Wet & Wild Week

I deliberately left the Landy encrusted with mud when I took it to the 4x4 garage to be valued for a possible sale. Despite it looking well used, the guy still commented that it had, "- a lovely clean axle!" He asked me why I wanted to sell it to which I replied that I did not want to sell it at all but thought I should go through the motions of looking for a roomy estate car such as a Volvo to shift Yurts or longarm equipment around. After checking the Yurt for storm damage at the beginning of the week, I drove to the west coast of Scotland to do a talk and workshop for Helensburgh & District Quilters and was delighted that I had a sturdy, dependable Landy as gale-force winds raged and the rain lashed relentlessly. And because I was on my own, I could turn Radio 4 up as loudly as I liked. I made a leisurely detour on the way via IKEA to get some rather unusual curtain fabric; the pattern is much bigger than I expected but the beetrooty-raspberry pink colour is good.  

My talk about my quilting adventures seemed to go down well and the workshop went without a hitch. It was a stress-free class on machine quilting where I tried to impart as much useful information as possible and still leave enough time for a project. The class was called "Wild Wholecloth" but I think it should really be entitled "Pimp My Quilt" as it involved random quilting followed by embellishing with paint and bling. The hospitality that I received was great and I was made very welcome. I'm not sure whether everyone believed the anecdote about me having coffee with Mo this week and observing casually that there was a duck with an injured wing swimming around in the bathtub. When I arrived home on Friday night, I unloaded one set of fabrics and quilting gear from the Landy and reloaded with stuff for the Aberdeenshire QGBI Area Day. This was officially my last one as area rep after 3 years in the post. I really have enjoyed the opportunity to meet many other quilters at meetings from all over Scotland. We had a relaxing day in good company with a mini Mola hand sewing project or easy-peasy machine projects at my end of the long table. Mo helped me out hugely by being the "caterer" for the day. She had made 2 delicious soups and a wicked selection of fancy-pieces.

On Saturday evening I went to a Ceilidh at the Scout Hut with Tania and some other friends. There was a really good band called "Celidh Stomp" with a caller who explained the dances such as "The Witches Reel" and "The Flying Scotsman" extremely well. I actually managed to figure out where I was meant to be most of the time and only had one major collision with a burly kilted man which is probably why I feel a bit stiff today. Supper was a hearty plate of stovies and pickled beetroot. It was super fun and I really hope that it is a tradition that will still be going strong in another 100 years.

I was suffering from guilt for most of Sunday because I kept thinking I should catch up and get on with a customer quilt that I really need to get done by early on Tuesday as I have a visitor coming for some longarming tuition.  However, I sorted out most of the stuff that I had taken to my various quilting activities, did some washing, accidentally felted my favourite rainbow striped woolly jumper, and pieced a very basic but satisfying window sill runner. I decided that paperwork could wait and I will either have to work flat out all of Monday or simply take the waiting quilt off to do later in the week; this is the sort of time when I could really do with two machines.