Ironbridge, Ledbury, sleeeeeeeeeeep

I've never been to Ironbridge and there was no way I was going to miss out on a visit as I was in the area. However as you may have gathered things were conspiring against me. Each day I had a plan something changed. When I woke up early on Wednesday morning and saw sun, I knew I had one last chance and I was going to take it.  The sun didn't last. The first part of the journey from Tewksbury was lovely then the fog appeared. Just what you want on unfamiliar roads (narrow windy roads) in an elderly motorhome with poor lights. Oh well, it's still better the the torrential rain. I also discovered that the sat nav doesn't entirely work in the area, but it got me close enough to follow the road signs, which are excellent. The first picture I took from the van in the carpark. This is actually as I was about to leave as when I arrived the fog was lower and the bridge was quite hard to see. I may be sad (OK I AM sad) but I was thrilled to see the bridge even covered in fog.

It was however cold. Very cold, so I decided not to spend too much time in the town. I did have to have a little wander around though so I had an excuse to cross the bridge a couple of times. I think February was the perfect time to visit. It may have been cold and foggy but there was just one tourist in town. Me!  The river may look calm in the picture, but trust me it was moving at quite a pace.

I only had a couple of hours in the area so I knew I wasn't going to be able to see all the attractions in the gorge (I think there are 10 museums in the area) but I was determined to make it the Blists Hill Victorian town. Fortunately it was open as Thursday it was closed to have the roads resurfaced. For once a close call that was just in my favour. It did mean that the town was full of workmen and some areas were quite hard to access. When I bought my ticket I was told the foundry would be casting at 11, which gave me the framework for my visit. Please excuse the quality of the pictures. They are taken at low resolution on my mobile phone through a window into a dark room with bright spots. Not exactly ideal conditions.

The first one shows the metal being poured into the bucket that is then used to fill the moulds. The children watching were all amazed by the 'liquid fire'. It's a good description even when you know it is molten metal. It is so alive and magical, pictures do not do it justice. Next time I will have to try and get video but I'm not convinced that will really capture it either.

In the next picture you can see the long rows of moulds ready to be filled. Most of them make one item but a few do have two smaller pieces in. The ones smoking are already full. They are just sand that has been moulded into shape with a wooden base.

Two men carry the bucket of molten iron over to the moulds and pour. I would say it took about 20 minutes to fill every mould in the room.

I then went for a walk around the town. The dressmaker is just across the road from the foundry and I loved chatting to her about corsets and sewing machines. On the counter she has the cutest little chainstitch machine, just as well it wasn't for sale. A little further up the road is the chipped potato shop. I liked the friers more than the chips unfortunately. It turns out I like my potatoes cooked in oil not beef fat. Who would have thought it.

A little further on is the sweet shop. I really enjoyed being able to buy sweets by the quarter again. As previously noted, I am sad very very sad, and quite proud of it. With a bit of effort I managed to make my way right to the far end of the town, despite the workman's best efforts. The candle maker was fascinating, as was the chemist. I never managed to catch the baker with bread, but maybe next time. I did find it a little disturbing how many products they had that I had been looking for. It seems I can shop easier in a Victorian town than a modern one. I've often suspected I was in the wrong era.

After the walk I headed back to the foundry where they were unmoulding the castings. To do that they grab the mould by the wooden base and fling the sand and casting onto a heap of sand. Then you dig for your casting, with a hammer. Hitting the casting scatters the sand very quickly then you can retrieve the item. Most of them weren't as hot as the one in the picture, but of course that meant they didn't show as well in the photo. This one is a bell door stop. To separate items that are moulded in pairs the casting is dropped on the floor. I was surprised that it only ever seemed to break where they wanted it to. I guess it must sometimes go wrong, but not often enough to merit spending longer on separating the parts. Yes I did buy a few pieces while I was there. It's surprising how cheap they are.

Just after lunch I had to leave and head for my last booking on the tour in Ledbury. By this time the weather had cleared and it was a nice drive. Well except for the slightly creative route the sat nav came up with. It found me a bridge to cross, with a height limit, weight limit and width limit all of which I failed, and it really liked the idea a lot. I decided to drive in a different direction until it gave up on that idea. By failing to spot my hosts house I accidentally ended up in a craft gallery. Fortunately the lady looking after the gallery didn't see me as a potential customer or I would have come home with a sculpture of a horse that I really didn't need but really did want.

After being plied with coffee, dinner, a private quilt show and a dog (a very very handsome dog) we headed for the venue for the talk. Typically after saying how important parking was at a venue, the whole county had decided to park in the area, but after a bit of shuffling back and forth (with all the really heavy stuff) a space did free up close to the venue which made reloading a lot easier. Setting up was a giggle, largely due to the number of friendly faces in the audience. Lots of the ladies from Leominster had made good on their promise and come for the talk, and were keen to help wherever they could. I don't know if I was on form or if it was just the perfect audience for me, but the talk seemed to go down very well with a lot of laughs and groans in all the right places. I think I need to take this group with me to lead the other audiences. On the other hand perhaps they should worry that they share my sense of humour. I should also say they make them tough here, my helper made it though the talk without flagging and trust me, some of the last quilts in the talk are heavy.

Packing up was almost as much fun as setting up, and before I knew it the van was loaded and I was on my way. I had decided to aim to get to Oxford services as it's a long drive to start at 10pm especially after a week on the road. I got lucky though, I followed a lorry for most of the way to Oxford which I find a great help when they are going about the speed I want to. They show me what the road is doing ahead of me and they are someone else on the road. It seems to convince my brain that this is a normal and reasonable thing to be doing whatever the time of night. I did stop at Oxford but after a snack and a drink decided I was fine to head on. By 2am I was home, and bribing my cats. I assure them that I only go away to bring them food so I figure it is a good idea to come back with treats. They seem to agree.

Since then I have taught two regular classes and caught up on some sleep. I've discovered I sleep very well in the van but not so much in strange buildings, be they hotels or houses, so I was due some catch up. To be honest I could still use some more sleep, but there are quilts waiting and a class tomorrow, so it will be a few days before I am quite back to normal. That said, I can't wait to go back :) There really is no pleasing some people is there :)

Wales, speed 4 and Oakshot

I can't be sure but I suspect tonights pictures will be in reverse order but hopefully you will be able to figure it out. The rain has stayed with me the last two days but the people I've met have more than made up for it. My satnav seems to really not get on with Wales. i am doing better now I know I have to change country before it will find places but it still has phases of refusing to talk to me and on the way to Cibi quilteres it kept exagerating how long it would take to get there, so I didn't dare stop for photos which is a real shame. The ones I have are from the house I stayed in last night. It was snuggled in a valley with hills/mountains all round. I couldn't get a picture of the other ones as someone had parked a motorhome in front of them ;)

During the day yesterday we worked on Speed 4. As you can see the ladies made great progress. I should be able to put up some more pictures soon. Even those who thought they would keep up and those having bad days achieved a lot. We also did a lot of laughing. It's just as well i have this evening off to rest my voice. As well as the enthusiastic quilting the refreshments were great. Apparently this was the last time the group would be meeting in this venue but I am quite sure their new venue will be great. I can't imagine that group having meetings without good food.

Overnight I was with one of the members and I was spoilt rotten. I was a bit worried about it. I really like spending time in my van as it means I can relax and recharge, but I guess bribary and corruption works as well on me as anyone. Roast dinner, with pigs in blankets, a cat and a selection of quilts was quite a bribe. More than that it was inspiring. I haven't been this excited about an idea in about a year. I hope some of you will join me in the South of France in September to hear all about it.

Today was my talk for Cibi quilters and lunch with them, see what I mean about the refreshments ;) They had chosen my art quilts talk. That took a bit of thinking about as I don't get to do it that often. It was nice to have the change, and it means I get to talk about different quilts. The group were a great audience and very enthusiastic about everything, I really hope I will get to come back here sometime.

Loading up, was made very quick and easy by many hands who did things exactly as I asked, thank you. Leaving me lots of time to go and play. It had been suggested that I could go to Abbergaveny market, but as I said there was a lot of rain. Or I could visit Doughtys who were having a sale. Both were trumped by Oakshot. I hadn't realised they were in the area but after seeing a lady use their fabrics for speed 4 I had to visit their shop. Yes my cunning plan does involve their fabrics. I am so pleased I chose to go to them. I was greeted with a cup of tea, jasmine tea no less and a box of biscuits. As you can see there are also lovey displays of their fabrics and kits. All of which I would guess are on their website. I not only got the fabrics I was looking for but also some interesting wadding. It's a bamboo but not like any I've seen before. I can't wait to try it. I also have an interfacing to play with, I'll let you know how I get on. After a tour of the warehouse I headed to my hotel. It's the same one I stayed at on the 11th. So I thought I would be having pizza again. However there isn't Pizza Hut here. I did wonder if I was just being daft but no. They are renweing the services here. Wimpy and Pizza Hut have gone and will be replaced by McDonalds and the Hot Food Co. In the meantime you have to eat at the only remaining food place. They wouldn't have been my first choice but the food was very good. I wonder if being the only option means a higher turnover and thus better food. Whatever it was good. Now I think it's time for a quick bath and then some writing.

Quiltfest

Today the pictures are the lake at my campsite, which is lovely and the river near Quiltfest. I made it to the show quicker than I expected although the weather really didn't help. Surprisingly there was only one really steep hill on the route too. With a little help from Tet I found where I should be and found somewhere to park. I'm glad I made it as there were a lot of familiar faces there and I got to catch up with a lot of friends. I think I might have gained a few new ones too.

Of course I had to do a little bit of shopping but with most of the traders only taking cash it kept me restrained. A couple of fabrics with silver on and some kimono fabrics from Susan Briscoe. She did have some full bolts which I would haved loved for making clothes, but I managed to resist this time.

Now I am finishing the day as I started it. Snug in bed in my van. I really love it. I've had a very nice evening sewing and watching Mobey Dick. I wasn't that taken with the film but it wasn't taxing so worked well to sew to. I also played with the oven some more. I managed to make a very hot cottage pie with an unbrowned top but figured out how to heat a tinned pudding in it. I think I need to spend more time in here cooking. Next stop Cibi quilters, see you in the morning folks.

Weather

It looks like th weather has found me again. I've woken up to heavy rain. Ironbridge looks a lot less appealing now. In fact getting up looks a lot less appealing. I guess I should do something though and the quilts are at least indoors.

Leominster

Another early morning and off to Leominster. I've been to the Malvern quilt show several times but never explored the area. I've missed out. The area is lovely especialy in the early morning. I really should have stopped and taken some pictures, but I was enjoying the drive and before I knew it I was at the hall. It turns out I was also in the area where a lot of my friends from the show scene live. It's always fun to catch up with people I generally see once or twice a year. Oddly this group had booked the same workshop as Vectis quilters on the Isle of Wight. It was strange to be teaching the same class two days running. It was interesting how differently the two groups approached the class. The finished designs always vary a huge amount, but now I think there may be a regional variation too.

After a busy morning lunch appeared as if by magic. Another group member brought homemade soup, bread and cheese. I'm not sure what sort of soup it was other than very very good. That was followed by chocolate brownie. Oh and there were homemade biscuits for the coffe breaks too. Desoite the best efforts of the catering to distract everyone a lot of work got done too. The pictures are from the afternoon tea break. It wasn't planned but the group had good radar for a boiling kettle. I promise there was a full class and they all left with well progressed quilt tops. I hope they might share some pictures when they finish them.

After the workshop I went in search of my campsite. It's funny but an hours drive in unfamiliar teritory seems a lot longer than the same time journey that you know. i guess it must be a matter of concentration or something. Still with the great views and good weather (sorry IOW) it was lovely. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said of the site. It's the most I've ever paid for 30 minutes parking. On the other hand I am now on a wonderful site. My only problem is I can't believe the whole of this pitch is mine. It's even cheaper than the one I had booked. I feel welcomed and safe. Dinner was good, although I need more practice with the oven and I can now relax with a drink some sewing and a dvd or two. Fantastic. Tomorrow Ironbridge. From talking to todays students I don't think I will have time to get the Quiltfest as well. If you are going have a great time.

IOW and back

I'm back, sorry I didn't blog while I was there time and signal didn't come together. As it turned out that was quite a good thing. As you can see from the grey photo the Isle of Wight wasn't exactly welcoming. We only manged to see the islan a few minutes before being told to retun to our cars. Grey wet and foggy in patches. Still it was somewhere different and I was going to have fun. I hadn't had time for breakfast so lunch was quite high on my adgenda and as I was on ans island (OK a smaller island) I though fish and chips was a good idea. First find a town, Newport seemed close, so that's where I headed and looked for parking. In short, don't. Motorhomes are not welcome and cars only seem to just be tolerated.

With the van still playing up in a strange place all I wanted was to park up and take a break, easier said than done, but I did find a park and ride near Cowes. Great, there must be a chip shop there... yes but not an open one. I did eventually find one and they were really good, but by then I was very wet. Still food and tea make everything look better and exploring seemed like a good plan again. Unfortunately each place I though might be open in the winter was down a road with a 6'6" width limit. Hmm, time to give up and head to a quilter. Who is also down a restricted road. I decided I had to go anyway and actually it wasn't a problem. I can only assume the intention is to discourage motorhomes and caravans as locals know which roads they can use.

We spent a very nice afternoon drinking tea in front of a wood burning stove. Muh better than walking about in the rain. We were joined for dinner by another member of the group which turned out to be very lucky. At the venue we discover that it had another carpark I didn't fit in although I was lucky enough to park very close to the front door also pretty lucky. I realised after I got set up that I had forgotten to change, maybe I was a bit distracted by the van which was getting worse each time I drove it. The audience were great and really filled the hall, but in the back of my mine was the fact that I had a lot more miles to do and no way to do it.

We made it home safely and after a night cap headed to bed. For all it's faults I do love the van. I could sit and relax with my radio and work on my rug while I tried to come up with a plan. Lovely. The plan was to try the local mechanic as recommended by last nights dinner guest. Of course with an older slightly obscure vehicle I wasn't expecting much, but anything was worth a go. The van was delivered to the mechanic and me to the hall by my very capable host so by the time I started the workshop I was organised and relaxed.

The workshop was a lot of fun, hopefully for the group as well as me. I can't say everything went smoothly but I think all the issues were dealt with. Fortunately the gruop had a good sense of humour and aren't easly detered from enjoying their quilting. Everyone made good progress with their tulips and hopefully I will be ab;e to share some pictures soon. In the afternoon I got an update on the van. The mechanic was happy that there was no serious fault and indeed on the way to him I had noticed the burning smell seemed to have reduced. Still after the problems I might not have trusted that result but for the fact he happened to be a Bedford CF expert! What are the odds? See I said that dinner guest was lucky. She was also kind enough to deliver me back to my van after the class.

I am now in a hotel near my next booking. The van has been fine and I am now looking forward to the rest of the trip. I think what will stay with me from the Isle of Wight are the people. Everyone I dealt with from supermarket staff to the port to the quilters were exceptionally friendly and helpful. The place (and the councils) were so unwelcoming, but because of the people I am looking forward to a return trip. Thank you all, and please do send me pictures of your finished work.

Finally

I was starting to wonder if this would ever happen, but here I am on the ferry. Despite all the problems (I left home at 11pm) I am now on my way. It's been a bit of a trip down memory lane for me as I lived in Portsmouth for a while. I was surprised how much I remembered. Now I am looking forward to the Isle or Wight and tonights talk.

Enough already

So as you will have gathered I have been working quite hard to make sure everything went smoothly for the trip. The van have been prepared and loaded so all I had to do this morning was drive to my regular class, from there I could head to Portsmouth. By the end of my road I knew the van sounded odd but only when breaking so it would probably be OK. A mile later there the noise was louder and there was a smell of burning rubber, home I went. I thought the noise was fan belt or alternator related as we fitted a new one recently. Indeed the fan belt was a little loose, so we tightened it, checked the van and I tried again. The noise was mostly gone but not the smell. Call me paranoid but I do not like driving a vehicle where something is getting hotter than it should. Fire is not a good thing in a vehicle. I was forced to cancel the classes and take the van for a second opinion. So far the answer is, that's a bad smell, something's not right. I have everything crossed that Doug will work his magic and find the fault, today. Then please can things go smoothly for a week or so? Please, pretty please.

Then the plans don't even come together.

The plan for today was simple. Go to the storage unit, pay the rent get my quilts come home and quilt. See very very simple. It should have taken about half an hour out of my day. The first bit did work. I got to the unit and paid my rent. Then I noticed the van had a flat tyre (one of the maybe 3 week old tyres). Poop (no that wasn't the first word that came to mind but I try to keep the blog clean). OK, I can't change the tyre myself especially as I know the wheel nuts have just been put on by a garage. Maybe a pump will do the trick. The lady manning the storage place has one, but it didn't want to work for me, so I set off for the nearest place I knew I could buy one. Fortunately just around the corner is a little tyre shop who charged me 10 pounds to change the wheel for the spare. I did consider letting them look at the flat until they said driving on a flat won't damage the tyre. Really?! I also noticed the jack wasn't rated to lift the van, but we got away with it so I paid up and headed some where with more of a clue. So far the half hour job had taken over and hour.

I don't like vehicles doing odd things so I really wanted to know why I had no air in the tyre and ideally I wanted to get a new tyre back on to the van, I don't know how old the spare is and I didn't fancy doing much driving on it. There was a 15 minute wait to be seen but my regular type place quickly found the problem, a puncture. They had been fairly certain the tyre would have been damaged by being driven on while flat (I tended to agree) but after checking it carefully it appears I got away with it. It was less the 1/4 mile, slowly and very carefully so I didn't bump the wheel or rub the tyre. They have repaired the puncture and the tyre is back in place. All in all a half hour trip took 3 hours. Ouch. On the other hand I would rather it happened here than out on a trip.

I did manage to get some quilting done today, and my machine seems to be settling down a bit now after it's major surgery. It feels very strange, and sounds even weirder but it's good to be back quilting. Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly, but I'm not holding my breath.

Planning take so much time.

Recently I seem to have spent more time on the computer than at the sewing machine. Mostly working, although some games have featured. I hadn't realised how much time and planning goes into longer or more densely packed bookings. Other than coordinating several groups and dealing with many bookings at one time there are all the travel plans to deal with. I am sure the internet does make this simpler but it also gives you lots of options.

For a stand alone booking I generally know which service stations are on the route and I can work out quite easily how long I need to allow to be there on time. I get up load the van and head off, hopefully with a stop for food somewhere. Simple, well I thought that could be tricky until I tried multi booking trips. We seem to have spent a lot of time the last couple of the weeks working on getting the van up to spec. When we bought it we knew we needed to look at it's electrics but so far I hadn't been staying it in long enough to worry. It turned out to have a couple of problems and no circuit to charge the battery while driving. It has all that now and an inverter. I also knew I needed to clean the onboard water tanks. I didn't know that the winter had broken the filter and thus meant I couldn't get water from the tank to the tap. I couldn't be sure if it was the pump or just the filter so I ordered both and I now have a spare pump when it does give up. We have also found some rugs for the van, a warm floor is much nicer than the laminate in the winter.

What I hadn't really given much thought to was the gas supply. I'd bought a new bottle so I had plenty, of Butane which freezes in the winter. Yes now we've dealt with it, it's clearly a problem but somehow I hadn't really registered how serious it was. Made a lot trickier by having a very small locker for the cylinders to fit in. To say it's tight would be an understatement, but it's in and it works.

Other than sorting out the van I also needed make some travel arrangements. Flights take a lot of messing about these days to find the best deal, especially if you need to take luggage. The sites on the other hand don't want you to check around and helpfully make you start again if you aren't quick enough completing the booking. I think I took about 5 attempts after I had chosen which one I was going to go for! The ferry was much easier, although I did manage to get it wrong, the company were great about sorting everything out for me.

Next comes showers. Yes really. I want to be clean and fresh for all my bookings, and washing is great to a point. I find I really need a proper shower or bath regularly too. Whilst I am familiar with service stations food, toilets and parking I'm not so well versed in shower facilities. Fortunately it looks like next weeks trip works out very well. There are longer stops I need to make that will handily bring me to showers, but it took research to work that one out.

Finally I wanted to find something fun to do on my day off, and that was probably the easiest part. I have a list of places in the UK I would like to visit and as my work takes me to the right areas I will go and see them. This trip I should get to visit Ironbridge. I know it is rather touristy but heck, on my day off that's what I am right? If everything goes to plan (yeah right) I should also get a chance to do some sewing and writing. I'm rather looking forward to that. I just wish the planning all did itself magically. Before anyone asks, yes the cats will be fine. I am going on my own so they will still have one of their humans. I am quite sure they will still be very cross with the reduced service though.

You know you're a quilter when

you find yourself looking at the political propaganda that comes through the letterbox to find out who printed it. I will admit I did first poke fun at the headline, something about the VAT rise affecting everyone in my area. No you don't say, I thought this region was exempt. Grrrr, I am really not that thick thank you very much. Then I noticed the paper was what I wanted to print my foundation patterns on. Of course being political the odds are that the printer gave them a discount in return for some advertising and I was right. There are contact details for the printer so I will get in touch and see what the cost of printing foundation papers would be. I'm not sure I really want to support a printer who does political campaigns but I've been struggling to find anyone to do what I need so I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

Quilting and travel

I finally feel I am getting back into a routine. I know it won't last but for now it's pretty good. Yesterday I managed to get a customer quilt done and sort out some of my travel plans. It's always a bit og a shock how complex that becomes. It seems simple to just book a flight from X to Y right. Except I am looking for the absolute cheapest option. Of course that means you have to factor in baggage allowances and travel to the airport. By the time you start considering the cost of fuel and parking for a further airport against a more expensive flight closer it really does get to be an interesting problem. Once you've figured out the best plan (and frankly it it's for your holiday go for easy your time is worth more than you will save with calculating all the different options) you need to persuade a website to take your booking. I think it took 6 attempts and 2 computers last night for that one. I do think I got the absolute cheapest option though, which is really important when you are spending other peoples money.

After that I moved on to trying to book a ferry. Again how hard can that be. It is simpler that flights, as there are less options, but you still have to weigh up cost, potential delays, and the timings of events. Then I had to state the size of my vehicle, in metric. Hmm, interesting. Did you know a tape measure that is great for quilts is not so good for motorhomes. Oh you did, well why didn't you tell me. Or perhaps suggest I should have measured my van on a nice dry day just incase? Well I did need to measure it and I did know I should but I wouldn't have picked late and night in the pouring rain. Still I've done it now and I can see exactly how tight the barrier at Pacific Plaza was. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time.

I guess I should go and get on with the next quilt in line now. It's loaded so I just have to make the sewing happen. I am trying to get all my customer work cleared as fast as possible, and at the very least before I start heading off all over the country.

I´m back

At last I am back on a proper computer. It´s even mostly working. It has still  got a few quirks though so bear with me. The van is also fixed, in fact better than it was. The alternator has been replaced and we have had habitation serviced. So in theory I have working hot water, oven and electricity. The latter still needs some work to get it to where I need it, but hopefully that will be done this week. We even got the van a new set of tyres!

Classes have restarted and seem to be going well. Another group are tackling my new mystery quilt and the first batch have nearly all finished it. Sadly I can show you any as that would rather spoil the mystery. However it will be being released as a pattern so if you want to find out what it looks like you could always make it.

Yesterday I had a return booking with Chiltern Quilters. I last saw them in 2007 so I was able to take a good selection of new work for them to see. It was great to have so many friendly faces for my first talk of the year. I  was shocked how rusty I was after a month off. I hope they enjoyed it, I know I did, thanks for lunch too, it was great to be able to eat between unloading and speaking. It was also good to see another Starr Designs quilt there as I took Holiday Starrfire with me this time. Next weekend I will be heading up to Nene quilters, hopefully I will be more in the swing of things by then.

As well as being rusty I found the talk yesterday really took a lot out of me. It may also be related to being ill last week, but today getting the tyres fitted to the van seemed like quite enough activity.

Virtue pays off

I could be taking this weekend off and playing board games up in Manchester. On the other hand I have a lot of work to do so I decided not to go. Even this morning I wasn't sure I had made the right choice. Tet also decided to stay home and get things done. It turns out this was the right answer. We decided to brave Costco for cat food and new phones and took the van. It is easier to load than the car. On the way there the battery light came on. Yes we could believe the alternator was on it's way out and decided that actually before I started out on the longer tours it would be good to have a new one, and a fan belt. As we left Costco there was a rattle and a couple of clonks. Not good noises. No sign of anything obvious though. We thought a bit and pulled over again. Could the nut holding the pulley on the alternator have fallen off? If it had how much damage could that pulley do when it came off? Yes and surprisingly little it already had. We were about to drive the last couple of miles home when the penny really dropped with me (what can I say I was feeling ill it's why I wasn't driving). The heater is usually good but was cold, no functional fan belt doesn't just mean no electricity it means no cooling. We got the engine off just as it overheated. As we had chosen our spot to pull over we could wait safely for a recovery vehicle. However, if we had gone to Stabcon this would have happened on the motorway. We wouldn't have had the chance to pull over and think to not only would we have broken down, on a motorway we would probably have done a lot more damage too. I'm really glad I decided to work today, even though I lost more of the day than I had planned.

Customer quilt

This quilt went home today, so I can now share it. It was one that made me think. I didn't get to talk it over in person with the owner, but she had sent me a clear set of instructions. I like that, even though it is also a bit scary as it shows they have quite good ideas of what they want.

The backing is a lovely satin sheet, and the customer mentioned she would like this quilt to be reversible. That didn't bother me too much as I often think that quilts could be reversible even if that wasn't the idea.

She was also looking for a pattern that was organic, and not too modern.

The first two pictures show you the back of the quilt as I eventually did it, but this wasn't any of the first ideas I had.

My initial idea after reading the instructions was to put feathers all over the quilt. That would give a nice organic look to the quilt, and would be fine as a wholecloth on the back. Then I looked more at the front of the quilt. That pattern is a lot of work, could I really put an all over pattern on it. I concluded this wasn't a quilt I could work on without more information so I called the owner and talked about it.

A lot of the credit for the end result has to go to my customer. She picked up that I wasn't quite happy with the idea of the all over pattern. We were both happy it would have been OK, maybe good, but was it the right answer. She sent me off with freedom to talk to the quilt again and come up with something that would really set off the piecing.

We are both pleased with the result. The pictures don't pick up all the texture the quilt has. It has a range of different fabrics, and now it also has very defined raised areas. Of course I couldn't see the back until took the quilt off the frame. I had been a bit worried that the points where the quilting lines met wouldn't look right but it did come out fine. The thread on the back is a slightly darker shade than the fabric which means it does show up quite strongly, which is why I was concerned. If it worked I felt it would give a better wholecloth, but of course if it went wrong it was going to be very obvious. Yes those little feathers did take a very long time.

Wow, that worked

OK, so I guess that is how you do it, you tell people there is a deadline and they contact you :) So the lucky winners were, Rafael's Mum, Sally Westcott, and Joyce. I hope they will all have fun watching the shows. There are usually a few free shows you can have a look at at The Quilt Show if you are interested. I am often surprised by how much I learn from the shows.

In other news, today was the first day of term, which is always unreasonably tiring. It was fun to get back to it though. My students had kindly saved plenty of questions for me over the holiday. That's kinda exciting as the questions are getting more interesting every year and their progress is much clearer when you haven't seen them for a while.

Now I've had a chance to sit I have both quilting and unquilting to be getting on with.

Winners have been picked

From past experience this is now the tricky bit of giving things away on a blog. I've sent out the emails and I will wait for replies. If I don't hear by the end of the week I will pick again on the grounds that the address I've got hasn't worked. Once I have managed to get in touch with three people I will let everyone know who got the gift vouchers.

Two posts in a day - am I ill

No but my shoulders ache so I am taking a break. I was pointed in the direction of this blog post. It has a great picture of what happens to a sewing machine needle after a few hours of sewing. Take a look, this is why I press students into changing their needles, I am really not on commission from any of the needle companies :)

The Quilt Show - Yvonne Porcella

I've finally had time to watch The Quilt Show Legend episode for 2010. The name Yvonne Porcella didn't ring any bells so I hadn't been desperate to see it. As the show started I was a bit disappointed, I've really loved the other years legends. The problem was most of the quilt just didn't talk to me. However, as the show went on I did get more into it. She is just great. Sorry but I can't see me ever loving her work (except the one in the Smithsonian) but her attitude and the things she has done really appeal. She has done her thing her way and been recognised outside of the quilting world. I find it interesting that the least promising show (for me) has turned out to be the most inspiring one too. I wasn't too interested in the techniques, but still came away with some things to try and I've learned a lot about how I want to move forward. You never know where the next good idea is coming from.

If you are not already a star member of the Quilt Show and would like to try it, I got a couple of gift certificates free when I renewed. If you would like one leave a comment and I will pick some people to gift them to.

Holiday project off the frame

I decided to take a bit of a holiday this year. Of course I wasn't going to stop quilting, that's not fun, but I did do unpaid work and I've tried to stay off the computer. I'm not sure why work I don't bill isn't work but that's how my head sees it so it works for me. The quilt is a sample for a new pattern. The top was made for me a while ago and has been waiting for me to have time to quilt it. I have now accepted I will never have time so must just fit things in as I can. I won't post the whole quilt until the patter is printed but these pictures give you an idea of the quilting. I felt it took a surprisingly long time but I guess it is quite densely quilted.

For the first time I decided to count how many bobbins of thread I used. I wondered after reading another quilters updates. She recently uced over 70 on a quilt a little bigger than this one. That sounded like a lot to me, but I had no real idea how many. Well I used 19 bobbins, prewound masterpiece. Bear in mind I think this quilt has quite a lot of quilting. The one the other quilter did may have had 1.5 times the area of mine but even so she has done twice as much quilting! That really is a lot.

Sewing and snow.

Well I know a lot of people don't like this weather but I love it. Especially [as we had to go shopping today. I was not looking forward to the crowds. The snow solved my problem, Watford has been busy, but more like a summer weekday than a Chrismas weekend. A massive improvement. All the present shopping is now done and we are slowly making our way home.

I've been quiet the last week as I've been quilting as much as possible. I've got 9 done despite my machine having a strop. There was a bright side to even that. i got chatting to a new friend who turned out to be an APQS service engineer, and a very nice lady. I still have a lot of quilts to do but I can move in the house now. The quilt in the picture belongs to one of my students. I like her quilts as they as well behaved, but this one had quite challenging instructions. There were areas I had to avoid. That left me with some very odd shapes to quilt. The back shows quite clearly what I came up with. We were both pleased with the result.

Pretty winter scenes

And cheap DVD are what keep me going. The tree isn't snowy, it's just a very heavy frost. I toook the picture about 3pm. The sunset I saw at Toddington services. I think it was a bit too cold for my phone but hopefully you get the idea. It really was very pretty. Now I am sitting in a car park waiting for the quilters to arrive. I made decent time despite accidents and heavy traffic. Fortunately I didn't bring the van as the car park has a height restriction on it. It does mean there isn't much I can do except blog and watch a movie.

Can you tell what it is yet?

This was my Thursday afternoon project. Lots of cutting. Hopefully this week I will get a fair amount of it sewn. It is my second sample of speed 5. It is rare for me to have them ready this early in the year but this one has really grabbed me. I can see so many possibilities for it.

I have been working steadily on customer quilts and finally decided that if I am going to be getting this much work I have to have more storage space (20 quilts take up a lot of space) so today I rented a bigger storage unit. To give the business more room we are going to evict more furniture. Sofas take up a lot of room but don't add much so they have to leave.

Saturday I had a great class. I was teaching machine quilting, which I love so it's likely to be a good day. I got really lucky this time and got a whole class of students who really took to it and allowed me to cover far more than I usually get through. I'm still grinning and I hope the students are too as it will mean they are more relaxed and will quilt better. Keep in touch ladies, I want to see where you got from here.

Speed 4 and a tidy store room

Last things first one of my students from last weeks speed quilt class brought her finished quilt in today. The pictures show the front and the back or the quilt. It's come out well hasn't it? The other picture shows the shelves in my storage room. I went fabric shopping at the weekend and to make space for the new fabric I had to tidy up. I have had to evict some of my wadding to the storage unit but now I can get to my fabric. I love the way shelves full of fabric look.

Monday the weather held off enough for me to get to my next frame quilting lesson. Two more ladies have discovered the joy of freehand quilting. I love spreading the fun of quilting.

Darn and other words

There is something in the air and my computer has caught it. My main desktop machine has developed an interesting and very annoying fault, probably hardware but it's going to take us a while to find it and get it fixed. I haven't lost any data as that is all on the server, but I am stuck with trying to use the laptop for everything. I will be very slow with email and everything computer related until we have my machine up and running so if you have an urgent request please please call me. My number is on my pencils and my website.

I guess this gives me a good excuse to work on my next speed 5 quilt though. I made the first one on Thursday and I am really very pleased with it. I had been wondering when I could get to it's big brother and it seems the answer is now.

I am aware I have a few people waiting for things via email and I will get to them as soon as I can.

UPDATE - looks like a dead machine. I was hoping it was just the memory, but no such luck. Also internet access is being quite variable too. Yay, watch my universe fall apart.

What year is it?

I'll admit I've been busy, and yes keeping track of the day of the week can be a challenge to me. I will even admit to getting the year confused when it first changes, but right now I am fairly sure it is 2010. This was part of my change this evening. It is one of the new olympic coins. I always look at my coins to see if I've got an interesting one, or a really new one. This is the first time I've ever had next years though. Anyone know if the Royal Mint have actually released next years coins already?

Speed quilts

Here are some of today's motley bunch. We had a day workshop at Patchwork Corner of speed quilts. The students can choose any of the speed quilts to work on and today we had someone working on each of the four patterns I have made so far. Unfortunately we had several students who couldn't make the class and one who had to leave early, but as you can see a good amount of work got done. Hopefully all these quilts will be done soon, as many of them will be heading to know homes very soon.

Jersey

I'm now on the train heading for London so I've had time to look through my pictures. These are the ones I think will come out OK withouit editing. Bear in mind they were taken and viewed on my phone so they may be out of focus. I arrived in Jersey 7.10pm on Friday and landed in the dark. It was a very cool approach. We came in over a sandy beach and suddenly found a runway. One moment you are a long way off the ground then the runway suddenly comes up to meet you, it's on a cliff. It was fun to be met by someone with one of those boards with my name on it but being dark I didn't get to see much as I was driven to my hotel.

Next morning it was an early start to get to the hall for the first workshop, Speed Quilts. The class went well but by the time it was over the sun was setting. Undetered we took a very scenic route back to me hotel. Wow! Lots of little lanes, bays, cliffs and a great sunset. When I get to go back I will have to take a proper camera there is so much quilt potential. For the evening I was taken to dinner at a good and generous Italian restaurant then on to a little country pub. I wonder what the regulars made of our impromptu quilting lesson on the scores blackboard.

Tonight on the way to the airport tonight after class I got another quick tour of a different part of the island. I'm sorry I will have to rely on the natives to comment and tell me what I have pictures of the names were coming too thick and fast for me. We did drive around to the bay under the runway, and it really is magnificent. I had dinner next to a light house and a radio tower which you can stay in. Despite the restaurant being shut we had a good dinner, huge portions of scampi and chips. The island seems to be a very generous place and in general places want you to feel welcome. The hotel staff were very much that way and worked hard to make the guests as happy as possible. I feel very lucky to have a job that takes me to places like this and lets me work with such keen and friendly people. The only problem is I have laughed so much this weekend my throat is sore.

I hope you all get your quilts finished. Don't forget to send me the pictures.

Art quilts by numbers - Jersey

I am now sitting in Jersey airport waiting for my flight home. I'm looking forward to getting home, but I'm sad to be leaving it's been a great weekend, and I would love to spend some time exploring the island. I just wanted to share some of the quilts made in todays workshop. I think they are all coming along well. Hopefully I will get to share pictures of them finished before too long. I'll share some pictures of the island when I get home as I need to go to my gate now.

So far the magic is working

It confuses people when you say you don't know where you are staying or working, but it seems to be working out OK. I met a cool young couple on the plane. She has just got interested in patchwork so we got talking. I hope she will have a lot of fun with patchwork. While I was collecting my bag I got talking to another lady. I guess it's to be expected in the Phoenix coat. Turned out her friend was talking to my lift ;) I suppose that happens a lot with a smaller population.

The service here is exceptional. The staff just can't do enough for you. I've been really impressed with the lass in the bar. The receptionist told me there was a cocktail bar so after dinner I headed in to try it. Unfortunately they are out of stock of many drinks, and there was already another pair in there asking for cocktails. The poor Iolanda is working her socks off, and actually doing a great job. She has just supplied me with peanuts, and I don't want salt in my keyboard so I am going to stop typing.

Gatwick - a cunning plan

It never fails to amaze me how long travel takes, but that is how it is. I've learned that I not only don't like to be late I don't like to be rushed, so I work out how long I need and add some. Today that meant no lunch, but I figured I would have lots of time to eat at the airport. Mostly that worked. Security did take longer than I expected but I still had time to eat. I al;so know that cheap or good food is not an option but I can usually find something. By the time I was looking for crisps in WHSmiths I knew it was bad. Then I spotted their sandwiches, could I finally get lucky? What could go wrong with tuna and cucumber? Opening the pack and finding an odd smell, which I couldn't place till I took a bite, onion. I think the sandwich would be more accurately described and cucumber and onion, there is very little evidence of tuna. I hope the hotel is still serving food when I arrive.

I'd better get to the gate and find my plane. It seems nearly every flight is struggling to board because of late passengers. I don't want to be the next one.

She's home!

Just a quicky as I am trying to get ready to fly to Jersey. Nude with Rope made it home this morning. I had to share the news as I know a lot of you have been sending me good luck to get her back. She also had my judging sheets for both quilts. In brief, my design and colours are good, but my stitches, tension, accuracy and bindings need work.

Quilting retreat in France

I have been booked to teach in the South West of France next September. It is the 11-17th September and we will be making wholecloth quilts. I think it will be a lot of fun as I already know some of the students who will be there. There are only 8 places so if you are interested you probably want to book sooner rather than later. It is run by www.horsdesbrumes.com. Hope to see you there.

Prepared?

I'm worried, I think I have things prepared for tomorrow. That can only mean I've forgotten something. Probably something really big and important. Oh well, maybe it will come to me soon.

Yesterday was a fun day. I was giving a private lesson to a lady who has just got a frame quilting system. She has a Husqvarna megaquilter on an inspira frame. They are a giggle. The men who put it up for her decided they might as well put it up full length to save effort later so she has 10' to play with too. We spent the whole day playing, I mean working very very hard, oh yes. I think I managed to pass on lots of my bad habits and teach her some of the tricks I have picked up. I also think she is hooked. I can't tell you how great it feels to help someone else find the joy of stand up quilting. It's just magic.

Today I finally managed to get hold of customs, and I hope sort out the last of the issues with my quilts coming home. If all goes well Nude with Rope should be released soon and back with me. I can't wait. I'm getting used to having Bad Rain as my backdrop when I do a talk but so many people want to see Nude with Rope I hate not having her with me.

After another trip to the dentist, it's what I do these days if I haven't got a booking to be elsewhwere, I came in and got some more writing and typesetting done. There are a few ladies working through what will be my fourth book, another sampler quilt and I've got their next sections printed ready for tomorrow and Thursday. I also have the next section of my first mystery quilt ready to go. I am amazed at how much more work a mystery quilt takes compared to any other pattern. It is fun though. Especially as tet has already done it to test it out so we can debate which pieces to give the students at each stage. I hope that all the testing will produce better patterns or at least ones with non critical errors.

Sprat and Winkle

Today I can share some pictures with you from yesterdays workshop for Sprat and Winkle quilt group. You know those days when before lunch you wonder if anyone should have got up? Well it was one of those. Fortunately the group, regulars and visitors alike had a great sense of humour.

I feel that any day that starts with getting up early is already going wrong and yes for me 7am is early, too early. It wasn't good to be greeted by rain and very poor visibility for a long motorway drive, but a booking is a book so you do your best. I remembered to by fuel and headed off.

The first stage of the journey took a lot longer than I expected so I decided to skip my coffee stop and just head on. Of course from there on I made great time so I arrived at the hall about an hour early. It was lucky I had been there before as the sat nav was quite a distance out. Oh well, time to have a nap and read a bit.

The class was due to start at 10, but by 9.30 no one had arrived. I guess I am just used to groups who like to be early, there was still plenty of time to get set up. 9.40 I did start to wonder and phoned a frined. Just as well, I was at the wrong hall. While she didn't have the address of where I needed to be she did give me great directions and 10 minutes later I was at the right hall.

I like to be early I get flustered when I am tight on time, but very quickly I realised I wasn't the only one having one of those days. People kept heading back out of the hall looking for things. Legs, feet, leads, leaves and whole sewing kits had gone walk about. Very strange. On the birght side the kitchen was fully functional and tea, coffee, hot chocolate! and cake were very quickly suppled.

In the housekeeping section I thought I would mention what to do in the event of fire or sewing through your finger, and I did ask people to be extra careful as we seemed to be having one of those days. Initially the workshop went well. We manged to find enough equipment to get everyone started at the same place and the same time amd nearly everyone gave free motion quilting a go. Unfortunately I turned out to be right, it was that sort of a day and a lady did manage to sew through her finger. Of course that isn't normally a big problem, but as you might expect for this tale, the needle broke. Still not a huge problem with a calm patient and several practical and medical people aroud. Until we noticed it had managed to go right the way through. One for the professionals, but the closest A&E was closed so off she went to the next closest, thanks to her husband who came and picked her up leaving the reast of the class to carry on.

The number of strange incidents we had was just crazy, I'm used to broken needles and grubby irons but the sewing the machine foot to the work was a new on me. Machines did random things and had all manner of tantrums. Somehow everyone managed to laugh at their problems and the quilts came on well. The student who had the day trip to hospital did make it back for the rest of the class and the one who threatened to die trying something didn't.

To round off the day I managed to over charge one student twice. Once is pretty poor, but twice? Fortunately she told me and we did eventually get it all sorted out. However, my next stop after the class was to return another customers money, I overcharged her last time I was in the area. I think I will have to claim it is somthing in the land there that makes everything a little strange, but while this might sound like a bit of a disaster, it was actually quite fun and a lot of work was achieved. Next time I am there I will make sure I go well prepared for any eventuality.

Tomorrow is a private frame quitling lesson. I'm hoping it will be somewhat less eventful.

Art Quilts by Numbers

If you are now regretting missing the class this week at Patchwork Corner, you're in luck. As well as the class in Jersey in a couple of weeks I am also teaching it at the Nimble Thimble. I've just cheacked and there are still a couple of places. I even have a few kits on hand for those who haven't got time to find the fabrics. So stop regretting and come and play. Contact the shop, or group directly for bookings.

Rhapsody update

It's been a while since I last showed you this quilt. I didn't work on it over summer thinking that I would get back to it in class. However this term my classes have been full and quite demanding so I wasn't able to work on the quilt. When I was looking after the shop last Thursday I decided it was time to get it out again. As you can see it's getting quit large. I am finding it easier and quicker as I go along. I am already thinking about the next one.

Saturdays class

I managed to catch pictures of several of my students work on Saturday, and I just had to share. I was teaching Art Quilts by Numbers at Patchwork Corner, to one of my most geographically diverse groups yet. It was fun having some new faces and watching them explore the techniques, shop, and cakes. The pictures are all of unfinished pieces, but you can see they were all coming along well. One of the roses is showing the quilting really well. Once it has been rinsed the quilting will sink in so it's nice to be able to appreciate the work that has been done.

As you may have gathered I've been busy recently but not on anything really blogable. I am trying to do some work on my projects, but I have a lot of customer work I need to finish for Christmas. Hopefully I will get that done sooner rather than later.