Current insanity

This may be one of those seemed like a good idea at the time type projects. In fact the time it seemed like a good idea might have only been the bit before I started but who knows, it may get better. There are some good points to this project, the main one being it is smaller than the one I really wanted to make. With the amount of work involved that could be claimed as a sure sign of good sense except the only reason it isn't bigger is that I couldn't find a bigger piece of fabric that would work with the idea. This is also the second take, I've already had to unpick once. Boy am I glad I found the video on skinning a quilt. It was a lot easier than any other method I've found.

I am also very pleased to be trying this idea. It is hard work and I am having to learn new skills, but it is so much better than just sitting thinking about it. It will be interesting to see how much I improve over the course of the project. I am hoping when I need to quilt the focal points I will have improved enough to make a good job of them. I have at least learned one thing I don't like so won't repeat somewhere more prominent. Now I guess I should go and do a bit more quilting on it. Tomorrow I won't get much quilting done as I will be teaching 10 others to do it down in Putney. I am sure we will have a lot of fun, and I will get to rest my shoulders.

Pretty goodies

Here are the goodies I was talking about. Calendars, notebooks and mugs. The calendars have a different quilt for each month. I tried to get in lots of my new quilts and kept a few old favourites. The mug has nude with rope on it, going most of the way around the mug. If you want to orde any of these items please ues the contact me link to the right.

My article in Down Under Quilts has come out, and seemed to have been well received. It is available not only as a traditional magazine but also as a digital subscription. I haven't been a fan of digital magazines, but they have managed to get the feel of looking a magazine. You can flip pages and look closer easily. It's a fun magazine well worth a look. I am out and about at the moment so can't supply a link but if you search for the title, Down Under Quilts, you will find it.

Banks, and goodies.

Hmm, I feel I have to post about banks given the amount of time and energy they suck from me, but I'm not sure if I should be praising or cursing mine at the moment. My bank account has been a catalog of errors, culminating in me being totally locked out of my account on the 1st December. That's pretty bad right. I was given a few possible solutions, none of which were likely to work, but today I went into the bank to try and sort it out. The first person I spoke to remembered me from my last visit (trying to fix a different and still unresolved set of problems) and correctly identified this had gone beyond anything she could fix and need to be handed over to a manager. Which she did as quickly as she could. He was helpful and fixed most of my problems, some we decided to leave as fixing them would cause more issues, some he can't fix, as the bank doesn't allow him to. Overall I now have a working bank account again, some services that have never worked now will, and I can get at my money. On the other hand, it has taken up a lot of time to get back to just mostly working. Hence my dilemma, good or bad?

On the other hand I was very late getting to the bank as every time I tried to leave the house I got another book order in. From that point of view it has been an amazing day. Other than it being a far better use of my time to post lots of books at once (at the great self service machine) it's lovely to know so many people want to buy my book. I am definitely making a dent in the book mountain. Thank you all for the orders and please do send me pictures of your finished quilts I would love to see what you do with the ideas.

I will also be trying to add some new merchandise to my web site this weekend. I have mugs with 'Nude with Rope' on them for eight pounds each, wall calendars, and desk calendars eight and five pounds respectively with a picture of a different quilt every month and A5 notebooks with my blue nude on them. They have been selling to quickly for me to get pictures of them, but more arrived this morning so I should manage to get some pictures before they all head off again. Finally, for those who like my pencils, I will be adding those for sale too, at 10p each. If you are ordering anything else, put a note on that you would like a pencil or two and I will put them in for free.

Now I think it is time to do some quilting. Starting your day at 5.30pm is a bit sad really isn't it.

Quilt on the frame

This is what is currently on the frame. It is a sample for a pattern I have written, which should be available early next year. I've had the top waiting to quilting for a while and as I needed a breather from demanding quilts I thought I would get it done. After all I need it finished to put on the pattern. I have already quilted one sample of the pattern with feathers in the spots so I wanted something different for this one. I've put a different filler in each colour of spot on the quilt and in the black areas I am making different borders with the quilting. I got about two thirds of the way though yesterday, which was pretty good, but I would like to have if finished for tomorrow lunch time. It's not likely, but I have found someone to do binding or me and it would have been nice to hand it over to her. I guess after the months it has already waited another week isn't going to matter.

The wadding in the quilt is wool, Dream Wool to be precise, which is the wool it the holiday quilt as well. Sorry that took a while to find out. The label was in a safe place and took some extracting.

Road 2 California

I finally gave in and called them. They are usually very prompt with notifications and I was getting really worried that my entries might not have got through even to the jury process (I had some issues getting them submitted). However the entries did make it, and were considered. Two of my three quilts have been accepted for the show. Phoenix Rising and Mother will be going to the show, so I had better sort them out with labels and get them packed up. Bad Rain unfortunately didn't make it. It's a shame I thought it would fit in well there, but they have said that this year they had to reject quilts they would have liked to have had due to time and space restrictions, so I don't think I can feel too hard done by. At least now I can stop worrying about it.

Much quilting

It's been another one of those quilt the world weekends. Two monster quilts are now ready to return home. A third has just resisted me though. The backing isn't big enough. I am glad I checked. It was a quilt I took in during a class and I trust the maker so I didn't check the measurements. The quilt is a king size, so was going to be a tight fit on the backing whatever the case, sadly when the backing was prewashed it shrank enough that it will no longer fit the top at all. Yes it can be fixed, yes I should have checked it. Still right now I feel thwarted by the quilt. I am glad I decided to check the measurements before I started, if not when I took the quilt in.

Now I think I will tackle some of the smaller quilts I have waiting for a change. There seems to have been a run of huge quilts the last few months. Maybe quilters are doing their bit to save energy and reduce global warming. It is much better to have an extra quilt on the bed rather than turning up the heating. Speaking of which, I think it might be time to find the hot water bottle.

Brain itch

Last night my brain started itching, it does that. Something wanted out and I couldn't quite see what. It was a jumble, with the holiday quilt playing a part and star and shading and well stuff. So I tried looking through the books I had been looking at just before and after the Festival of Quilts as all the other stuff seemed to fit that time scale too. There were some ideas, but none wanted to be a quilt yet and none were the problem.

It finally came to me just as I was falling asleep. Oh my it's going to be fun, and mammoth. Tet has spent a lot of today getting it down on paper for me, as it would have been a nightmare to draft by hand and less trouble by machine. Now I am excited, I think it will be a good quilt. I have enough fabric to start it (although the fabric to finish it is only just on it's way) and I can't wait to start. Sadly I still have a couple of customer quilts that need to be quilted before Christmas so I should do them first, but at least I have a plan now. I don't know how long it will take, but I don't think it will be quick. I will be largely keeping this one as a surprise, but it will be a bed quilt, fairly traditional and very me.

Computers!##$%

So my web site is run on our own server in a very good data centre. The staff of said data centre are currently earning their fee trying to find out why some of the racks (including the one with my website in) are not talking to the outside world. Hopefully they will have it fixed pretty promptly. However if they don't we will fail over to the other machine in the other data centre. It's slower but it works. Please bear with us while we give the guys a chance to work. At least I have a back up plan and we can switch over if there is a serious outage. Excessive for a quilting business? Probably but I like my web site to be up :)

Yay, the guys did their job, and quickly. I'm back up and running.

Holiday quilt, off the frame

Here's the monster finally quilted. It's too big to get a good picture of without moving the furniture, and as my class will be here any minute that isn't going to happen. I am really pleased with how it has come out, but I think Tet is perhaps too pleased. Rather than going straight on the bed this will be doing some shows first. Oh well can't win them all. I guess this will be an on going problem, either I do poor quilting on my quilts or I will have to wait to use them. I guess I can live with waiting.

Holiday quilt - quilting

I am feeling well enough to make some progress on quilting my holiday quilt. This is the best picture I managed to get of it. I will try again tomorrow with natural light it might help.

I am using my Aurifil thread for the first time and I am loving it. I have their 50 weight in the bobbin and the 40 in the top. I am testing with a view to using it on art quilts so I wanted to know that the fine threads would work. I had a few glitches to start with but the tension didn't need a lot of adjustment to run really well. I am running it almost flat out a lot of the time with no issues. There is a different colour in each area to make the texture talk louder than the actual stitching, so it is quite hard to see the thread on most of the fabrics.

The wadding in this quilt is actually two waddings. Closer to the backing I have Warm and Natural, a nice dense cotton wadding. It has enough structure to encourage the puff of the top wadding to the front of the quilt and make it look fuller. The wadding closer to the top of the quilt is a wool wadding. I love wool, for it's temperature control and loft, but I don't often put it in quilts for me to use. This is a real treat, and a very useful sample. I've been able to play on this without worrying too much about it. If nothing else it gave me something safe to work on while I have been ill. It's not been the quickest project with so many starts, stops and colour changes, but it's fun.

Ugh

I have made it through my last talk of the year, yay! I've been determined not to get ill and have to cancel any so that worked. However, as soon as I said 'Yay that's it for the year' I got ill. So I have been doing not very much. I loaded my holiday quilt and have played on that (and unpicked then tried again) I know I can't quilt for customers when I am under the weather. I can't be trusted with anything that needs a brain. You should have seen my trying to sort out next terms workshops this afternoon. I couldn't remember the last thing I had said let alone what date we were talking about. However I will hopefully be more on the ball tomorrow and we will get things arranged, then there will be a mass updating of my web site. Having been ill since Saturday night I have high hopes I am on the mend and will be back on form for Saturday.

I have so much I want to blog about but somehow I can't quite get my thoughts together.

Broooooom

So what have I been up to? Mostly driving. Monday night I went to Icknield Quilters with a side trip to Crafty Quilter. I wasn't honestly expecting much, sorry. The photos I had seen looked small, and I like everything BIG. What the pictures don't show you is context. The shop is in a wonderful old mill at Barton-le- Clay. It is one of a whole street of period shops. It's like stepping back in time, just lovely. The shop is small, but the space is very well used and the fabrics well worth the trip. You will find ranges there that no one else has. They also stock Glitter by Superior threads. It you have taken a machine quilting class with me you will have seen it. It is a smooth filiment and runs surprisingly well on a whole range of machines. I haven't checked to see if it is on her web site, but I am sure if you phone (or better yet visit) they will be happy to supply it to you.

Tuesday was a trip in the opposite direction, Gosport. Having lived in Portsmouth for a while and grown up by the sea I was rather looking forward to this one. Hmmm, well. An accident on the M27 at 3pm shouldn't stop me getting to a talk at 7pm should it? No, but it did. I had left over 4 hour to do a 2 hour journey but it took over 5! I can't say it was the best or most organised talk (I am glad I take care to repack in order) but it seemed to go down well. The class the next day was great. A really fun group who were keen to support each other, and an ideal place to observe the 2 minute silence.

Today I am back with my regular trouble makers, the ladies who put together the requirements for the book quilt. I've photographed all the quilts I am returning tonight except for the two that have already gone. I know those will get photographed at some point. Having almost extracted my gaming table, I've taken in more quilts to fill it. Oh well, it's good to have work to do, although I would like to play games too.

Still Alive

Thank you for the concern folks, yes I'm still here. I've just been rushed off my feet. I had a couple of weeks where I was starting to wonder if I still had a house. I do and it still has a longarm in too. On one hand it is good to be so busy on the other I have been missing home cooked food and the chance to do my laundry. When I see an M&S on the way to a talk and think great, clean clothes, something has gone wrong. Still I've had a productive weekend and I am feeling much better.

The washing has been done, food has been cooked and eaten and I even got to do some quilting. It's great seeing the pending pile shrink and the return pile grow. Unsurprisingly, given the time of year several quilts have had a Christmas theme. They tend to need a bit more thought and take a little longer, but they always look so interesting when they are done. I rather like them. At the moment I have one with angels on the frame. The angels have trapunto wings and I am making them more trapuntoed. They are really coming to life and hopefully I will be able to do the last two before I head off for tonights talk. However before then I aslo have to repack the car and go to the storage unit, so I may not get there.

I am almost caught up on email too. I think I am down to 6 left that need replies. I haven't forgotten you I am fitting in repluing whenever I take a break. I think I have replied to more than 20 already since Friday and I will keep at it to clear the rest. I will try and get pictures of some of these quilts before they go back too.

Oh and Popular Patchwork December issue has a pattern of mine in, for journal quilts. It also has a very nice review of my book. My book and several other things are available from my online shop at Ferret Fabrications.

Just a quick one

I am working down the list of things I have to do before I head off to Heather Quilters for tonight's talk but I just had to quickly catch up with everyone here. Newark were great, as expected. Speakers, you really want to go to these groups, they are friendly helpful and well organized, well worth a visit. Just plan to stay a couple of days if you can as there is plenty to see and do in the area.

Thank you very much to my team of helpers, you did a stirling job last night and meant I got home a lot quicker than I had expected, I was back before 1.30 am ! I also avoided doing any more damage to my back a shoulders with is very much appreciated. I didn't manage to try one of the famous black bananas though, so I will have to make a return visit. I did however explain 'shaking the lettuce' and remind a cat how to play, so I feel it was a good value trip. I just wish I had taken some in progress pictures of the leaf quilt. Oh well maybe they will email me some later.

My main reason for posting is I have just found out there are a couple of places left on my class tomorrow. It is the Autumn Leaves class that I was just teaching in Newark and is based on my award winning quilt, 'Golden Storm'. It is being run at the Wandering Line in Purley. This is a new shop that opened about a month ago but it sounds like it is attracting a lot of new people into quilting, which has to be good news for all of us. If you are at a loose end tomorrow and would like to join the class, give them a call on 020 8660 8600.

Now I had better get back to my task list for tonight. Loonking forward to finally meeting Heather Quilters.

Best wishes Lucy.

Run run run

I don't feel like I am getting chance to catch breath at the moment, and mostly it's pretty cool. Over the weekend I was at the MCM expo. It is a movies, comics and manga show, and if you've never been you really cant imagine it. 40,000 people over two days in a hall that really isn't big enough to house them. I could call it organised chaos but to be honest I'm not sure how organized the chaos is. I was there with my Bad Rain quilt which was very well received. I was surprised by who was most interested in it. It wasn't the older ladies, it was the young Indian males. They were very positive and fascinated by how it was put together. It was lovely to be able to bring quilting to a new and enthusiastic group.

I was less than impressed with the Excel center itself and it's staff. There were times when it felt they were trying to make things as difficult as possible fro everyone involved with the event, including the organizers. As one of the traders I had to go back and forth to the car during the day and it is very frustrating when routes suddenly get closed off without warning, or indeed discussion with the organizers. I am very glad there wasn't a need to evacuate the venue, as I think it would have been hard to do. There would have been too many people trying to get out of exits that had been there at one point but were now closed off. I hope the venue will listen to the organizers and sort out these issues before the next MCM.

Today I am trying to get some quilting done while I wait for my car to have it's gearbox oil changed. It's a job that sounds trivial but is actually quite a pain unless you have the right suction tools. So I decided I would get on with what I do best and let someone else deal with the oil. As soon as the car is back I will be heading north to Newark. This is fairly close to a talk a did a little over a month ago and I am looking forward to going back. The people were so friendly there and it's a lovely place. This however will be a pretty quick trip. I will drive up tonight then teach a workshop tomorrow. After the workshop we will change venue and I will do a talk then head home. It will be mad, but fun. I may also get to try a black but barley ripe banana.

Wednesday is another talk, hopefully after some more quilting. This time I will be at Heather Quilters in Camberley, Surrey. I'm looking forward to this talk as well. It was one that should have happened a year ago, but due to a booking error I never got there. Hopefully I can make it worth the wait. Anyway, quilting calls so TTFN.

Do you design in the shower?

I design a lot in the bath, and I know I was recently talking to a lady who designs in the shower. I suggested that children's bath crayons might be useful for taking notes, but I've found a better solution, so if you are that lady (or indeed anyone else who does this and is interested) get in touch and I will pass on the information I have. There is a little something I would like to send to the shower lady so if you know who I am talking about please do let her know I am trying to get in touch.

Levenham - region 8

This was Saturdays talk venue. It's not often that I get the space to hang this many quilts or the chance to take photos, so I made the most of show and tell. It was another scary talk with not only celebrities in the audience, but one of the two best speakers I heard. Intimidating and rather off putting. However it was also great opportunity to talk to lots of new people. I also came home with a couple of new patterns, one for cats and one for elephants. I am even more sure that I won't be making a baltimore quilt. I really like them done by hand and not by machine. I can't see having the time to do it, or find a way that doesn't hurt my shoulder.

I've mostly been working on customer quilts, but I have also been shipping patterns today. The rest of the Turning Twenty patterns have now arrived so I believe that all orders have now shipped. I can't promise when they will arrive, given there is a postal strike due. I hope they will arrive before the strike, but who knows.

Holiday quilt

Does anyone remember this quilt? I bet those that do thought I had forgotten to post the picture of the finished top and possibly the finished quilt but no. I just haven't had a lot of time to work on it. In fact the only time I have had is the odd few minutes waiting for classes, so that's when I've been working on it.

The top is from a kit by Starr designs. It was intended to make a twin size quilt. I don't have a use for a quilt that small so I had to figure out a way to make it bigger. In the kit there was a red fabric for the areas I made black. I knew I couldn't match it and that it was the obvious fabric to use to extend the quilt so I changed it for one I had a lot of. The black is a batik not a true solid which I thought would be more sympathetic to the dand dyes. The internal strips are wider than the original and the outer borders are much bigger. I was able to get the narrow rainbow border out of the offcuts from the blocks, which broke up the outer border nicely. Had I not been able to do that I would have used the supplies red fabric to do the same job, as a border big enough to get the quilt the size I needed would have been out of proportion to the rest of the quilt.

I suspect I won't have time to quilt it until Christmas, I've got too much customer work to do. When I do get to work on it I have lots of Aurifil thread to play with on it. I thought it would be good to have a really nicely quilted quilt for my bed for a change. When it's done I might bind it with the red fabric, or use the red for piping. I'll just have to wait and see what feels right.

Patterns, patterns everywhere.

The first batch of Turning Twenty patterns have arrived, and all the orders for book 2 have been shipped today. The other books haven't arrived yet so won't go out until next week. Unless they arrive tomorrow they will go out after the postal strike, so hopefully they won't get caught up in the backlog. Assuming of course the strike is still planned, I can't find anything about it. I also now have a few copies of the new Turning Twenty pattern. It is called Slapplique, and will be on the site as soon as we can get it on. If you want to order it before then just drop me an email.

I've also just finished writing up not one but two journal quilts. I had a lot of fun with them and I may well make a series of them based on these two. Of course that does rely on me getting a few more hours in a day. Finally if you are near Lavenham in Suffolk this weekend you might like to come along to the Quilters Guild region 8 event. It is being held at Lavenham village hall, and if you need more information about it, get in touch with me and I will either be able to answer your questions or give you contact details fro someone who can.

Chester

Finally time to share my pictures from the weekend. Frodsham is near Chester which is where the pictures are from. I have to admit it wasn't a place I was familiar with, but now I am I want to go back and have a better poke around. It is a Roman walled city, with am amazing amount of wall left. It also has these fantastic shopping streets, with two shopping levels. I had a chance to see some of the under crofts below the shops, but as they are now businesses in their own rights I couldn't get pictures of them. We also had time to walk about a quarter of the city wall and see the remains of the amphitheater. The amphitheater must have been very impressive, to say nothing of imposing. You can only see a section of it, but the angle of the curve makes it very clear how huge it was.

I'd like to go back to the area to go up the hill between the two places. Apparently (and I can well believe it) there is a great view from the top. Sadly this trip I had to head back straight after the workshop, but now I know how lovely the area is I know to try and extend the next trip.

I felt the workshop went very well on the Sunday. We were working on 'Fur, feather and scale' and everyone left with three good samples and seemed pretty confident they could continue with the techniques in other projects. I hope they will share what they come up with as some sounded really interesting. However I think the big success of the day for me was getting another person hooked on free motion quilting, it might not have been the main point of the class but it's always good when someone else finds they can do something they didn't think they could. Thank you all for making it a great weekend. See you at the AGM in March.