Triumphing over Tech (in the end)

 

I spent a lot of my week testing out the Tech that I needed to use to do my Zoom lecture and demo for the Scottish branch of the Quilters Guild of the British Isles. I was using the MacBook Air that I got from Music Magpie and a usbc hub since the MacAir hardly has any ports where you can plug in gadgets. It turns out that there is more than one version of a basic usb port! I wanted to use 2 Camlinks in order to livestream images from my 2 GoPro cameras but they needed a faster port than usual, 3.0 instead of 2.0. Having ordered a new usbc hub I had to return it because the ports were too close together and the 2 quite fat Camlinks could not both fit. Let’s just say, the Postie was kept busy with my Amazon exchanges until I got the right gadget;)

That was not the only stumbling block - I could not get a microphone to work reliably until I realised that I had one that could connect to the Mac via Bluetooth. Despite that, when I practise Zoom with my sister there was no sound. I was so paranoid that I also did a practise run with the Region co-ordinator and Nella. None of this was helped by the fact that the wifi was also being temperamental. To my horror, when I logged onto the meeting 15 minutes before the start there was again no sound but in the end it was suggested that I leave then rejoin the meeting and after that everything ran smoothly. I had a face camera, a slideshow and 2 work stations with day 2 other cameras. What a relief when I got through the whole presentation and people seemed to have enjoyed it:) 

That was my first big commitment of the year. The next one to concentrate on is a teaching weekend at Quilt Direct in Devon in mid March. I was asked by one of the Zoom participants if I was going to enter FOQ this year but I said that I was not going to push myself to a deadline when I need to concentrate on my teaching commitments without getting my knickers in a twist;)

In addition to all of my Tech trauma, I managed to get 3 smallish customer quilts done. The forthcoming one this week will be another big one at 100” square.

I had intended to make a short Art & Stitch video this week but I went a bit off-piste wondering if an old drawing tablet might be useful (it wasn’t) and I tried to get to grips with computer drawing using a Bezier arc/line tool which I found almost impossible. 

At least I have found my planner useful… it was really good having decided what to eat each night, even though I have a lot of risotto left over since Fergus decided McDonalds would be more appealing. Because it was scheduled in, I went swimming twice and things actually felt a little less chaotic. I need to keep up the good start;)