book is getting it's toughest test. A non quilter working through it. The hard part for me is I am banned from interfering. Yes, this will make a better book. Yes I really want to do it, but boy it feels strange.

It's also proved to be a way to find new and interesting problems. The strangest was freshly made bias tape unfolding. I've seen lightly pressed tapes coming a little unfolded, but even the one I pressed had completely flattened out. I'd never seen anything like it. I was all ready to blame the fabric, we had tried everything else, when it dawned on me what was different. I press a strip then hang it near my cutting table before pressing the next. My tester was leaving them on the ironing board. On the surface a much more sensible solution, less walking too and fro. However with a mesh top ironing board and a steam generator iron you get enough steam coming up through the board to neatly steam out the folds you just put in. Doh! Not a problem I would ever have encountered in a class as the boards there all have solid tops, but one a beginner could easily find at home. If nothing else it has proved that this testing is worthwhile.

Other than that I am looking forward to a very busy week. I've got a lot of customer work that needs to be delivered Tuesday or Wednesday this week. Fortunately they are all quite fun quilts, and I've got most of them done over the last couple of days. I've got two workshops this week as well as the regular classes and in between I want to write another couple of chapters of book two. I don't think I am going to get a lot of blogging time unfortunately. On the other hand I might be able to photograph some of the customer work and put that up later in the week, it depends a lot on how hectic the teaching is.

The downside of being this busy is I've missed another quilt show. I had intended to put a couple of quilts into Malvern, but the deadline was yesterday. I am concentrating so hard on the Festival of Quilts, other competitions just aren't registering.