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.

Sara Impey, who would have thunk it?

Today's talk was for region 13 in Cheshire. It's far enough that I didn't think it was sensible to go there and back in a day which is unusual for me, so we drove up last night. I say we, as Tet came along to help, he had said it might be a big talk. Understatement, they are very keen around here. It was an amazing show and tell and a very scary audience. I had no idea they had so many well known names here. Probably just as well or I would have been worrying about it before the talk. At least I had a professional chicken stacker to look after me and to make sure I was in the right place at the right time. It seems herding Ferrets requires the same skills so I was very well looked after. Fortunately my talk went down well, as with a crowd of that size you really don't want to upset them.

Many hands made quick work of packing my quilts and ensured I got lunch before the afternoon session started. Thank you very much to the lovely lady who gave Tet a lift to the station ns saved me getting lost or missing the afternoon talk. I have to admit I wasn't sure how I was going to get along with the afternoon speaker, but I do like to hear as many talks as I can so I was pleased to be able to stay.

If you aren't familiar with Sara Impeys work I guess you either aren't a quilter ror have the same problem with names I do, her work appears all the best places, and I think she said she will have a piece in the V&A quilt show next year. Her work generally includes words and circles. She described herself as "a one trick pony" and when she said it I agreed. I loved her work the first time I saw it, and had thouigh all the others were too similar. Boy how wrong was I? I just hadn't got it at all. To really appreciate her work I think you need to see more than one piece at the same time. The year long gaps I have had doesn't do them justice at all. About half way through the talk it struck me, she is a writer who carves her words in textiles. The words are very important. Her quilting, while beautiful and exceptionally well executed, isn't as significant. The thought and feeling that goes into the letters surprised me. I think what really amazed me was that I hadn't worked it out for myself. After all if someone puts that much care and attention into each letter, might not the words they form be important? I hope at some point one of the shows will give her the space to display a lot of her work at once, and that she will write the background stories down to go with them. It would make a stunning show. Sara, a one trick pony? No more so than a writer who only writes in one language. A very entertaining and informative speaker. I believe she doesn't do many talks but if you get the chance to see her take it.

ARGH!

I thought today was going to be a fairly restful day. I had a few things I needed to do, but not too much. One job, that doesn't sound bad on paper is post a book. Just within the UK nothing complex. However the post office has had massive queues that last few times I have been there and I didn't have a spare hour to queue. I thought I would take another look at online services. Oh dear. That was my first mistake, calling Royal Mail to try and fix it was my second. Their phone line is an adventure game, but lacking any plot, none the options seem to fit what I needed at all, but it kept suggesting the online help. OK while I try and struggle through to a human I will ask the online person. Sarah, isn't actually a person, it's a pretty poor piece of software that tries to guess the question you were asking. Sarah felt that what I wanted was to get a job with them. Nope, not even close and no there isn't even any way to tell the software it missed.

I did eventually get a very nice lady in customer services, who absolutely understood my problems, and did try to help. She assured me that Royal Mail does want to help small businesses and that I can't be too small to be worth their help. She gave me a phone number she thought was a direct line to business accounts. It wasn't it was online postage sales, who couldn't help but could pass me on. To online business accounts, who can only talk to you if you have an account but can pass you on to sales. After all this run around, I'm too small. I need to go to the post office. So including time, parking, postage and petrol I can spend about 35 pounds to post this book. Or I can call a courier and spend about 10 pounds, or I could just hand deliver it as I happen to be doing a talk in the area and it looks like it will only be a few miles out of my way. Isn't it great to know you can get a package anywhere in the country, just by taking it there yourself. We are heading backwards at truly amazing speed. I think the next time I queue at the post office I need to buy a heck of a lot of stamps then I can just stick the postage on and put it in a post box. They do still sell stamps don't they?

The Guilty Party

Well most of the guilty party at least. I think we have to share the blame with Melanie Cook the colourist as well. From Left to right, we have Stephen Downey, the artist, me, and Cy Dethan the writer of Cancertown. It was odd seeing my quilt hanging in a comics show, but very cool. Somewhat scary having 'real' artist looking at it, but I guess I will get used to that. I was pleased that the visitors to the show appreciated the quilt. I was a little concerned that it might be too far from their chosen media, but apparently not. They are a generally friendly bunch ready to accept the weird especially when it's from a story they have enjoyed.

I also got to pick up a copy of Bryan Talbots latest, Grandville. Oh wow, does he know how to produce a book. It's a proper old feeling hardback with a fabric texture cover. Apparently the issues in other countries are even nicer!? I think my copy is pretty wonderful, and yes the fact that he signed it and put in a sketch doesn't hurt at all. I can't wait to have a chance to read it. I will take it with me this weekend in case I get an early night.

I also came across Stephanie Bryant. Well actually I mostly directed people to her, as they saw the quilt and assumed I would know of her. They mentioned knitting and I had noticed that much about her stand so I was able to direct them. Sunday afternoon Nic asked if I had seen them, yes....what did I think of the concept? Um? Turns out Stephanie has produced a comic for knitters. Each part of the story comes with a pattern, how cool is that. The patterns are good too. She also had a few stand alone patterns, which may yet follow me home. If you would like to see her wares in the flesh (yarn?) she will be at the Knitting and Stitching show that starts tomorrow and runs until Sunday. It is at Alexandra Palace, London. If you're there on Friday I might see you around. If you can't make it, do take a look at Handknit Heros, it's great.

BICS event

I was going to post about the comics event this weekend. I didn't have time yesterday and now I have been well a truly beaten to it. I may share the photo later anyway, when it returns home, but for now take a look at Cy's blog and vist the show with him.

Machine Quilting 2

There are a couple of places left on my Machine Quilting 2 class at Patchwork Corner this coming Tuesday. In this class we will spend the whole day on free motion quilting. Starting with some warm up exercises I will show you lots of different patterns during the morning. Fillers, borders and anything else that seems to suit the specific students. In the afternoon once everyone is limbered up and the machines should have got the idea of what we are doing we will go on to feathers. Lots of different variations so hopefully everyone will find at least one that works for them.

It's usually a fun class, and it will count as your exercise for the day. If you would like to join the class contact Patchwork Corner. You can even sign up on line.

Socks

I've mentioned socks a few times and I finally remembered to photograph them. To the left is my first sock knitted on two circular needles instead of on 4 double ended ones. I love the techniqe. It's a lot quicker and I find it easier on my hands too. It's just waiting for it's toe graft, then it's done.

it's partner is being knitted with the first sock of another pair. Two socks at the same time on a pair of circular needles. I'm not sure how it compares speed wise with knitting one at a time, but it is very satisfying. It also encourages you to keep making more if you've already done one sock of the next pair. Of course you could knit matching socks together, but that means splitting a ball of wool and increases the chance of mixing them up and knittinmg with the wrong one. I think I will stick to doing odd socks.

Quilting the world, for customers

Sorry I've been a bit quiet. I've finally had a chance to make serious in roads in to the pile of customer quilting that has been growing since before the Festival of quilts. I had imagined I would come back from the show, take a few days off and quilt up a storm. It didn't quite work out like that. I drastically underestimated the amount of interest a show like that can generate. Thank you all so much for your support it is appreciated, although I am still fighting a loosing battle with my email backlog. I see the end in sight, take a short break and I'm losing again. Oh well. The picture is of one of these customer quilts with a border I am especially fond of.

If you haven't entered the Road 2 California quilt show there is still time as they now allow online entries. It's a pretty good system and easy to use. It even checks the resolution of your images for you. I like it a lot, as just preparing and posting the entry was time consuming and expensive. I hope that if it works well for this show others with a lot of international entries might try it too.

For those of you who quilt too much, or overuse your muscles in other ways you might like to search the internet for 'Gelli bath'. I'd love to be able to say I saw it and immediately thought of it's theraputic possiblities, but well, that would be a lie. I first saw it in Toys R Us on a quilt related mission (pool noodles). It was aimed at kids and consequently hit me. It looked fun, but when I read the package it was only designed for a very shallow bath. I sulked and bought pool noodles. I later discoved a grown up version, which has lots of very proper words about home spa treatment and all it's benificial effects. All very nice but how much water will it turn to jelly? Half a bathfull, fine, sold. I was initially disapointed the kid in me wanted a really thick bath. The quilter however is thrilled. It has delivered much happer muscles. My shoulders and legs have taken a pounding the last two days and are now happy again. They are right the gel holds heat amazingly and delivers it better too. I don't understand it, but I will be using it again. My very fussy skin even likes it.

If you are in Birmingham, 'Bad Rain' will be on display this weekend at the science museum there with BICS. BICS is a comics event and my quilt will be on the stand of Insomnia publications, who published Cancertown the graphic novel it comes from. The creators of Cancertown will also be there along with many other writers and artists. If you've never been to a comics show this is a nice one to start with. It's an interesting venue and a good size event for a first experience. Say hi if you see me.

Rush hour?

It seems that around London rush hour now runs from about 3.30pm to at least 9pm. It's not getting silly, it's got silly. I am currently sitting a a Polish war memorial with a hot car and a road masquerading as a car par between me and my house. On the bright side I have a dvd player in the car and a new quilting dvd to watch. It is (P)fun - (P)feiling - (P)feathers by Claudia Pfeil. It is designed for longarm quilting machines, but as with most longarm information it can be used on domestic machines too. So far it is all about using formal feathers (aka bump bump feathers), she is showing some great ways to fill space with them. I was initially very disapointed. I've tried this type of feather and I really don't get on with them. The more I've seen of the dvd the more certain I am that the fact they are this type of feather is what I really like about them. So I've come to the conclusion it's time to try again. These feathers do have a different look, I like the look and it has to be more than a year since I last tried. It's not that long ago that I thought I couldn't do any curved feathers so why not these? As soon as I clear some customer quilts I will give it a go.

Not too proud to beg

Please, pretty please, if you book me to come to your group can I have the address of the venue. I waste hours trying to workout addresses. It's really hard to get to the right place without an address because although I don't use satnav I do use maps. They work by giving you road names, so if I don't have the road name your venue is in, I struggle.

Won quilt

Sorry it's been a while, I wasn't expecting so much life to be waiting for me. My last post was supposed have an illustration. The house where I was staying had an amazing view over fields. For some reason blogger didn't accept it, so I've tried again here. I've also got a picture here of the quilt that I won in the raffle. I'm sorry the colour hasn't come out at all right. In reality it is much more of a soft old gold, but the design is wonderful. Of course being stupid I forgot to write down the makers name, doh!.

I guess I should explain the title of the last post. I was distracted by dinner hence the last post being cut short. My talk was a lot more eventful than normal. Generaly ,y talk starts, I talk, there are some questions from the audience, I stop. Sounds fair? This time otheres had plans, about a third of the way through we heard a lady call 'Hello'. Odd, it was pretty obvious that we were in the middle of a presentation, so perhaps there was a better way to approach us? No, calling loudly, 'can my scouts use the toilet' is the way to go. I refrained from the obvious answer, 'I don't know do they have their toilet use badge?' and the organiser dealt with them. A few minutes later we had another interuption. This time it was a bus company who wanted some cars moved. On the surface a fair request, however we were all in the car park and in no way responsible for cars parked down the road. They weren't interested so we had to stop the talk and read out all the number plates. Very strange. Still it makes life interesting. The banana you will just have to find out about for yourself :)

Scouts, buses and bananas

I am currently in Nottinghamshire teaching and speaking. Yesterday I was teaching 'Art quilts by numbers'for a lovely group of ladies, and today at show and tell I got to see some of the quilts almost finished. I love it when I get to see work from my classes. I will be teaching the same thing again tomorrow, to some ladies I met today. From those I talked to it should be a very lively class.

Today I was speaking at region 10's area day. It was an unusual set up. In the morning everyone sat, socialised and stitched. It seemed to be a great way to get to know people and share techniques. That was followed by an excellent faith lunch. There seemed to be almost a perfect amount and blend of food. Then I got to speak. Despite the group being very quiet they were amazingly positive after the talk. However the best bit for me was the raffle. I often buy tickets but usually I'm not really that interested in winning. Today I desperately wanted one of the prizes, but with a large group and 18 prizes to be drawn, there wasn't a great chance. Tet drew the raffle and I promise I didn't influemce it, I won the litte quilt I wanted! I will show you it tomorrow when I will be teaching the lady who made it. She has said she will sign it for me.

Partial seams

You may remember I bought a kit at the NEC that I was making up. It's frustratingly close to being completed but other things have got in the way. The pattern calls for a partial seam on every block, and being lazy I wanted to chain piece them. I had thought I couldn't, then it came to me. I got Tet to take some video so you can see how it's done. It really did make the process a lot quicker.

Now I have to get some sleep. I was teaching machine quilting again today, to a very nice group of ladies. It was an early start though and I am not a morning person. Tomorrow, two classes up at Patchwork Corner.

Planes, trains, automobiles and socks

So can you guess what I have been doing today? I will give you a clue, it isn't quilting, well not directly anyway. Quilts have come from it and I hope that I have the source material for a few more.

I guess I should also admit that the title isn't entirely accurate, I haven't seen a train today. I am hoping you will let me substitute a helicopter. It's sort of like a train, isn't it? No, oh well, how about a bike? Sorry they are my best offers.

The planes are from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight. The first two to come over were the Spitfire and the Hurricane. I didn't manage to get any really close up shots I'm afraid. When they come over low it is very obvious how fast they are and I just couldn't follow them and adjust the camera quickly enough.

They were followed by this helicopter. Sorry helicopters aren't really my thing so I will have to leave identifying it to the reader. I am pretty pleased with some of the pictures of it though and I think I might be able to get a pattern out of them.

I think any minute now you are going to work out where I am. I have spent the day watching the racing at Santa Pod. It's been a lot of fun, and I can't remember when I last watched so much racing. I know I would get bored if I did it every day of every race weekend, but just once in a while it's great. We even had good grandstand seats, which made getting the photographs a lot easier.

While this probably sounds like a holiday, and it feels like one, there is actually a serious side to this. I've taken about 700 photographs today to try and get a few more for my car series. I am also looking for a good image to include in the new art quilt book. I am hopeful that I may have got one today, but I will still try and take lots tomorrow as well. Due to a couple of quite nasty accidents (sore cars, the drivers are fine) the racing ran very late today so I missed out on getting pictures of the Street Eliminator cars. I have a real soft spot for these cars, because they are all street legal. I will be trying very hard to get some good pictures of them tomorrow.

I did also mention socks, remember? I was ordering more supplies recently and I came across a DVD on knitting two socks at the same time. It was discounted and sounded strange so I bought it. It is by NenahGalati and it's weird yet wonderful. I liked it enough that I ordered her other DVD's and some needles. I haven't knitted socks on circular needles before so I decided to try one first. Wow! I love the technique. I've managed to knit down to the heel in the gaps in racing today. Normally I wouldn't get past the ribbing in that timescale. I will be doing more socks like this, it's fun. I had planned on showing you my progress on the blog today but we happen to be staying in a hotel with free Internet. If you don't live in the UK you may not appreciate how strange that is. Trust me, it just doesn't happen. Now we know about this hotel we will be staying here again. So as I could show you some of my proper pictures, my sock will have to wait. Sorry.

Oh, I've just realized I haven't told you about the cars and bike. They are, Ian Turbeville on his top fuel supertwin bike, Dan Larsen and Danny Belio in their top methanol funny cars.

Teaching and writing and stuff

I always find the first week of term a bit of a shock, and this one has been no exception. New people, new classes and this year new venues.

The new people have been great. I feel it's quite tricky adding a few new students to existing classes. Will they jell with the class, will the class suit them, or will they change the dynamic of the class for the worse. So far this year is looking good. I've got very lucky and have some fun people who have joined my classes. I think Wednesday will go from strength to strength. Some old students have returned too, which is lovely. Familiar faces, and names I can almost remember are nice, as is seeing how they have progressed while they have been away.

The new classes are coming along. I've almost written the three introduction type chapters for my art quilts book. I am feeling a lot better about teaching that tonight. Of course I can't find half the tools I wanted to photograph, but I don't think that will be a significant problem. I still haven't really got things straightened out after the mad rush for the festival of quilts, and it's all the small things that are hiding. Oh well.

My first new venue I don't get to see until next week. Tuesday I will be at 'The Nimble Thimble' in Buckingham. It's a new shop just trying to find it's feet in these difficult times, so if you are in the area, you might like to give it a look. For those of you who find Patchwork Corner too far south this might be your chance to come and join me for a class. This Tuesday I will be teaching machine quilting 1. A whole day of playing with different quilting options on your machine. I believe there are still a couple of places left so if you want to join in, call the shop on, 01280 822236.

I'd better get on and take the photographs I can for the class tonight. They won't be happy if I haven't got any pictures in my hand outs. I suppose I aught to dig out some samples too, where do you suppose I packed the swan after the show...

Flying for quilters

What do flying and quilting have to do with each other? Well that depends on your outlook. Other than the fact that my pilot is a quilter, just look at all the inspiration we found.

I met Peter at Patchwork Corner, when he came in with a proto quilt. A stack of blocks made from ties. It looked like it was going to be a lot of fun to quilt and I was thrilled when he handed it over and told me to do whatever I wanted with it. I did and among other things it got a Vulcan quilted on it. I had ascertained during our conversation that he was an aircraft enthusiast so it seemed appropriate.

Well it turned out I had underestimated this interest somewhat, he has a plane, and he offered to take me out in it. Of course I said yes, but then work got in the way. It feels like it took forever to get a free day to fly, and then it looked like the weather was going to be against us. At the last minute I got lucky, very lucky. We have fantastic visibility and a cloud layer we could get above. I will admit, that doesn't have as much quilt potential as being able to see the ground, but it's a wonderful place to be. I loved it.

For quilt potential though the Norfolk coast provided in bucket loads. I couldn't believe some of the colours we were seeing, and apparently I was seeing it past it's prime. I like the way the light coming through the clouds makes patterns on the ground. It's very much like the effect of quilting on patchwork and I am sure at some point this will get incorporated into a quilt.

We stopped for lunch at a pub in Binham. Yup that sounds strange, but it's true. On the way in to land I got a great view of Binham Priory. It's a magnificent building now, but when you go inside it has an artists impression of what the building would have looked like. It was huge. It must have been somewhat intimidating to live near.

From here we hopped over to Muckleburgh to a tank museum. I'm going to have to make it back there at some point. It looks quite small from outside, but inside it is a tardis. Tanks, trucks, guns, uniforms and well stuff. Lots of inspiration there. I have many pictures of tank tracks, the patterns in them are wonderful. There was also a Ferret, so here you go, a two ferret photo.


I had a lot of fun, and I really can't wait to do it again. So much so that lunchtime today I had great difficulty keeping track of conversation as light aircraft teased me at the quilt shop. In fairness the first class of term was a lot of fun, if a lot of work. The workshop is looking great, and the students were a really fun bunch. I do enjoy seeing how a class progresses with machine quilting. There are always some students who find free motion quilting stressful yet often they are the ones who the other students feel are the most proficient by the end of the day. I also get to see a lot of variations on patterns. Whenever people copy things they change them slightly, and sometimes those changes give you a whole new pattern. Today I got two more, though I have yet to see if they work for me. I think one of them might.

Tomorrow I have two classes, with several new students it should be interesting. I have no idea what skill level they are or what they might want to make. I like a challenge. I suppose I aught to try and get some sleep, I suspect I won't be very successful, it's far too hot for me again.

Happy Birthday Ford Capri

Today we had to take the family to a 40th birthday party. We missed most of them due to quilting commitments but this one was too local not to attends. It's a nice day for it, and Trogdor, the race car was even persuaded to start. I hope he will be as keen on leaving. It is so cool to see a car park full of Capris, and I've been window shopping. I know Joker would love a new shiny (and more effective) radiator. The one I really liked even had a URL on it, so later I can scare myself with the cost. To complete the day the Ace Cafe have added free wifi so I can blog while I wait for my food.

FOQ - Twisted Thread Video

I am very impressed with the camera man who managed to get this footage. Did I mention how much I dislike cameras?



There are more festival of quilts videos on their web site.

Back to work

Wow, work is sort of worky isn't it. I have a stack of customer quilts to work through, which is quite nice, but also a pile of paperwork. Unfortunately every time I try to look at it the phone rings or an urgent email comes in. I am sure I will get through it all but it's going to take longer than I thought.

As work is taking up more time than I had anticipated I haven't quite finished putting my holiday quilt together. It is very close though so when I clear the customer quilts I will pop the last borders on and get it on the frame, I am desperate to play with my new threads on it.

I also realised today that I have to get writing rather urgently. Term starts next week and it now looks like three of my students will be wanting to use my new book. That's going to be tricky if it is still in my head. The good news for all of those who have been asking for it, is that this will be an art quilt book. It will cover several of the techniques I use to produce my art quilts and at least three specific projects. It might even get published before the other book I have written and ready to go, given how many people seem to really want this book. I suppose rather than writing here I should be starting on it.