All in a Day's Work!

I must have brewed extra strong coffee on Monday because I managed to piece 2 large quilt backs, make 4 sets of double-fold binding, trim the edges of 3 quilts, and wash, dry and bind the tatty 1930’s quilt and even the fleecy practice one! This was obviously my most productive day of the week because there was quite a bit of faffing after that. I started to fill in a year-planner because I could not quite work out where I was meant to be on the iCloud calendar and I was convinced that I had lost a date or two. 

I spent my birthday teaching at one of my favourite schools which was fine since all of the children behaved nicely and the teachers bought me birthday cakes. I was asked to throw together lessons on Fairtrade cotton and probability so I told them about child labour in India and may have casually mentioned gambling in a fun way when asking them to think of games of chance. A couple of boys were soon accumulating a pile of wooden beads as their winnings. On a more serious note, the children’s internet searches really made me question the ethics of the cotton that I buy for quilting and this is something that I will consider when I buy fabric and wadding from now on!

My husband surprised me by giving me vouchers for a day at River Cottage in Dorset with Freya - we can take a day’s class in bread making or learn how to cure our own bacon. I enjoyed coffee with Tania and Mo - they gave me lovely gifts that included candles, a funky scarf and a bottle of artisan gin. 

I decided to quilt my Peppered Solids quilt before tackling the next huge customer commission. I had intended to keep it simple with wavy lines or baptist fans but I automatically started covering it in plumes and swirls. I was not sure about the silvery thread so I switched to a gold coloured one. There was no way that I intended to unpick the silver so I had to make it look like a design feature and quilt with silver in all 4 corners. I did have a few issues with the bottom border. The main body of the quilt was a bit stretchy because the loose weave fabric had plenty of “give” in it. It was tricky to ensure that the stiffer Cherrywood border did not distort the whole thing and I had to suffer a few nasty little puckers even though I padded it out with extra wadding. It does not really matter as it is not a show quilt but it annoyed me all the same. 

My E-book got some attention too as I edited the projects and made lists of all of the photos that I want to accompany the writing. I hope that I will be able to resize and reuse some that I already have but I will have to make all of the projects from scratch just to ensure that I have all of the step-by-step pictures. 

The autumn totem was yet another project that has been on hold for some time. I had to redo all of the calculations as I had no recollection of what I had originally intended. It looks like I made plenty of strip-sets and will have more than enough to use for the largest column that will be wrapped in a leather skin like the original Imbolc set of three. 

I will have to keep up this pace if I stand any chance of completing the book projects AND the totems. I have already turned down several days of supply teaching in favour of quilting so I must try to make the most of my time ;)