V&A quilt exhibition

I think I mentioned that I was planning on going to see the Quilt exhibition at the V&A in London. I was invited to the press preview along with many other bloggers, but I was working so I had to pass on that invitation. Fortunately I have  client who was prepared to take me along on her membership. Having seen the coverage in the press I wasn't expecting much from it. I felt that the coverage implied quilting was a dead skill that needed to be recreated. It just isn't true, we could do with more quilters especially more who want to find new ways of using it, but there have always been quilters in the UK. 

There was also a lot of press coverage for modern quilts in the show. Sadly not quilts from quilters. I was aware there would be at least two modern quilts that I would like but for a large high profile exhibition I was hoping for more. There are so many very talented quiltmakers here and I would love their work to be brought to a wider audience. Maybe that has made me less accepting of this show. There are so few chances for the general public to see quilts I desperately wanted this exhibition to show everyone how amazing quilting is. Unrealistic? Certainly.

Although we got to the show quite early in the morning it was already very busy. The first few exhibits were very crowded, fortunately the busiest didn't really grab me. I did love the patchwork bed hangings, which were right by the entrance but attracting a lot less  attraction than the very early cot quilt. The wall hanging was the start of a theme for me. These hangings were made entirely of scallop shapes. This is a shape I love but I know I won't be using it in a quilt. To use well it is a very time consuming shape. Of course a lot of the people who were making quilts had time, and lots of it. The soldiers were often doing while in hospital, and weathier ladies would have been almost trapped in their homes. They may not have had a lot of materials wot work with but they made up for it in time and imaginnation.

I did very much enjoy the older exhibits. I love the irregularity of a lot of them. I think it enhances the patterns. I did come away with a lot of ideas from these quilts. Again I saw a lot of quilting patterns that I use being stitched by hand on these older quilts. We even found a great patern for using up the very small pieces that Lisa has.

Of the new quilts I was really looking forward to Sara Impey's new piece. It delivered exactly as I was hoping. I was also looking forward to the quilt from Fine Cell Work, a prison craft group. My goodness do they live up to their name. The workmanship is fantastic. I really admire what they achieve. Like the older quilts I see the application of time. Much like the wealthy ladies, they have time to fill. I would rather see them achieving something than wasting the time. I hope the prisoners involved also find it helpful, if only to give them a skill they can succeed at.

The photographs are from the cafe. The building is amazing, although when you walk in to the cafe you would never guess these rooms were hiding just around the corner. I had only taken my phone so the pictures aren't great, but they give you some idea of the beauty of the room. I will try and get back and take some good pictures at some point.

Overall I found the exhibition to be a lot better than I had feared. I still feel the exhibition in Bath was more to my taste, but there were a good number of interesting historical quilts at the V&A. I was quite disapointed with the book of the exhibition though. Several of the quilts I really wanted pictures of are only shown in the book as a close up. I would rather have a full picture of every quilt with close ups of some of them. They did have a lovely book of the quilts from the Beamish collection so I did manage to get some retail therapy. I guess I now need to go and visit them next.

Classes, classes and yet more classes

I've been meaning to post about classes for a while, and well there seem to be rather a lot I need to tell you now. Firstly I had a great time teaching at Country Threads in Bath. It's a very friendly shop in the center of Bath. It's tucked just down a back street very near the Abbey. I didn't get much chance to look at the Abbey, but it looks very spiky and I suspect well worth a vist. Anyway, the shop doesn't look entirely patchworky when you first see it. The first section has some fabrics but a lot of notions, ribbons, acessories and books. However, if you follow the very cooly curved corridor, you find a whole room of patchworking fabrics hidden away there. I am only sad that I had neither the time nor the space for shopping. I am hoping I will get to go back and spend some time in Bath and the shop. Downstairs is a dedicated workshop with a small kitchen and bathroom.  I love having access to a kettle when I teach, it means the divas among us can bring our berverage of choice and make as much or as little as we like. Although tea drinkers would have been well catered for with the group I had on Friday, I think there was a pot of tea constantly ready to drink. Those students really were tea fueled. I can't recommend driving in Bath at rush hour on a Friday though. I think next time I will try for lesurely shopping, followed by coffee and maybe an early dinner then try leaving. I thought London traffic was bad, Bath has to be a close second.

The next class I need to mention is Art Quilts by Numbers at the Nimble Thimble. There are still some places left on this class on Monday 29th March. This is a fairly new shop in Buckingham, which as well as patchwork and quilting supplies stocks a wide range of knitting and crochet items. There is parking available at the venue and a great fish and chip shop across the road. Of course you can bring sanwiches if you would prefer, but I strongly suspect I will be going to the chippy. If you would like to see the project we will be working on it is here, and the shop can be contacted on 01280 822236.

I would also like to announce an extra regular class at Patchwork Corner. As there is so much demand for weekly classes I will be taking another one on Thursday afternoons. It will run from 1.30pm till 4.30pm. If you are interested in signing up for this class please contact the shop on 01442 259000. I suspect this class will fill quickly so if you are interested leaving a message on the answering machine might not be a bad idea.

Finally, for now, I am looking at the possibility of running some regular classes in Harrow. I have a couple of venues I am investigating and assuming all goes well I will be aiming ot start in September. The class will most likely be help on a Monday evening. If this is something that you would be interested in please do get in touch with your details.

Bussmans holiday - part 2

Wow! Oh wow. Everyone who said I had to come to the American museum was right. It's great. I was very lucky. A new exhibition opened last week, showing a lot of quilts that are not normally on display, this is where I started. Actually that isn't quite right the visit starts before you actually get into the car park. You buy your admission ticket before entering the car park. I found it a bit odd but it makes sense. The grounds are lovely and I am sure the car park would be full if you didn't have to pay up front. I got chatting to the chap in the booth, well what do you expect when you arrive somewhere with a car loaded to the roof. He asked if I was aware of the exhibition at the V&A. When I said I was but expressed concerns about it, he asked me to stop on the way out and let him know how I found this one. Intersting, staff who really care about the museum.Turns out he isn't the exception. That's just the attitude of all the staff. The only other museum that was this friendly and helpful was the agricuture museum in Prague.

To get to the new quilt exhibition you have to first brave the shop. I managed that rather too well, I could see quilts. I then had to go back and buy the book of the exhibition. I wanted to save myself having to draw everything and the book certainly did that. It's nicely produced with lots of closeups. I am very pleased that one of the staff suggested it as it did save me a lot of work. I may try to descripe the quilts later, right now I am still somewhat overwhelmed.

Having to walk through the shop on the way out was a little unfortunate. They had several books I haven't seen before and well they just fell into my hands honest. This meant I had to walk back to the car to drop my bags off before looking around the main house. Turns out that was exactly the right thing to do, I bumped into the gate attendant. I hope I managed to reassure him that I loved the museum. Although I hadn't seen half of it by then.

The main building is a proper museum. You start on the lower floor with a quick overview of American history. There is a farm house that converted to a tavern, complete with sofa bed (well settle with pull out). Just goes to show nothing it new. From there you head up to the top floor. Again you take a walk through time, this time via rooms of houses. Many of these rooms have textile links. There are the tools for preparing and spinning linen in the first room, quilts in most of the otheres. The audio guide was a little slow pased for me, but it was quite good on some of the sewing. The best bit was I could pause it to sketch quilting designs. I was struck both in the main house and in the extra exhibition but how similar my quilting is to traditional patterns. Things I thought I had made up were being used in the 1800's. There really is nothing new.

Eventually you reach the textiles room. People had described thi s to me, but it hadn't really sunk in. There are lots of quilts mounted in frames like you got in postr shops. That I had mostly grasped, but I hadn't realised how close this brings you to the quilts. The quilts are behind a sheet of plastic, but you can still feel the thickness of the binding or the applique. I loved this. There are a wide range of quilts on display in this room and so much to learn from them. They also have their stories where known. One, Fanny' Fan, was silks on black satin in fan shapes with decorative stitching. It's not really my thing but I do like the satin and was surprised how well it had survived. It was made by a Quaker, who wanted to marry someone of another religion. As this wasn't allowed she never married and the quilts stayed in her hope chest. Then it really hit me. I was standing in the midst of all these peoples lives. These quilts must all have stories just as interesting and maybe more so. How fantastic to be so up close and personal with them. There were also some rooms where you were walking on historic rugs again covered with plastic. It adds a lot to the feeling of immersion the museum has worked so hard for.

Anyway, I've finished my cookie (baked on site and very nice) and my drink and the staff are trying to clear up. I should make a move and maybe get to look at the grounds.

Bussmans holiday

Once people find out I am a quilter their first question is often "Have you been tp the museum at Bath?". It has happened so often that I am quite sure I need to and have been getting increasingly embarassed that I haven't. As I am giving a talk in Bath tonight I though I should get here early and see the museums. I say museums plural, as I also wanted to see the fashion museum. I love costume and the older the better.

The drive into Bath is worth doing in it's own right. Winding roads and undulating countryside are my sort of landscape. It was helped that the weather now seems to be moving into spring so everywhere was beautifully lit. The buildinmgs in Bath are also right up my street, solid older buildings made of stone. Perfect. I even got lucky with the parking, just outside the building. The Museum of Fashion is housed in the assembly rooms in Bath. It's a proper venue for a museum, an old building with impressive architecture and when there aren't functions on you can explore the building too.

The fashion exhibits were smaller than I had expected but wonderful none the less. You start at the exibit of clothes of the year. I have to say most of them did nothing for me. The exception being an outfit designed by Jeam Muir. It was one of the oldest in the section, which probably helped. The shape and tailoring were just lovely.

Moving on you get into an exhibit of underwear. They have some fantastic corsets on display, but sadly no postcards of them. From here you head into a history of dresses. From sack back dresses, through very wide skirts, via pelisse and into my favourite Victorian outfits. There were several garment on display here that I really love. One of Queen Victoria's dresses is on display. I was aware that she was short and stout, but it is quite different to actually see her dress. What really struck me though were the pockets. The dress had huge (yes even by my standards) and very prominent patch pockets. I could comfortably fitted everything in my pockets into them, and added everything I would have liked to have had with me. What was stranger, they looked stretched as though they had been used to carry large amounts. I can't see a current monach carrying that much let alone in patch pockets on her skirt. I'd love to know what she did use them for.

I also found several dresses that are in a similar style to one I have planned for the fashion show. I have meen very careful so say mine is 'victorian stlye' or inspired by victorian ouitfits, but actually it is going to be a lot more authentic than I thought. I had no idea they had decorated their skirt quite like that. I also realised that I am far too conservative to be victorian. Their fabrics and decoration were far more elaborate than most things I do. I was admiring the museums decision to show these gowns in quite low light levels. As well as protecting the cloth I would have thought the very orange lighting would have given a reasonable idea of what these dressed would have looked like in a room with fire based lighting. I was very disapointed when I found the sign apologising for the poor lighting, a fault they were trying to correct!

All in a a small but perfectly formed museum. Well worth a visit if you are in the area. For more information go to, www.museumofcostume.co.uk

In car organization

Here is a picture of my drawer unit in situ. The tray on top is the one from the really useful box company. It is held in place with heavy duty stick on velcro. The top drawer is all paperwork and art supplies, the second drawer has munchies and drinks and then the bottom drawer is all the boring stuff I need. Cables and tissues, hairbrush that sort of thing. As you can see it keeps everything contained and tidy. I am really pleased with it.

Order and chaos

In the winter I spend more time than most in my car traveling to teach. The rest of the year I practically live in my car. I don't mind that but it has given me some intersting problems to solve. The simplest was the issue of finding small village halls down unlit roads in the middle of nowhere. I had already worked out ways of keeping maps and directions where I could see them, but without light that doesn't really help much. No problem, a sat nav can usually get me that last few miles and provides light when it gets it wrong.

Slightly harder was finging a way to keep frequently needed things to hand in a full car. The really useful box company helped me with that one. i have one of their deep organiser trays which works great and fits on the passenger seat.

Thee biggest problem though has been the general clutter that was collecting in the car and particularly all the things that can roll around. Cans of drink are the worst. I hate paying motorway prices but even more than that i dislike the cans developing holes and spraying their content everywhere. I've been looking at official car tidies for a while but none of them will work for my situation. Most are designed to either fit on the back or a seat or in the boot. Both areas that are full when I go to a talk. I really wanted something for the front passenger seat thjat could live on the back seat the rest of the time. The few things that fitted the bill were very expensive. I was finally inspired by a steamer trunk. Yes one of the huge traveling wardrome and drawer things. Obviously they are too big but a smaller set of drawers would be perfect. Twenty pounds later I have a perfectly sized three drawer unit. The best bit is there is room to have a drawer for my traveling design tools. When I am waiting to do a talk I like to use the time productively and as I design on paper it is the perfect take anywhere job. It's also rather nice having a tidy car again.

Too funny

Tet lost his camera easlier this week. We were pretty sure he must have lost it at a concert but we still had a good look for it. It was odd because he is pretty reliable about where he puts his camera (unlike me) and we both searech his desk as that is where it lives. We had given up hope of finding it and started looking for insurance details.

This evening when we got home the camera was visible on the desk! Strange huh. I guess we both failed to look properly. I joked that the cats must have stolen it to take pictures of each other. They have been caught stealing other things, making phone calls and bidding on ebay so it wasn't that unfair. Tet replies that we would have the evidence were that the case. I felt sure that cats would have uploaded and then deleted the images from the camera, but no I was wrong.Last few photos on the camera were all of my cats in daft poses. Well who would have thought it? Next time it goes missing I will ask the cats first.

Busy quilters and stitchers

I found out where I was speaking, Bedfordshire. The group was 'Busy quilters and stitchers' who meet in a school with a good size hall. Before the talk I not only had to get the quilts from the storage unit but also spent an hour pushing cars. One was leaving home after several years to start a new life. Oddly, for me, it felt really good seeing it loaded onto a trailer and driven away. However to get to that point there was a lot of shuffling to do. Pushing cars on mud and wet grass isn't much fun at the best of times but when their brakes have siezed it's really nasty, especially at 7am. Still we got it done and made it to the talk. Having, pushed, loaded, unloaded and reloaded I am now exhausted with very sore wrists. At least I can have a break in the car while Tet drives us home.

Edit - turns out that we need to make a long journey tomorrow so rather than leaving everything in the car ready for Thursday we had the chance to unload the car again. Woop :( It also means we get to reload it soon too. This quilting lark involves an awful lot of lifting and carrying.

I have been quilting honest!

I suspect most regular readers have worked out that when i am quiet here it doesn't mean nothing is happening. On the contary it usually means I am insanely busy. This is the third quilt I've had on the frame this week. A friend designed and made the top and I am quilting it as a group entry to the Festival of quilts. It's been waiting quite a while because I didn't know what to quilt on it. This design came to me one night driving home from a talk. I am pleased with it but it is taking longer than I might have hoped. I guess the combination of a new pattern and a dense pattern will have an effect.

Tomorrow is another talk. I can't for the life of me remember where right now and as I am in the car I can't check. If you are interested in this one or just where I will be in general there is a calander on my main web site www.ferfab.co.uk.

Ice for sale

I don't know how many of you read Popular Patchwork, but the December issue had a journal quilt project in it that I wrote. Rather than have a couple of small quilts hanging around I thought it would be nice if they went out into the world to help people. Fire has already been auctioned by Ami Simms to raise money for alzheimer's research. Ice is now up for sale. If  you would like to buy a little quilt and help a great cause here's you chance.

Any drycleaners?

Does anyone in or near London know a really good dry cleaner? I went out to dinner last nght and the waiter managed to spill white chocolate sauce on my leather jacket. I got some off but the rest is going to need proffessional attention.

Learning from experience

Over time I've learned that some quilts are trouble, and I can usually spot them when I meet with the cutomer. However some of them I take on anyway. It might seem like this would mean I wouldn't take them on, but actually I often do them. I do charge more for quilts I know are going to be difficult to cover the extra time and hassle, but quite often there is a good reason I am being asked to do them. I do now tell the customer when I taake the quilt in how much trouble I think the project will cause and why this might produce a result less good than I would like. It may not be what the customer wants to hear but I would rather they know in advance what to expect.

The quilt on the frame at the moment is one of these projects. I wouldn't have worked with the front, back or wadding from choice, but it's needed so I am giving it a go. It isn't sewing up too badly either. It is causing way more trouble that I expected. It seems like my machine just doesn't want to do this one. Actually that isn't fair, it't the frame that is having a bad day. It just doesn't want to keep tension on this quilt. I could live with that, I was living with it, then the frame had a big strop. Nuts bollts and craching are not good. I caught everything, which was good, for everything except my muscles. I've been out and bought more nuts and now have everything back together and ready to go.  Why is it that these things are much more likely to happen on quilts that are already trouble? I don't get it. I have quilts that I just know will work, and they do. I am starting to wonder if it is partly my mental state. When I know I have a difficult day ahead do I do something that makes the frame shed it's nuts, the machine chew needles and the thread become fragile? Also if it is me, how do I turn it off?

As you may have gathered from the lack of posting. I've been working pretty much flat out the last few days. I've had another great machine quilting class, which I love teaching. Lots of customer quilts have been heading home, and I've been tidying up a few future bookings. I am thrilled to say some bookings are leaving more information. I've had emails and phone messages recently which I could reply to without having to first try and work out which booking I am talking about. You can't know how much I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

How long does it take to drive 30 miles?

That would depend on which 30 miles wouldn't it. In the case of trying to drive from Harrow to Beckenham diagonally across London it's about 3 hours. That's with leaving early enough to miss rush hour and the schoolrun at my end. Fortunately I know London and had allowed more than that, so tonights talk will be on time.

I am getting an urge to start on another heavily quilted piece. I think that is partly because I have just filled in the forms for Malvern and the wholecloth 'Greek Fossils' is going there. Of course I really need to get the Malvern quilts bound before I start thinking of starting new ones.

Speaking of shows, 'Phoenix Rising' has headed back to America today. I managed to get the worst of the creases out of it, largely by rolling it badly and taking it out in my car. My car tends to be very humid (OK wet) and the combination of that and rolling about seems to have helped a lot. Not a traditional solution I admit, but if it works who cares. Sadly the show who put the creases there doesn't seem to care at all. I can't see me sending any more quilts to Road 2 California. It's bad enough having to ship uninsured quilts but not being able to rely on the venue to look after the quilts is just too much. Hopefully the Lancaster show will be better. Fingers crossed that the quilt arrives safely.

Chelmsford

I've had a note in two diarys that I am supposed to have a booking in Chelmsford on the 8th of April. Having spent the morning on the phone trying to track down any group in that area that might be expecting me. Thank you so much to the various ladies who have helped me with this endevour. However after all our efforts we can't find any group who thinks I should be visiting them so I have removed it from my diary. If you are expecting to see me on April 8th 2010, please do get in touch as soon as possible. I am more than happy to be somewhere, but I need to know where.

I hope I am now fully up to date with paperwork, forms and booking emails. If you haven't heard from me in the next couple of days and were expecting to I would dtrongly suggest phoning me. My number is on my web site. I say leave a couple of day as a lot of forms are going in the post today so will take a little while to arrive.

Having done the boring bit I can get on with the fun part of my job. Quilting. I have a very complex quilt to work on at the moment. Lots of different blocks and applique. Fortunately it is for a regular customer and I've just got to do what I think best, so I will love working on it. There will be a lot of thread and pattern changes thoguh, so it isn't going to be quick.

Yesterday I had my regular book class in Purley. I don't know how I manage it but I seem to attract groups of interesting quilters. This bunch are no exception and teaching them is a lot of fun. They like to keep me on my toes though and try and sneak in interesting design features if I turn my back. They are making good progress and I am really looking forward to seeing the finished quilts. I was especially pleased that the lady who had felt most behind last lesson has done more than I asked as homework and her quilt looks fantastic. She has also made the back of her quilt more interesting by piecing one of the borders. It does lift the whole thing. I suspect she will come up with other neat ideas as she goes on. If anyone else has finished a quilt from my book 'Ferreting Around' please do send me a picture I find it fascinating what people can do with the designs in it. I would also love to have a web gallery of your quilts, but to do that I first need the pictures.

The cat's out of the bag.

Yay, I can finally tell you what I am up to, I am making garments for the international evening at the Festival of Quilts this year. There is a friendly competition between the Brits and the Russians in the form of a fashion show. I am really looking forward to it as it is quite different for me. I've done plenty of quilting and a lot of dress making but never together. It's given me a great excuse to get on with a couple of projects I had been putting off due to a lack of time.

I was very excited to see Sara Impey will be giving a talk there too. It is a 1 hour lecture on Saturday 21st August, at 1pm. She doesn't do a lot of talks so this is a great oportunity. If you haven't heard her talk about her work I highly recomend it, even if you find her quilts a bit similar to each other. I loved the first quilt of hers I saw and got less interested as I saw more, unfortunately this meant I missed a lot. I would spend more time with a new quilt of hers now having heard her speak, but I think the best way to view her quilts is as a group and her talk is probably the best place to do that. Can you tell her talk was one that made a big impression on me :)

The information for the Festival is now availble at the Twisted Thread web site. Booking for the classes doesn't open until March.

One of those days and just what I needed.

I've learned quite a few things today. The sidewall of your tyre blowing out is very load when it happens but not that big a deal at 30 mph. After the tyre has blown driving on the rim isn't as noisy as I would have expected. You can definately hear it, but I could believe for a non car nut with a stereo on they might not notice. I have wondered when I have seen people driving on completely flat tyres.

I was reminded that most men when passing a female with a sick car will shout abuse. However there are a few decent people out there and I am very grateful to the two people who let me use their mobile phones and to the man who leant me a decent wheel brace.

I've aslo learned how frustrating it is when your body lets you down. My knee has been playing up a lot recently and I am finding it very difficult to crouch or kneel. Even harder to get up again. As I couldn't find the key to unlock my wheel covers I didn't manage to get stuck sitting in a puddle next to a broken down car without a mobile phone. I did however get to feel pathetic for not changing my own tyre.I've also found out that my wheel size has become obsolete again. I replaced my 13" rims with 15" rims because no one was making tyres for them. Now they have changed back again to 13". Strange. It also looked like my favourite tyres were no longer available for either size, but after a lot of searching we may have found some, keep your fingers crossed.

I returned a silk wholecloth to a customer today. Which was great. It was a stressful project but I thought it looked great when it was done. Silk dupion over wool wadding, just yummy. I have had plans for a while to make me a two layer silk sleeping bag. This has made me more tempted than ever.

Finally this was just what I needed to hear today. It has been a long and not terribly sucessful day. I love it when a student can take away something useful from a class. I really don't mind what that is,  I do accept that sometimes it will be "this is not for me", but it is nicer when it's something really useful. Even if it wasn't technically what I was teaching :) It also shows it is worth taking your sewing machine instruction book to class with you. Most tutors know a lot of machines but not all of them.

One last lesson, black cycle shorts, always black.

Ricky's quilt made it back.

Ricky has his bag back, complete and intact. He thanks everyone who made a noise about this and made United Airlines take note. They have been speaking to him today and when they actually tried they found it and got it back to him very quickly. It shows that when they want to they really can be quite efficient. Shame it takes this sort of effort to make them want to.

Still the quilts made it home, and all is well.

Anyone work for United Airlines?

Ricky Tims needs a hand getting in touch with a human at United Airlines Chicago. He has had a bag go missing between there and Colorado Springs and well he would REALLY like it back. You can read the whole story here. If you can't help directly maybe you can ask your friends to see if they know someone.

Back to the frame.

I made it back from Pearoom Quilters safely yesterday. It was a lively group and I had a lot of fun there. I am looking forward to getting some pictures of the samples they made in the workshop. It always amazes me how different they all are, even with the same instructions. The 'Fur, feather, scale" class works best with a group who are happy to experiment, and this group really were. It is a class where I aim to teach three techniques. Some people will choose to finish one of more of the samples as wallhangings, others only use them as samples to jog their memory later. Whilst I am quite happy with this, a lot of groups perfer a finished project. Saturday there were 15 ladies, having fun and they produced some great pieces. I hope they will get in touch if they make a bigger project with any of them.

I should have taken the time to get some pictures around Heckington, but somehow it never quite happened. The village has a really nice windmill, and although the landscape is very flat (well what do you expect from fens?) it was rather attractive too. I am always a sucker for clumps of tree and large areas without humans. I also found out that the group too their name from their original meeting place, a pea drying hall. I hadn't thought about how you would dry peas, but I was surprised that they were just laid on the floor of a large hall. To me that seems a very poor use of space, after all peas aren't very tall are they? I would have expected lots of shelves or something. Still it seems that the method they used gave the community a useful resource, a meeting hall. I also learned that like Ireland the postmen in this area have to know which houses are were, as they have many roads called 'Fen Road'. I got very lucky as my sat nav delivered me to the correct hall on the right 'High Street', many are not so lucky in that area.

On these longer journeys I now travel with some work. Usually some sort of design project. This time I took a quilt top with me to write up it's pattern. I've found that it is the perfect break for me. I guess it gets my brain working again after just staring at morotway and I stay altert a lot longer after the break. Of course the real bonus is I get to make use of otherwise wasted time. I would have to add the measuring large quilts is a car is a challenge, especially when the car is full to the roof with quilts for my talk. It does mean I have another pattern nearly ready for typesetting and testing. I haven't been able to work much on the Phoenix and Dragon quilt patterns recently. They are taking a lot more work than the pieced quilts. I am having to consider new (to me at least) ways of presenting the pattern pieces, and how to describe what I do. It's funny vbut the more familiar I am with the technique the harder I find it to describe to other people. On the other hand. If I can get these two figured out it should give me an insight into how to produce a pattern for "Where is the north star?" an often requested pattern despite my best efforts to put people off. It really was a pain to put together. On the other hand for people used to doing hand work or any block with inset/partial seamsI guess it wouldn't seem so bad.

It's been great to have a day at home today to get some quilting done. I really do miss it when I can't do it for a few days. I've finished one customer quilt and just loaded up another. I am very fortunate at the moment. I have a large stack of quilts I am really looking forward to. It always helps things go quicker, if I am enjoying the quilt. On that note I suppose I should get back to the frame and stop messing about on the computer shouldn't I.

Loading the car

I should be loading the car right now but I needed a break. I think this is my least favourite part of doing talks and workshops. Strangely it isn't the effort required that really bothers me, it's wether or not I have remembered everything. It is part of the reason for taking a break. Type a line, remember something else write it down, type a line. Sometimes write three things down :) It is worse the further from home I am going. Once I leave I know I won't have time to come back for anything I've forgotten so I have to get it right or do without. Of course there is regular stuff which either lives in the car or is so routine I am unlikely to forget (although where is See Sound?). It's all the tweaks that make each one different that cause the trouble. This time for example I am teaching my textures workshop, 'Fur feather and scale'. This means I need to pack two quilts that don't normally go to talks. Other classes need kits or supplies. Those are the things that are utterly critical and so so easy to forget. That is what makes loading difficult, trying to be sure I have everything I could possibly need to deliver a good workshop. Guess I had better go and find all the thing on this list then hadn't I. I've just got this nagging feeling there is something else....

I just had to share

I believe in copyright. I don't copy films, books or music but this really speaks to me. I can't tell you how sick I am of all the copyright junk at the beginning of DVD's. I too have screamed at the TV, "but I DID pay for this movie". The same goes for some of the excessive copyright notices I have found on quilting products. I am a designer and I love to support others, but come on be fair. If you tell me something I already know, why shouldn't I carry on teaching it? What constitutes one use of a panto and why should I be bound by a clause I cound't read before I bought the product. How about we all play nice and get treated like decent human beings. If not I can see the 'vote with your wallet' argument becoming very persuasive.

Anyway I shouldn't be on the computer I should be getting the car ready to head north tomorrow. See you at Pearoom Quilters tomorrow. Oh yes, and a quick plug for the March issue of Sewing World, there might be a quilter in it you know :)

Dublin

Sorry I didn't blog last night but by the time I had got home and dealt with the urgent business stuff it really was bed time. I had meant to look up the name of the ship as my Irish expert sent it to me, but I didn't so keep an eye on the comments. I just thought it was pretty and worth sharing again.

On Monday we plotted a route to take in all the most commonly suggested sights. We started at Dublinea. We had planned to start with Christ Church but if you do it the other way around you get to walk over the enclosed bridge which I fancied. Dublinea is currently undergoing a lot of work but the Viking section is not being worked on. I thought it was a neat little museum and the information was put across well. There are lots of interactive sections which I always like.

The best feature was probably the tower though. I do like my towers. This one has an awful lot of stairs. It's a modern square spiral, which makes it easier to climb in my opinion. From the top you get a panoramic view of the city. It is quite impressive. I love the backdrop of hills to one side. I think it is also the best view you can get of Christ Church. I was very pleased we came through the bridge. It has lovely stained glass windows. I think they may well inspire some new quilting patterns.

The cathederal is also a great source of quilting inspiration. The floor is fantastic. I don't know if I managed photograph all the tiles, but I certainly tried. The columns were very pretty. I also like the higher windows, they have lovely shapes. Pillar wise I have been spoilt recently by Prague. I think I might be on pillar overload. This is one of the few cathederals I have visited where there is good access to the crypt. I am a huge fan or crypts. This one has a tomb with an iceburg on it. It looks amazingly modern and yet isn't. There were also costumes there from the series the Tudors down there as some of the scenes were filmed in the cathederal. The crypt was used for tavern scenes and torture chambers.

From here we headed down the hill to Dublin castle. As we didn't want to wait for a guided tour we only looked around the chaple. I say only, but boy it's good. I hope I might be able to post a panorama of it, but as I used my phone I have no idea how well it will come out. It had the most amazing ceiling. I really hope my pictures come out well. The camera ran out of battery so we were relying on my phone. I think I liked it more than the cathederal. The ceiling was just like nothing I've seen before.

By the time we had pulled ourselves away from the chapel lunch was overdue. I wanted to get steak and chips. We quickly worked out that the tourist area is not the place to buy lunch. On the advice of some very nice Garda (I am told they are all very polite and helpful, I tend to believe) we ended up in Flannigans opposite the spike (I like it, sorry). It claims a warm Irish welcome, which I am not convinced it had. Mostly overworked really. However the food was very good and when there were problems they were dealt with quickly and politely. Price wise, it was about equivelent to London but the quality was much better. Irish cow is very nice. In fact all the meat we had was good. I was particularly liked the sundae. On the whole I don't like either chocolate or strawberry ice cream but these tasted exactly like astronaut ice cream. It was very odd having cold wet ice cream that tasted like the freeze dried stuff.

After lunch we headed for Trinity college. I hadn't wanted to pay 9 Euros to see the book of the Kells. Then I found out that it also gave us access to the long library. I am so glad it does, as actually the book of Kells was lovely. I hadn't appreciated the level of detail it had in it. They also have a fascinating video on bookbinding. I really want to have a go at it now. I wish it had been available as a dvd. The long library though was the most amazing place. So many books, and such beautiful architecture. I wish I could have stayed there longer, but there was a flight that I really had to get. The good news was there was no waiting around at the airport. The bad news was they had brought our flight forward an hour and we only just made it. On the whole BMI was very good to fly with. They did move the flight times a lot, and their in flight exchange rate is robbery, but they were great for luggage regulations. So that's your lot for now on Ireland. I will see if I can upload some more images if I get some time at home. I really loved this trip. I can't wait to come back. It also reminded me I need to get a plan to go to Scotland again too.

Bye bye An Grianan

The course is over and we've had to leave. I am very sorry to have only had such a short time there. The people, place and food were all amazing. I really hope I will get to come back and see some of the quilters again. Having longer to work on the art quilts meant that every one has gone home with an almost completed wall hanging. It was nice just to see the projects through that far.

After the course we were delivered to Dublin by one of the organizers (did I mention how helpful everyone was?) and dropped at the door of our hotel. We figured we would have a day to look around Dublin, especially as it made the flight cheaper. As we have very limited time, we went to start exploring straight away. We walked down to the O'Connell then along the river towards the harbour. It was a nice quiet walk as it took us away from the main shopping and tourist area. It also gave a chance to look at several bridges and a ship.

I'm stuffed

I cannot believe how much I have eaten. It seems that food is the way to a quilters heart. Personally I think I am more swayed by the hugely helpful staff. Nothing has been a problem for anyone.

I did forget a few things last night, it had been a long day. Firstly the flight over was great. London was grey and yucky, but Wales had perfect weather. Lots of lovely cloud formations. As we approached Ireland the clouds closed in again and I thought I would miss out on seeing the countryside. We decended through the top layer of cloud and underneath were the most beautiful small clouds. The sky where you could see it was stripy and the ground patchwork greens. Definately the way to impress a visitor.

As I said yesterday we arrived in time for lunch and then had a couple hours of free time. We were advised to have a look at the beach. It is lovely I don't know if the picture will come close to doing it justice but, I've tried. The tide was a long way out and you have to go and see the sea don't you, when it's that close. I did get rather wet feet crossing the sand, and although it is warmer here than in London, it isn't really paddling weather.

It turns out Ireland is the same time zone as the UK, phew! I made it to breakfast on time and then to my class. They are a very keen bunch and have made great progress. We have been doing art quilts by numbers, but with the added bonus of of a couple of laptops and a printer. This allowed us to work with students own pictures. A little stressful, but a lot of fun. As you can see everyone worked hard, this was actually some time after the class finished! Several students couldn't bear to stop quilting, which is just great by me.

I am now watching the show and tell. Any minute now we will get to the nearly complete projects from the class. After that the raffle, then back to the bar. Oh did I not mention, they have a lovely bar here and quilter enjoy making use of it while catching up with friends. Hopefully tomorrow morning most of them will get their quilts finished, I'll try and get pictures.

Hello Ireland

It's been a long day, but I think most of the tired muscles are from laughing rather than any of the other exertions. Warm welcome wouldn't cover it, I feel more like I've just run into a lot of long lost friends. I expected Ireland to be similare to Scotland, and it kinda is, but it's also very different. Flying in it is clear there is a lot of space here. People are well spread out which I like. The building we are staying in is amazing. Yes, it's the one in the picture. It is stunning inside and out and just like Scotland people just can't help enough. Driving here the country feels very different. It does feel more European. I can't really put my finger on why, you'll just have to believe me that it does.

After a late but very welcome lunch we walked down to the beach. There is a right of way that takes you across a golf course and then through the dunes to the sea. Having grown up in Sussex I m used to shingle beaches. The expanse of sand was quite amazing. I got back in time tovisit the traders before an excellent dinner. Just as well the airport only weight the bags, I suspect we are going to be heavier on the way home. I have got to be very careful what I buy as the cases were absolutely full of quilts so I can only add to hand luggage.

I was the after dinner entertainment. I rather like eating before a talk, it's much more relaxed somehow. I had been a little concerned that the talk would be too short as I had less quilts, or that more of my audience would fall asleep because I had to talk without props for some of it. Apparently not just over an hour and the crowd seemed happy. I can't quite believe I can now stand up and just talk in front of a crowd. I never thought it was something I would do.

Tomorrow I start my class. We will be doing 'Art quilts by numbers'. It should be fun especially as we have access to a computer and a printer so some students can work on their own images.

Having just set an alarm I am now wondering. Is Ireland on the same time as the UK? This could get exciting.

Isn't a PA supposed to save work?

I've realised I have no choice. I have too much paperwork to handle on my own. I've known for a while this was coming. My desk is constantly covered in paper which needs attention and do you think I can find the bits I am looking for? How about get the desk clear to design patterns or work on the book? No not a chance. So after getting multiple offeres of help in a week I took the hint. I am now looking forward to a less cluttered desk (and full of much more interesting clutter I hope). However to get to this point I've got to do rather a lot of planning. You see all the questions I answer regularly now have to be written down and the correct answers recorded. All the files I use need to be shared somehow and kept up to date. Email, phones calls and letters need moving around. It seemed simple until I really looked at the problem, now it just keeps growing. Fortunately I did have one offer of help from someone I see regularly so tranfering paper is fairly simple, but data and knowledge are another matter. It's one of those scary and yet exciting projects.

Whilst I haven't been doing as much writing as I would have liked recently I do have several patterns in various stages of completion now. I am also making painfully slow progress on my book on art quilts. It is going to cover a lot of the different techniques I use when making my art quilts. I am also writing up severl step by step projects for it as well. So hopefully it will be simple enough for anyone to produce a work of art but also provide some useful tools for more experienced quilters. Who knows it might just work. Oh and yes I will be getting lots of pictures of my art quilts to go in it too. Hopefully once I shift the more mundane work I will be able to make more progress on this.

My secrect squirel project for the Festival of Quilts hasn't made much tangible progress this week, but I did meet a lady who helped me with a concern I had. I just happened to be teaching next to exactly the expert I needed at the weekend. How cool is that? I found out that my quick and dirty solution really won't work, which to be honest I had guessed. However the slightly longer and only grubby solution will. That means I have a firm plan for at least one part of the project. It may not sound like much but I feel a lot better for it.

I suppose I had better get back to sorting and packing paperwork. Dull dull dull. On the other hand it is saving me from a quilt which doesn't want to play nice, so I should be grateful really. Hmm, and sorry if this post is full of spelling errors, the new blogger editor doesn't seem to have a spell checker.

Hmmm.

Over the weekend I was teaching in Nottingham. I was really impressed with myself as I remembered to photograph a class and I blogged it. However the post hasn't appeared :(. Having just tried resending it, it still hasn't turned up. Can I just say to any of my students looking for the post. I did do it really I did and I will keep trying to find a way to get it up.

With a bit of jiggery pokery I've got the post up. The Sunday class went well too, but I did discover that twice the students is easily twice the effort. I've never had the chance to test the theory with two classes so close to each other before. Now I have I'm sure. It was fun but boy an I tired today. Teaching is one of those jobs where you don't always feel like you are working while you are doing it (sometimes you really do) but you always find out later how much effort you were putting in.

Blooming good class

I am terrible at asking to take pictures in classes. I usually remember just after everyone leaves. Today I remembered just before they left. I think that worked really well as you can see the project well underway. The class was at The Huskvarna Studio in Nottingham. It's the first time I've been here and I did struggle to find it. Can we just say one way system with tram and bus lanes. When you do find it the workshops are very impressive. Space for two large practical classes and a computer lab as well.

Today the students were making caveman style tulips. This is a Ricky Tims technique. No templates, no rulers and very few rules. It's a very free form project where most 'design oportunities' can be worked in seamlessly. It's the second time this week I've taught this class. It's been fun both times. With a group who are prepared to try something different it can be very inspiring for me too. Hopefully some of my students from both classes will send in photographs of their finished projects so I can put them up on my web site. I enjoyed today I hope you all did too. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Blooming good class

Date: 06/02/2010 8:31 pm
I am terrible at asking to take pictures in classes. I usually remember just after everyone leaves. Today I remembered just before they left. I think that worked really well as you can see the project well underway. The class was at The Huskvarna Studio in Nottingham. It's the first time I've been here and I did struggle to find it. Can we just say one way system with tram and bus lanes. When you do find it the workshops are very impressive. Space for two large practical classes and a computer lab as well.
Today the students were making caveman style tulips. This is a Ricky Tims technique. No templates, no rulers and very few rules. It's a very free form project where most 'design oportunities' can be worked in seamlessly. It's the second time this week I've taught this class. It's been fun both times. With a group who are prepared to try something different it can be very inspiring for me too. Hopefully some of my students from both classes will send in photographs of their finished projects so I can put them up on my web site. I enjoyed today I hope you all did too. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Computers

We've all heard about the improvements in technology but I'm not entirely convinced. Once upon a time hard drives were expensive. I mean really expensive but they lasted. Now I seem to need a new hard drive every few months. It's not the end of the world we do have backups and we mirror the data, but it is annoying. Just having to get another drive and install it takes time. If this is improvement I can do without it.

I would also like companies to stop improving their soups. Apparently some regulationg body has declared that foods should have less fat and salt in them. In principle I agree. However when you take the cream and salt out of cream of something soups they really loose they character. Maybe it is a drive to bankrupt these companies and make us cook more. If I thought it would get people creating in the kitchen I guess I could live with it, but honestly I think people will just choose cheaper and less healthy foods.

I've started planning my NEC projects. As they are still secret squirrel I thought I would try keeping journals for them that I can post after the event. I have a lot of people ask me about my process and this might be a way to give an answer. Of course I have no idea how well I will stick to it, I've never tried this sort of thing before, but I will see. It may get less detailed when the deadline gets closer too ;)

There are show organisers who care

I love my quilts traveling but it is nerve wracking. I find it very hard to get my quilts properly insured while they are in transit. Several times I have wondered if I should stop entering US shows because of it. I found out last night that Phoenix Rising has made it into the Lancaster County show. I am thrilled, but my heart sank when I looked at their shipping instructions. Another uninsured round trip coming up. I emailed them to explain the problem I have with this and why the insurance sold by the courier companies wasn't worth paying for. Usually (if I even get an answer) it is of the lines, "you entered you have to abide by the guide or you can spend a lot of money doing it this way". Not this time. I got a very well thought out response. They explained how they look after the quilts, how they insure them while the quilts are at the show, and most importantly that they have found a way to insure them on their return journey! How cool is that? They had already found out that couriers will charge you for insurance that won't work and found a way around it. They are also looking in to the possibility of offering insurance for quilts being shipped to the show. I really can't express how impressed I am with the attitude and the speed with which they got in touch. I feel so much better sending my quilts out when I know they are going to such a professional, thoughtful and responsive organization. Well done AQS. Maybe if they find the solution to all the shipping problems other show organizers will follow their example. I can hope.

Do you remember I mentioned the new quilt pattern? Well I got the top back on Tuesday and I am thrilled with it. I am assured it was a lot of fun to put together and was quick to make as well. I am really looking forward to quilting it, but it will have to wait it's turn. I may also put on a border before I do that. I haven't decided yet. I suppose that is the bright side of it sitting in my quilting queue, I have time to decide. Once I have the pattern ready I will put it up here so you can see the quilt.

Finally, Prague photos part 2

I've been wanting to do this for days but life has kept getting in the way. I find it does that, but when it is paying work it is hard to turn it down. Lots of customer quilts are ready to return home, and I am feeling better for having cleared some of the pile. I think they start to intimidate me after a while.

If you remember in my last post on Prague, the night we landed it was clear. Cold but no snow. The whole reason for the visit was to find snow and I was really hoping the forecast was going to be right, 3 days or heavy snow. Well it was in a way. I don't know what heavy snow is like where you are, but here is tends to be very large lumps falling from the sky and being blown about a lot. In Prague it's just constant small flakes falling. It doesn't really look like much until you look at the floor and see how much it has built up. Waking up to snow was great, and it decided our first tourist stop, Petrin Tower. The tower was inspired by the Eiffel tower, but is somewhat smaller (60m). It is still 229 steps to the top. I wanted us to get to the top of it as soon as possible so there would be some view before the snow obscured everything.

The plan almost worked. There was still a view but it didn't really photograph as well as I would have liked. The Petrin tower is on the next hill around from the castle, and I love the view you get not only of the castle but also of the cathedral embedded in it. You can see how much the snow is interfering with the visibility. However you can also see how impressive the cathedral is. I think this might be the best view you can get of the cathedral

You also get a great view of Pragues great wall from the Petrin tower. The Hunger Wall was built for the first time in the 14th century. It was intended as a fortification for the Lesser Town and Castle. It is said that the wall was built as a make work project. There was a famine and the poor of the city could earn food by building the wall. Depending on which report you read people seem to either believe it was defensive and probably didn't help the poor much, or that it was useless as a fortification and was only a social project. Sorry I haven't done enough research to have an opinion. I just know it's impressive.

To get up and down Petrin hill we took the Funicular railway. I have a huge soft spot for them and I took dozens of pictures last time. This time we decided to walk a little way down the hill to a bridge over the railway. It was well worth the walk. I love the view between the trees of the railway and in the distance the town. I think you can probably see the river and then across the river the main part of the town.

After taking the railway back down the hill we had lunch at a local restaurant. It was one of the best means for me. I loved the garlic soup and it was only 1.50! That is just amazing value. Refuled it was time to head for our next tower. This tower doesn't need long sight lines to appreciate it, as the best view is right below it. Well technically part of it. The tower I am talking about is the Charles Bridge tower. I love the solidity of this tower. It feels safe and strong. It also has rooms in it with the most amazing ceiling I also find it's stairs a lot more comfortable, they are a square spiral. It works surprisingly well. When you pay for access to these towers you often have access to the roof, and this one is especially magical in the snow. You can peer through arches in the wall around the roof and look down on the tourists on the bridge. Again you get a good view of the castle across the river. At the other end of the bridge is another tower, which I really must climb next time, and behind that is the church tower we climbed on our last day.

As you can see maintaining the bridge When I was last there 2 years ago they were working at the other end of the bridge I assume they have been working their way along the bridge since the. It's a huge project as they are taking They have also replaced pieces of the statues plinth. All this without shutting the bridge. I'm impressed, and you will just have to forgive scaffolding.

From here we moved on to another tower. Yes if I can climb a tower I will. I love being high The astronomical clock tower doesn't quite work for me, especially as to access the tower you have to go through a modern building. It just doesn't feel right. However it can be accessed by two lifts which was a lovely r I also think the second lift it beautiful. I am amazed they thought to put something so modern into a historical building but it works. The lift in in the center of a massive spiral slope. I am sure this is going to turn into a quilt. I'm not sure how, but the shapes are too much fun not to do something with them.

The tower does also give a good view of the church of our Lady before the Tyn. It's fabulous towers can be seen poking up beyond the other buildings in the old town square from the ground but then you climb the The tyn towers are further proof (if you needed it) that Prague got a great deal on gothic architecture. Having just checked on it's correct name it sounds as though a visit to the inside of this church is called for on our next visit.Apparently it's interior is particularly fine. That has to be worth seeing, as their more ordinary buildings are utterly stunning.

The last picture for tonight is another The Powder tower. We went up this one too but it will have to wait for another day. I've got another busy day tomorrow. Two more classes, and that means another early start.

Much progress

It's funny what inspires me to really get a lot of work done. The most effective is knowing other people are working on my things too. Last Thursday I handed over a pattern sample to one of my students top put together. She had nearly finished it on Friday! She also seemed to have enjoyed it. So I felt I should get it's brother pattern written too. Being a bit more complex I wanted to be able to give her a bit more info with this one. Saturday evening I came home to find another of my patterns had gone into testing. This also encouraged me to write (and I have two new ideas to get on with as well). I now have two more patterns ready for type setting and another two well on the way. The Phoenix pattern in in progress but we are still debating ways to provide the pattern. We will come up with a solution I just don't know when.

As well as the writing I have managed to finish several customer quilts. It's a good feeling to be catching up. I've got to. I have a lot planned for shows this year and I will need the frame for my work too. I am trying to get in the habit of booking my slots in the stack the same as customers. I'll let you know how that goes.

How did it get to be this time?

I had a great idea, quilt till the bobbin ran out then come and sort out photos for my blog. Now I get here and find it's tomorrow already. How did that happen? Could it have been going to the Wandering Line in Purley to teach my book to a wonderful group of ladies? Could it be driving back on the M25 (which was actually surprisingly clear)? Could it be the two customer quilts I've done tonight or the third I have just loaded and started? No I don't think so. That can't have eaten a whole day. It must be gremlins playing with my clocks. Or perhaps the flying pigs have escaped the submarines and are causing trouble. Yes, that is why you never see flying pigs. They all liver on submarines. A student told me so, so it must be true. However it got to be this time, I think I need to go to bed. It's been a long but very quilty day. I've had a lot of fun, I hope my students did too. I can't wait till next month to see them again.

Email - the bane of my life

So about this paperless revolution. Anyone remember that, or am I showing my age? I had planned on looking for more Prague photos tonight but instead I've been hunting through email and putting paperwork in order. I've been finding problems with email for a long time but it just seems to get worse. I've now got a reliable system, mostly by cutting out as many links as possible, but I have to have a spam filter in place. That is where the problems start. We have 10,000 spam messages per day. These are just the ones the filter is sure is spam, I also have a few hundred I have to check. Unfortunately it seems that a few good emails are being stopped. It's very hard to track, and at the moment we can't see a solution. It's very frustrating for both sides to have this failure of communication.

If the email gets through it then needs me to do something about it. That is usually not too much of a problem until you have a few that need something looking up. I keep falling into the trap of 'it will just take a minute'. Well a minute or five, or ten. Then you look up and an hour has vanished. Argh. Still that at least all works. I then often have to print out the information and instead of being a couple of lines it is three pages, so much for paperless.

The worst part is when I need to remember an email from months back. Of course, first you have to remember it exists (darn aging, it really does eat your brain doesn't it) then you have to find it. There are thousands of messages stored on my computer (yes I do need them all, well mostly) do you think I can ever find the one I want quickly?

So is there a point to this post? Well yes. A while ago I instigated a policy that I would only make a booking if I had spoken to the person making the booking on the telephone. I am now going to extend that to anything that needs to go in my diary. So if you want to see me, for quilting, workshops or talks I need to actually speak to you. If you email me with your number I will call you or my number is on the website. Firstly I remember things far better if I hear them, secondly it makes me go through the appropriate paperwork and gives me the time to put things in my diary. It also means we both know we have achieved communication. In short, it's safer, more reliable and both parties know it has happened successfully.

We have just updated my online diary. If you have me booked for an event it is worth checking the calender to see that it is listed correctly and if you have a web site I would love to include a link for it.

On a more quilty note, I've finally given in to the idea that more of my patterns will have to be pieced by other people. It's a shame as I would really enjoy making them myself but I just don't have the time. On the other hand I think at least one of the people I have doing the piecing will really get a lot from doing it, which is pretty cool . She is a really good piecer and I think she will enjoy the challenge of this one. I can't wait to get the tops back so I can quilt them. They both will have great areas for quilting, and hopefully be striking and popular patterns. I have also started writing the pattern for the Phoenix. I have had so many requests for it, that I am giving it a go. Bear in mind it was never intended to be a pattern, and it is very different to any patterns I have ever seen. It's taking a lot of writing and re-writing and even then I am not sure if others will understand it. I'll let you know what the testers say when I get that far.

There are days.

I'm not a morning person, I know that but when I picked up my Nintendo DS instead of my phone I think it set the tone for the day. I've been nearly on the ball all day and by the time I got home I was definately tired. I had planned on repacking the gearbox on the longarm, but that is quite a physical job so not too appealing right now. In one of my classes I had been talking about a pattern I had been meaning to write and I though it would be a nice simple thing to do tonight.

Then I walked into the computer room and turned on my monitor. No screensaver. Odd. No lights on the machine, even stranger I guess one of the cats managed to turn it off. Oh well. I turned my machine on and went to retrieve my phone. Apparently we had a major power cut today. It took out many blocks. Of course that took the computers down and our network needs bringing back up. So here I am ready to work and no computers typical. Worse than that the designs I wanted to work on are all on the computer too. I tell you pen and paper is the way of the future.

First talk of the year and housekeeping

Yesterday I had a very early start to get to Sevenoaks for the Quilters Guild regional day there. I felt quite nervous as I've had a long break from talks (over a month) and I was worried I might have forgotten what to do. Fortunately I had a great audience and they seemed to enjoy it. I had fun too. They had a lucky dip for 50p a go. I got a pack of postcards which had some quilts that I really like. I felt that was very good value. Besides it is fun just digging in a bucket of shredded paper to find things.

From there we headed off to find a friends new house. It is on a new development and doesn't yet appear on maps, GPS or have street signs. Still we found it and the house was warmed (just gently it is still standing).

Today I had planned a good run of quilting. It was a great plan honest, and went well until I rolled on the quilt to do another area. Then I found out that my tension had drifted in one place. Oh dear. I had lunch and hoped it would look better after food, but the quilt fairies failed me again and I have spent the rest of the day unpicking the quilting. It's not quite taking the 1 hour per minute of quilting, but it is taking far longer than I would have hoped. Still it's the right thing to do and the sooner I get on with it the sooner I can get back to quilting.

You may notice I've added a couple of items to the list on the right hand side of this page. I've been noticing many more foreign visitors here so I have added a translation system. I suspect it won't be a great translation but I hope it will be better than nothing and will make life a little easier for some visitors. If anyone can recommend a better system please let me know. It's hard to judge when you aren't using it yourself. I have also added a link to Quilting Bloggers. This is a great site to find a lot of quilting inspiration. There are blogs, galleries and shops linked from one place. It's a wonderful site, and will suck as much time as you fancy spending there.

APQS Maintenance

I've just come back from a day of learning the proper care and feeding of my longarm machine. I have had quite a bit of hand on experience with it so I was expecting to largely pick up little tips. It turned out that there was one piece of maintenance I hadn't been doing at all and if left can turn expensive. Given you are supposed to check the motor brushes every year and I've never done mine we figured it was about time. From the look on Marks face I got the impression it was a sooner rather than later kind of job. so I came home and took mine out.

The handout says they start 1/2" long and if your are only 3/8" you need to replace them. I tried measuring mine and it seemed to be 1/2" so I figured the best was to be sure was to compare it with the new one I got today. Mine is the top one in the picture. It's clearly worn, although not as badly as we had feared. This is fortunate as I have a quilt on the frame and I really didn't want to have to clean out the motor with a quilt on. I would have done it if the wear had been really extreme but I am comfortable with leaving this for another 10 hours then doing a through job. I will also finally get my gearbox done. Neither job takes long and they do make a huge difference to the machine. We got to repack Chris's machine today and it was amazing how different it sounded.

I think the best thing I got today was a kick up the backside, these jobs are quick, easy and will keep my machine giving me good service. What is my excuse for not doing them?

Irish quilting magazine

It's been another mad day but I think I will forgive it. I got the next customer quilt onto the frame and started, and I made it to the post office to pick up my package that was waiting, but more about that in a while. The highlight today was finding out that the new Irish Quilting magazine is out and has arrived at the shop. I am really pleased with the article and I particularly like the way they have used the images of my quilts. It was probably one of the trickest and most fun articles I've done. Sherry Nugent who wrote it is also the editor of the magazine and consequently very busy. She was trying to interview me at the time I was wondering if I still had a home I saw it so infrequently and we kept missing each other. One night I got home late and found she had emailed me again to try and arrange a time to call. I replied saying 'tomorrow morning would be great, or about now as you probably aren't sad enough to still be reading your email'. She was a replied saying so. She agreed that the next morning would be fine and joked that so would now. Given how long we had been trying to talk to each other I thought the joke wasn't such a dumb idea. We were both free and neither of us likely to need to rush out (it was after midnight) and unlikely to be interupted. So shortly after 1am we were on the phone chatting. I think that is just amazingly cool. Sherry has said I must stress she doesn't normally call at that time of day, I think she is worried it might scare people off. For me it was perfect far better than having to get up early (before noon) to be interviewed. I am very much a night owl and I think it shows in the article that I was more relaxed and well more me.

The package was pretty cool too. It turned out to be a book I have been after for a while. The quilters album of patchwork patterns by Jinny Beyer. It is a book of over 4000 block patterns which is right up my street and I love Jinny's work so I pre-ordered it as soon as I heard it was coming out. It got delayed and delayed, I was giving up hope of ever getting it, then I saw it on the quilt show. I was almost drooling after Jinny explained what was in it. She said there are lots of blocks using borer prints to make them more interesting. She also explained how to take one block and make it more inticate to make a whole quilt of just that block scaled. Those aspects of the book are fantastic, a churn dash with fussy cut fabric looks amazing. However there is also a whole section on drafting which is fascinating too. It isn't a cheap book, but it is good quality and packed full of inspiration. I am very pleased I bought it. I'll have to sign off now and go and get the workshop ready for tonights class.

You couldn't make it up

I thought today would be a normal (as normal as possible for me) teaching day. Two class that should have started last week but were canceled because of the snow. I was a little concerned as last night the forecast was for 6 hours of heavy snow in Hemel and 3 hours at home, but at least it wasn't due till lunchtime. The day started well. I woke up just before the alarm and on checking the weather forecast found we were now only expecting sleet. A bit of a shame but at least my students could get to class.

There was very little traffic, which was odd but welcome and I made good time to Hemel. Plenty of time to go and buy lunch at the local supermarket. Their car park was very empty too. Strange as usually I have to park quite a way from the door, but still very welcome. However as I walked up to the door I saw a crowd gathered outside. Odd, maybe no lunch for me today, but lets see what is happening. As I reached the door the staff member who had been blocking it said "OK, you can come in now" and again I thought I was having a lucky day. As I tried to get a sandwich I startled the staff member. She obviously wasn't expecting anyone in the store and was rather jumpy. Talking to her I found out the store had caught fire just before 7 and all the staff had been standing outside for 2 hours. It did smell pretty bad towards the back of the store but at least no one was hurt and they had managed to put it out and open up.

I was greeted at the shop with the news that I had a new student. That always makes for a bit more work, but it's interesting to meet new people so we settled down. Of course, first day back everyone has a stack of questions and problems to be solved. Then the day got really weird. I could have sworn they said a film crew would be here by about 12. Nah I must be mistaken right? Wrong. London Tonight wanted to do a piece about the pennants for the London Olympics and were indeed filming in the workshop today.

The whole day has had a slightly strange feel . I don't know if you've ever had the dream when you got to work and do everything you are supposed to, then wake up and find you still have it to do? It feels just like that. I really hope this isn't going to be the start of groundhog day. On the birght side my new longarm leaflets arrived, so I don't have to print and fold at home anymore, yay!

Hand dyed fabrics

I posted a comment on this blog post, about hand dyed fabrics. I love using hand dyed fabrics of all kinds and I thought it might be helpful to share some links to people who keep me supplied. I will admit it was prompted by an email telling me another box of hand dyes has been shipped and picking up an order from Ricky Tims. So if you would like to join in my obsession with hand dyed fabrics, and you don't have the time to dye them yourself.

• Ricky Tims - you may be familiar with his quilts and books but his fabrics are great too. He has lots of useful tools and supplies on his site too.
• Heide Stoll Weber - specialises in 60" wide cotton sateen. Her site doesn't have a shop as such but you can contact her and request fabrics. She is usually at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC, however a lot of us know that so she often sells out of a lot of the colours quite quickly.
• Jeanette's fabrics to dye for - this lady dyes some very interesting fabrics. Her online shop always has a good range of one off pieces to purchase. This is where I got the fabrics for my Phoenix.
• Vicki Welsh - a regular reader and commenter here also has an etsy shop with hand dyed fabrics. She had some interesting snow dyed pieces on her blog a little while ago.
• Starr Fabrics - this is the company that provided the kit for my 'Holiday Quilt'. They do several kits, pre-cut applique and yardage. I seem to have developed quite a problem with their fat quarter bundles. They are so yummy I just want them all.

Have fun with these, and I am very sorry if your wallet finds them a bit of a strain. I think I will have to go and stroke my new fabrics now.