A Not Going Anywhere Week

 

My journey home from FoQ was not entirely straightforward. I made it to Fergus’ flat in Glasgow with no problems but when we decided to nip to the supermarket my car would not start, just like it did in June. I called the AA just after 9am the next morning and a patrol truck came about 2 hours later and declared that we would need to be taken to a garage. At 1.30pm we got towed as far as Asda in Cumbernauld where we hung around for 5 hours waiting for another  truck to take us further. This was also meant to be a staged journey but the fantastic female driver decided that she would take us all the way back and we finally reached Banchory at midnight. All of the garages and mobile mechanics seem to be busy and nobody will even look at it until late next week. The only other car available car at home is an ancient VW Golf with defective brakes so I won’t be going anywhere for a while unless I hire a car!

All 3 children came home for a few days which was lovely and I even persuaded them that I would like a photo in the summer evening sun. 

I did not want to disappear into my workshop to do customer quilts while they were visiting so I pottered around and even tidied up my jungly plant windowsill after a bird got in and pooped everywhere. 

We cooked together and just enjoyed each other’s company. As young adults all living away from home, they love the kitchen space, gadgets, and food stores that I have. We used a silly rice scoop to make duck shaped rice balls and Nessie was thrilled to have all of her favourite people for a visit. 

I will have an empty nest again next week so will get the customer quilts done and have a ruthless workshop sort-out.

Festival of Quilts 2024

I first attended FoQ in 2006, missed out 2007, can’t remember whether I went in 2009 and 2020 was cancelled which means I have been to 17 (I think) and at least 14 of those years I was working as a longarm demonstrator. 

Birmingham is often hot while FoQ is on and set-up day was around 30 celsius so we all melted as we got the stand ready. Thank goodness for the good humour of the UK Bernina team and everything was made ready, with just a few swear words, for the crowds on Thursday.

Thursday and Friday were pretty busy but Saturday was oddly quiet and we dreaded that Sunday might be a slow day but it turned out better than expected. Working on a stand means that you don’t get the same opportunity to wander around at a leisurely pace, browsing the competition quilts or doing shopping. To be honest, I have reached the point where I rarely make any purchases  because I really don’t need any more quilting “stuff”. In the end I bought a pattern for a stuffed toy Axolotl and a signed copy of Nicholas Ball’s book. 

I zoomed around making a silly video on my scooter early one morning, ignoring a security person who warned  me, “No whizzing!” On the last morning I was more sensible and made several short clips on my phone which I plan to make into a Youtube video about quilts that grabbed my attention. 

For once, I was in total agreement with the Best in Show quilt, “Dear Humans”, a pictorial quilt which was exquisitely done. 

The gallery that I enjoyed the most was by an American quilter, Sidnee Snell. The pieces were a mixture of photographic and abstract. They all had saturated, solid colours but seemed felted or like watercolours. The quilting was actually very simple but the pieces were washed when the stitching was completed so had a more textured finish. 

I enjoyed seeing old friends and made some new ones. I missed having the Qmatic computer on the longarm stand as it always bring people in out of curiosity. It is always fun to show people a longarm who have never seen one before and the reactions vary from those who think it is cheating to those who are blown away by the possibilities. 

Quite a few people asked why I did not have a quilt in the competition. The answer to that is perhaps that a) I have been busy with Life, b) I am not sure that I have been hit by sufficient inspiration and c) my personal standards are higher and I know that I have to devote far more TIME than I can to such an endeavour. Who knows what will happen by 2025?!

A BIG Week

I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to throw together a quilt for FoQ at the last minute - not for the competition, just for the Bernina UK longarm stand. I had to get it done by the weekend, with 2 days away in Glasgow, so that meant putting in 11ish hours quilting on each free day. I did eventually get it done in 51 hours!

I had pieced the butterfly quilt accurately and loaded, pinned and basted it well BUT there was so much quilting that everything shrank in and it was difficult to get the background areas to fit, I signed up for a Quiltalong Facebook group but I did not have time to watch 3+ hour live videos to get the tips that I wanted so I just bashed on regardless. I think it might have been “better” if I had opted to do the background first but ultimately it would have been better to have allowed more time;)

Anyway, I have bound it, still have a million threads to trim on the back where I opted for jump stitches.  As long as nobody scrutinises the circles which I did without the computer in the end - it looks pretty good.

Fergus and his pals, Joe and Connor aka “Ample House” had their debut gig in Glasgow at the iconic venue, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut. The turnout, sound, vibe were great and they were fantastic. I hope it will lead to other successful gigs and build up a loyal fan base.

Who Wants to Buy My Stuff?

I am trying to sell all sorts of things on Facebook Marketplace. After some to-ing and fro-ing I have at least sold my caravan. This is both sad and a relief. I spent a lot of time and money doing it up but I have not used it at all this year and would only have gone on solo expeditions which I don’t think is as fun. The new owners want to go on occasional trips but mainly use it as a nail salon.

My second longarm machine is also up for sale because I don’t use really use it and could do with some extra space. The same goes for the electric piano! This house and my workshop is full of stuff that nobody uses and if I can make a little money from sales that would be a bonus. Except that nobody seems to be interested in any of my listings. 

Summer is going by in a bit of a grey blur with the occasional sunny day. I decided that I would try to finish the Tula Pink butterfly quilt to display on the Bernina longarm stand at FoQ but that means I have a week and a bit to quilt and bind it and I will have 2 days out of that in Glasgow this week as Fergus has his debut gig at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut.

I have basted the butterfly quilt on the frame, ready to start the complex digital quilting on Monday. I just hope everything fits correctly and fingers crossed, if necessary I can morph the designs to fit. 

Not Summer in Norfolk

 

                                                 Late Summer in Norfolk, Sunlight After Rain - Ian Houston 1934-2021

I spent just over a week with family in Norfolk with very non summery weather. We did not do very much at all - we did not even go to the seaside! It was nice to see them but quite dull really;) I did not take a single photo or even make any amazing junk shop buys. The highlight of my week was attending a virtual speed awareness course after being caught on camera on my last trip, exceeding the motorway limit briefly. I decided not to drive all the way back North in one day so Nella and I stayed overnight with Fergus in Glasgow where it was far sunnier. It was nice to break the journey but because we arrived late on Monday night, I did not unpack the car or sort anything out so my working week won’t start until Wednesday and I will feel a bit short of time for the rest of the week until I “catch up”.

I probably will NOT get a job as a Van Driver;)

 

For 2 days I drove a big van around Glasgow helping Fergus and his pals move all of their belongings from the East End to the Southside. They were still shifting their beds from one top floor flat to another top floor flat after midnight. There was a fridge pickup in the middle of the evening after refuelling with a takeaway curry. The boys are delighted with the new digs which have been recently redecorated. Luckily, they are all respectful lads and will make an effort to keep it nice. I thought I was was a great van driver but would be unlikely to be employed in that role as I did not help move any furniture and had to get Fergus to do the parking;)

I did a little more piecing on the Tula Pink butterfly but most of my week was taken up with teaching longarm quilting in person and online. 

Freya came home to bring her tortoise on holiday so she can go trekking in Slovakia and inter-rail /backpack to a few European cities on the way. 

Nella and I have come down to Norfolk for the week which looks like it may be damp. I am regretting leaving Nessie’s raincoat behind. It took 11.5 hours which is longer than usual. It is really better to start off the journey in Glasgow but then it becomes a 2 day trip. I did not bring any craft projects with me - perhaps I will just watch some Youtube tutorials this week instead;)

Long Summer Work Days

Last Monday was a scorcher at 26 Celsius and I felt slightly guilty that my main activity of the day was spent inside on my computer, trying to sort out some messy digital quilt designs. It was only summer for one day because the rest of the week was half that temperature here in Scotland, which is OK for quilting. 

Nella went off to Glasgow to stay with Freya and spend time with Fergus so I felt that I could spend as much time in my workshop as I liked since we have such long, light evenings. I had a couple of Zoom teaching sessions and worked my way through 3 customer quilts.

While the machine was busy stitching I pieced together the blocks of the Tula Pink butterfly quilt into larger sections and completed 2 top wings. They are mirror images of each other and it is important not to get any pieces muddled up!

Sunday is being spent loading a van with Fergus’ stuff for his flat move on Monday. At least I am watching the van being loaded, staking my rights firmly as the Driver just to drive and not shift the gear;)

What is my Time worth?

The trouble with being a Maker is that I tend to think I can make something better or cheaper than buying something. For instance, I love linen bed sets but they are so expensive. I investigated buying wide linen to make Fergus a duvet set but it was at least £50.00 per metre just for plain colours which would not be as economical as purchasing a set. 

I went to a vintage shop this week and bought half a dozen old linen sheets for £30.00 altogether. I decided to washing machine dye them in different shades of green then tear them into strips and rejoin them with my overlocker. It took me about 3 days to dye the linen, cut it up and remake it into a reversible duvet cover, fitted sheet and 2 pillow cases. It was satisfying to do this but did not really make economic sense and if I am honest, did not make as nice a set if I had bought it in a really nice check. Perhaps I should have made something a bit more “patchwork” but that would have taken even longer!

At any rate, he thinks it looks nice - he is struggling with being away from home but I hope things will improve when he and his pals move into a new flat next week where he will have his own room, rather than dossing on their sofa. He has been going through a bit of an existential crisis, hating working in Cafe Nero. I hope he will find something more fun like an independent coffee shop when he moves from the East End into the Southside. He certainly had a confidence boost when King Tut’s in Glasgow booked his band for a newcomers’ session in mid July.

At the vintage shop I also bought a Turkish style rug for Freya’s flat for £40.00 which I thought was pretty reasonable.

I sent my pattern instructions and Youtube video to an experienced bag maker to look over. She came up trumps and made a pouch which looks great and said that the instructions and video were easy to follow which was my plan:)

The summer solstice this year was actually dry, which made a pleasant change and Nella took a lovely photo of a dramatic sunset. 

A customer quilt got done during the week. It was for a raffle so I kept the quilting simple and classic to suit all tastes and it turned out well.

Other than that, I did a Zoom teaching session, learned how to do a French seam (fitted sheet), got a puncture and made some sub-par shortbread (should have stuck to a classic recipe with a touch of ground rice). 

A Slow and Damp Summer Week

 

We had a pleasantly low-key and damp summer week here in N E Scotland. It was cold and I had to use my electric blanket at night. Freya was here to get her front teeth fitted at last then she worked from home for a couple of days while Nella crafted. 

Fergus sent a great photo of him with some pals at the Scotland vs. Germany football match in a Glasgow pub. He is very homesick but knows that he has to be in Glasgow to give his music career a decent shot. Hopefully he will feel better when he moves into a new flat next month and gets a room of his own. 

I had a fun Elizabeth Hartman dinosaur quilt to do for a customer and I thought that the Monstera pattern worked well.

I uploaded a Youtube tutorial on how to make a stationery pouch with instructions. Hopefully I made it super easy to follow - I did make at least 4 prototypes in the end.

While the machine quilted lots of Swiss cheese plants, I bit the bullet and decided to get all of the dreaded curved piecing out of the way on the Tula Pink butterfly quilt. It was not all that bad with just a couple of dodgy seams overall. All I have left to do is a few straightforward blocks, then I have to try and get it all together without muddling up too many pieces!