Mind Boggling

I was delighted to offer Tania a strong jug of coffee in exchange for help to wrap and store the Henge Totems. It took ages to put everything back where it belonged and to scrub the acrylic paint off the printing blocks that were used in my class at the SECC. Once the studio was squared up again I felt that I could get on with my List…

Deciding to take a break from quilting and catch up with myself this week, I plucked up the courage to cut out a simple dress using a cardboard pattern from Merchant & Mills. It took me a while to understand why facings are necessary and I actually cut out too many pattern pieces. As usual, I struggled to comprehend the instructions which I am sure were perfectly adequate. I made no attempt to pattern-match the funky fine needle-cord fabric and I added rectangular pockets which are just a little on the small size for my hands to rummage around but it fits! I am a little anxious that the fabric might shrink if I wash it because despite its generous cut, the sleeves are a bit “nippit”. I would like to have a crack at a tartan version and will need to try and match up the lines. It really made me appreciate how complex garment sewing really is - my dress was not even lined.

Almost a whole day was spent on my computer working on my presentation for the Bernina Q24 dealer launch in London next week and then converting all of my Ebook drafts into an old version of Microsoft Word. I had decided to get a local printer to run off all of the rough text and thumbnails of all of the pictures so I could proof-read and edit more easily. I had to wait a few days for the job to get done but it only cost me £11 which I reckon was cheaper than using my printer ink at home and besides, I don’t even know how to run off batches of thumbnails. 

I already wasted a lot of time trying to decide whether to install Windows onto my Macbook so I could access some sewing related software using Bootcamp. I showed my old Windows laptop to a computer expert who advised that if I just cleared the excess “junk”  files from it I would easily be able to use it to run the Bernina simulator program and access my Quilt Path files without any further faffing around with USB sticks, new software and hours spent on YouTube trying to follow geeky instructions. 

Feeling vaguely technologically-minded, I upgraded my mobile phone to an iPhone 6. The Apple Store staff thought my 4 year old phone was an antique. I found it amazing that all of the stuff on my original phone was on “The Cloud” so when I switched on the new phone EVERYTHING was there, like Magic. I have already noticed that it is much faster and hopefully I will benefit from a much improved signal. Sometimes the old phone would hold onto messages for days or just not ring at all. 

I started a fantastically boring but therapeutic job which was to sort out all of the beads that I had haphazardly chucked into plastic boxes while working on my Totems. I purchased a 60 compartment box at the SECC last week and it was oddly satisfying to segregate all of the different colours and sizes. 

On the way home from the girls’ piano lesson I spotted a large, empty cable reel in a ditch and to their horror I stopped to retrieve it. I had to climb a fence and roll it until I found a gate but with their help I loaded it into the Landy. I have always hankered after a cable reel as a garden table. I might even wrap some rope around it to make it look like a giant bobbin.

All in all, it was another week in which I dealt with “stuff”, grappled with mind boggling technology then started all over again making a new list for next week…