Up's up's and more up's

I spent Friday and Saturday at the Nimble Thimble in Buckingham. It meant one heck of an early start after a late night (well early morning if you want to be precise). Friday was speed quilts. I was concerned that it wasn't going to work out as none of my students had prepared their fabrics and wadding. Still they got down to work and two beginners (one of them in her first week of quilting!) pretty much finished their cot quilts in the day. That's pretty good going and great data for me, so thank you very much ladies.

After a quick trip into town for dinner we got set up for the evening talk. That should have been pretty simple but the hall had overbooked and someone else was using it during our set up time. We had been assured this wouldn't be an issue, they would only be using one half of the hall....wrong! So already running late we finally decided to ask if we could set up while they finished what they were doing. It did bring in some new features of setting up a talk. Communication with hand signals doe swork when you are dealing with people on the same wavelength but having to have a spotter was a new one on me. You see the group who were in the hall were sparing martial artists. Not ideal for putting up quilt stands but they were careful, we were careful and it all worked.

The talk went down well. I managed to borrow not one but two men to help hold up my quilts and the audience seemed pleased. I got a surprising number of new and sensible questions. Also several people could see Dawn and Dusk as looking quite Macintosh, I had thought I was the only one who saw it that way and it was nice to be proved wrong.

From there we moved on to the pub. One of the shop owners lives right next door to a lovely old pub complete with cats (her's but they like the putb too). After showing the regulars my postcards I went and fetched Nude with Rope, and we displayed her. Wow! What a response. I couldn't believe how enthusiastic people were. Bear in mind these weren't quilters just ordinary people out for a drink on a Friday night, but they got it, and loved it. It has inspired me to try and find a way to get my quilts in front of more people. I don't know how but I really want to do it.

Saturday I was back at the shop for another workshop, Autumn Leaves. I had one of my beginners from the Friday an experienced art quilter and a teacher looking for ideas for her students. This wide range of requirements lead to me changing the format a bit but I think it worked well. I came up with a new smaller design for the beginner who demonstrated the leaves for the others, and tried decorative machine stitches for her quilting. The teacher left with a variation on the class which I think will work well with children or any group, and the experienced quilter nailed my technique for binding. I hope they will have all found the day really useful.

Fabrications Issue 67

On the way home I stopped off to meet another of my students from The Nimble Thimble who has a horse nearby. She was practicing on him so I got to see him in action. Goodness he is lazy, but when he moves he is lovely. Yes I might have plans for this at some point.

When I got home I found my copy of Fabrications Magazine had arrived. Cool, something to read. However even cooler is the little picture of Phoenix Rising on the cover. Better still there are two more pictures of it inside along with Herd Mentality (currently in the US at the World Quilt Shows) Bad Rain and Daughter. Isn't that just a great way to round out the weekend? Well no, I finished the parts for my daywear for the International Evening and got it together as well. I think that counts as a productive couple of days right?