What's the story in Balamory?

I'm on the Isle of Mull without an Internet connection! I will have to wait until the Internet cafe opens later this week before making a proper blog post...

Pale and Interesting

I started the week determined to make good headway on the Yurt book and began by printing out everything that I have written so far. There seemed to be 3 versions of an introduction and several partly completed sections. At least I can now see what needs to be done. I made headway on an article on Shape and Form despite looking up definitions in a dictionary and getting rather muddled. I just decided to write about yurts in general and the structure of mine in particular. I had to put the frame up again in order to make accurate measurements which Bruce in Vermont will need to make the USA frame. My Yurt is not what I would call precision engineered – the measurements vary slightly and seem to change if the grass is bumpy. I need to stand all of the roof spars upside down in a bucket of linseed oil since they seem to be getting brittle at the ends; there have been a few casualties, snapping off at their pointy ends that will need to be replaced.

I quilted the panel called Pi Squares with some curving lines and curved cross hatching, filled in with pebbles. The new Elna 740 machine arrived from Pembertons and I put it straight to work on couching some yarn around the circles and defining some of the curves. I am very impressed so far – it has not complained once about chomping through a quilted piece to do a bit of fancy stitching. The larger throat is great for manoeuvring a finished quilt for embellishing since the wadding I have used is rather stiff to make the texture puff up nicely.

I painted my bedroom bit by bit during the week. As I have a roll of subtly printed grey and white linen with which I intend to make curtains, I had to cover up the pumpkin coloured walls with something more Scandinavian. I used to paint walls in bold colours but I seem to be choosing paler shades nowadays – I hope it is not a sign of age! I can't say it was exciting decorating when the colour was an undramatic off-white and by the second coat I couldn't see where I had been.

I finally decided to order a Kitchenaid mixer this week as I came across a very good offer. This promotion did not apply to any of the gorgeously coloured ones so at least I was spared that difficult decision – the classic model only comes in white. This was partly prompted after I grated my thumb amongst the carrots again and I admit that I found the video clip on potato mashing impressive.

After working with all of these neutral shades there was some unexpected colour here this week – Fergus discovered a very old bottle of fake tan lotion in the bathroom cupboard and decided to apply it liberally to see whether it would work. The offending bottle had long passed its sell-by date and had a potent smell. Fergus maintained that the bottle "fell" on him. He did not consider rubbing the cream in or washing his hands afterwards so he gradually developed a patchy orange tan that fascinated everyone at school.

I ended the week getting frustrated by a program that is meant to make life simpler by synchronising my calendars and contacts between PC, phone and ipad – except that I can't get it to function in the first place and all it tells me is that my new phone is actually 4 miles away from where it really is so I expect I will have to waste some more time sorting that quirk out...

Stirling

 

There has been something wrong with my coffee this week. It seemed to lack flavour so I went on a quest to source some more interesting blends. I researched different types of coffee grinders, wondering if I should make a ritual out of preparing my own beans for elevenses. Ferret had made me a cup of Blue Mountain coffee at the Region 15E weekend that had strength without bitterness. I eventually ordered an extravagant tin direct from Jamaica to see if it really is worth it. I had coffee with Mo midweek and came home with two new hens. She is constantly downsizing her free range flock so we captured a couple using fishing nets and I put them in my empty pigsty. They have laid two eggs each every day while my other lazy four have produced one in total. I had to stock up on layers' pellets before my trip to Stirling so picked up several new pairs of dressage gloves which are perfect for domestic machine quilting.

As well as preparing for a lecture & workshop away from home, helping to make sets of wings for the school show, registering for North East Open Studios and typing away on Yurt related documents, I also began dyeing fabric for the USA Yurt roof. Disappointingly, I realised that I am short by almost 40 metres! This large miscalculation is because I had forgotten that the first roof was tweeds on the top side with dyed backing but the second one will have dyed fabrics on both sides. On a positive note, I experimented and found that one sachet of Hungarian dye will colour an impressive 6 metres at once.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Stirling Castle Quilters this week. It only took 2 ½ hours to drive to Stirling which is a compact city and I soon found my way around. The evening talk was held at the very well appointed Raploch Community Campus which had modern conference facilities. It was rather nice not to have to set up the entire yurt as I only took the panels. These were all laid out on tables - there are almost 36 now which is almost enough for two yurts but I aim to complete a minimum of 40 by the summer so that I have "spares" that can be swapped around. I managed to borrow a digital projector so the audience could see pictures of how the frame is constructed. They were really impressed by the scale of the project; they gave me a really very warm welcome and I felt that the talk went down really well. I was told that everyone was looking forward to seeing the fully dressed yurt at the Scottish Regional Day in Perth in September.

I took my Husqvarna sewing machine to Pemberton's in the centre of Stirling and was most impressed by the customer service. I looked at a couple of machines in case I decided to trade it in and tested them out on a piece of army canvas and quilted tweed. I felt that Andrew Pemberton imparted sound advice based on experience and knowledge. The technician looked at my machine straight away so that it could be diagnosed and discussed before I would head home the next day. I took some leaflets away to read overnight and I decided to trade in my embroidery machine for something better suited to quilting. An Elna Excellence 740 with an 11" throat is going to be delivered on Monday...

I pre-quilted a set of 9 Celtic kaleidoscopes for the Stirling workshop and wondered if it would be possible to draw them out instead to save some preparation time. I looked up spiro drawing applications on the computer but it was all a bit mathematical and I couldn't work out how to echo the lines. I ended up ordering a selection of books on circles, mandalas and vectors as I decided it would be far easier to photocopy, enlarge and trace the patterns. The books that have arrived so far seem to be written for people who have exceptional understanding of geometry and computer programming so I hope that the colouring books that have yet to be delivered will be easier for me to follow. The students in my workshop commented on how fun it was that the basic quilting had already been done so they could concentrate on the more intricate fillers and embellishments. They all worked very hard and produced super pieces which they all seemed to be pleased with!

I coerced Freya into helping me rearrange my workshop at the weekend as it seemed to be getting overcrowded and I was climbing around rolls of wadding. It looks much better and I have created enough space to accommodate Lenni, the smaller longarm that I will take to Festival of Quilts. Fenella helped me to clean out a 1950's kitchen cupboard which most sensible people would have taken to the dump. It is impossible to work out what its original colour may have been and it really could do with a total revamp but I can't spend days doing it up when I have so many other things to do, including considering repainting my bedroom for the first time in 10 years!

 

Full-on Formal

Sometimes I have customer quilts that don't get quilted as soon as they arrive. This one came last year as a "no hurry" quilt then its owner eventually took it back to complete herself before returning it recently since it looked rather challenging. This customer makes perfectly pieced quilts and she always warns me not to overdo the fancy quilting. This quilt required formal quilting, particularly stitch in the ditch. I am usually reluctant to use rulers as I once ran over one and had to retime my machine. I think that using rulers on a longarm machine is actually quite tricky to begin with – you certainly have to sew far more slowly and concentrate. It is all a matter of confidence – I used a really small ¼" thick ruler that couldn't slip for the straight lines and a 2" circle template for all of the pumpkin seeds. I eventually became faster but it still took me 5 full days of quilting to finish this quilt. I am really pleased with the results and know that I will not be afraid to use rulers again. However, I was conscious of how long it took to be so precise and how I was spending the entire week on just one project. 

The formal quilt kept me mostly out of mischief. I had coffee with Mo one morning and came home with 2 new laying hens. Mine are lazy layers so I wanted two everyday chooks with no airs and graces. They have already shamed the other lot by laying a brown egg each every day.

It was a week of very variable weather – we had gale force winds that threatened to pull off my canvas yurt's roof. The anchoring straps worked themselves loose so I had to go out and haul them in to avoid a catastrophe. I had planned to drive to Perth for the QGBI Scottish Regional Day but we had a severe weather warning for heavy snowfalls. I spent the spare day usefully catching up on correspondence for the Yurt tour in the USA and browsing for internet special offers on Kitchenaid mixers. It will take me ages to decide whether to buy one as they come in so many lovely colours.

I have packed up all of the accessories belonging to my recalcitrant sewing machine to take for a service in case I decide to trade it down. I can only justify doing this if I can get a good deal as it originally cost me a frightening amount of money and I have hardly used any of its fancy functions. I have to pre-quilt some kits for a class that I will be doing for Stirling Castle Quilters this week and maybe I will get started on quilting one of the new Yurt panels. I am dying to get started on Mo's fabric collage hare but really need to think about how this should be quilted. I also need to decide whether to make something for FOQ this year – if the hare works well then we could consider entering it into the reinstated two-person category.

First Yurt Road Trip

I spent most of the week preparing for my trip to QGBI Region 15E near Durham after getting in touch with Region 15W to apologise profusely for muddling the two groups together and taking the latter out of my diary. Luckily, Ferret has agreed to take my place at their Regional Day in October as I plan to be out of the country. I rooted around my computer to find lots of construction and work-in-progress pictures to make a PowerPoint presentation. This was a really interesting exercise as it meant that I had to create a chronological sequence of photos and make notes. For the first time ever, it made me realise quite how much was involved from planning, to gathering materials, making, enlisting help, putting it all together with the invaluable help from the Stunt Quilters and then starting to work out how to continue developing the project after LLQS. Bizarrely, on the night before the trip, I dreamt about Kitchenaid Mixers rather than having nightmares about driving several hundred miles with a Yurt on the roof of my car.

 Packing everything up was relatively easy as it was already organised. The tweed roof sections had been packed into vacuum bags which took up very little space. The most challenging thing was working out how to use the ratchets on the roof-rack straps. I think I have it sussed now, after catching a finger in one of them.

The 6 hour journey was pretty smooth all the way to Newcastle then a couple of angry motorists shook their fists at me while meant to be keeping to the 40mph speed limit during roadworks as they wanted to overtake. I almost made it to my final destination then had a last minute doubt that I was in the right place so stopped at a corner shop to ask for directions. In my haste to get away, I backed up the Landy but somehow just did not see a parked car behind as I crunched its plastic bumper. The driver emerged from the shop, understandably annoyed and I apologised profusely while also getting lip from some cheeky teenaged bystanders. I was SO annoyed with myself! There wasn't a scratch on the Landy, of course.

During the evening some of the Region 15E committee members gathered and finally after 10pm we gained access to the venue. The janitor was most concerned about his newly varnished floor but we were very careful. Miraculously, the small team of ladies managed to put up the wooden frame within an hour but it made me realise that however independent I claim to be, this is one job where Manpower is essential.

We arrived early the next morning to hang the wall panels and get the huge tweed roof up.  Despite not having time to hang bunting and fairy lights on the Yurt, it was great to see it in all of its finery again. The visitors were impressed and seemed to enjoy my talk which actually overran a little. I normally worry that I will be over concise and finish talking too soon. I received many compliments and admiration for my crazy project, and for the amazing support of the Stunt Quilters. I was delighted to sell some of my hand-dyed packs and postcards. I even met 2 longarmers who were keen to undertake some tuition and it was really nice that Kath from Darlington came specially – she even volunteered her son to help pack up the Landy afterwards, which was hugely appreciated.

It was fun to meet up with Ferret again as we always seem to get along rather well. We were amused that some members of the audience didn't know which of us was which and wondered vaguely whether we should plan a joint road trip in the future. Her talk also went down very well and it looked like everyone managed to stay awake all day – this has not always been the case at other Regional days that I have attended as there often seems to be some surreptitious afternoon snoozing going on.

I must thank Ann for being a lovely hostess and looking after me this weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting quilters from another area. It was a long drive home but I was able to listen to Radio 4 for most of the way. I stopped at IKEA for lunch on the way home and bought a bolt of black cotton which I daresay wiped out the modest profit that I might have made if I had not ruined someone's bumper. Unfortunately I didn't remember to ask anyone to take photos on my own camera so I hope that someone might send me a picture or two. I believe that Ferret may have taken a quick snap as I climbed on the Landy to load up my floral trimmed army canvas roof-rack bag – I don't suppose it was a particularly flattering shot!

My sewing machine hates me...

I have really fallen out with my domestic sewing machine this time. I don't think our relationship will ever be the same. It just isn't prepared to try hard enough these days so I have decided that after it has a good sort-out, it will be time to sell or trade in. It really did not want to sew the army canvas that I was using to construct a roof-rack bag for the Yurt. I tried using a great big needle but it still struggled so I ended up having to make a gigantic army-issue laptop bag with a daisy print binding to finish off the edges, since a double seam was out of the question. Then the so-called-top-of-the-range sewing machine balked at the industrial Velcro that I should have remembered it didn't like when I sewed the Yurt roof panels. It continued to sulk when I wanted to satin stitch onto a quilted Yurt panel with metallic thread and it kept snagging up the bobbin until I became hoarse with shouting at it. All seemed well with attaching binding until I pressed the reverse button and suddenly that was all it could do – it got stuck going backwards! I got out my more basic but (actually) made in Sweden machine and it was more than happy to oblige. I have decided that I don't use the posh (not actually made in Sweden) machine for any of the fancy embroidery that I thought I would when I first bought it and it is pointless keeping it unused in a box. I will have to get it serviced and fixed then decide whether I need to replace it with a different machine altogether; maybe I should even consider an industrial one.

I have been completing American Quilt Society forms to be considered as a teacher at Des Moines. I had to list exact quantities of fabrics and supplies, so it became a useful planning exercise. This prompted me to try out circles quilted with a twin needle on a domestic machine as an alternative to using the circle-making attachment on the longarm.

This week was busy with non-quilting happenings. On Monday I attended school as an observing teacher to see how teaching maths in primary school may have changed in the 10 years that I have been away. Of course, the concepts remain the same but the emphasis is on more active learning and the interactive computer screen has replaced the blackboard. I now have to wait for a formal interview and hope that drastic cutbacks in education have not closed the list of relief teachers in my area. It would be good to know that I could have a reliable income that would help fund my USA Yurt tour. Fenella was thrilled to start Brownie Guides and was adamant that she would need the uniform straight away. Fergus played Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" on guitar for the school talent show and was delighted to be chosen as the winner. Freya had her first senior school prom and persuaded a friend to help operate the hair-curling gadget to make her look glamorous. I expect she was worried that I might burn her hair or make her put on too much glittery eye shadow. Blue Cat accidentally stayed out all night for the first time and was most disgruntled in the morning.

I ordered a couple of unusual items online; antler buttons from The Highlands and a pair of builder's props from a tool merchant in The Midlands. Both of these are Yurt related. The buttons will look good on one of the new curved Yurt panels and the props are to hold the Yurt crown in place, rather than make someone balance on a ladder to wait with aching arms until all of the roof spars are lined up. The alternative to these would have been plasterer's stilts but I thought these would have been quite tricky to master!

Highland Rake

The mid-term break was grey, wet and cold so I decided that the children could do with a dose of culture at Aberdeen Art Gallery. Although they were not excited at the prospect, they enjoyed the visit. I was bemused by some of the artist statements, wondering whether they are taught how to write enigmatically at art school. I was impressed by the range of the collections. There were several famous Impressionist and Pre-Raphaelite artists' works as well as pieces by Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. I was still fuming after a phone call with a representative of the Scottish Arts Council that had started encouragingly regarding artist travel grants. It ended quite quickly after I explained that my exhibition involves textiles and I was informed that this puts me in the "craft" category for which there is no current funding. I constantly find this distinction between Art and Craft infuriating. I appreciate skill and technique in any medium. I wonder what William Morris and his followers would have made of the separation of his key principles. I have been asked to write an article about the Yurt with regard to "Form & Structure" by C June Barnes for a chapter in a forthcoming book. I will try to write a suitable piece that is esoteric enough for the subject but that is not incomprehensible arty drivel. Before I am bombarded by emails from incensed artists, let me say that I daresay that most of them are perfectly sensible, creative people who do not usually wear smocks and berets while smoking French cigarettes. Admittedly, I did not meet anybody like that at the North East Open Studios AGM. I have decided to join NEOS this year and will open my studio for a week in September.

I worked away at drafting and typing projects for the Yurt book. I had to calculate the yardage for each project and check that I was giving the correct sizes for each unit. I will pass the notes on to some quilter friends to proof-read when I have sketched out some accompanying diagrams. I am still not completely satisfied with the precision of some of the joins in my Celtic Drunkard's Path piece. I was lent a book on "Piecelique" by Sharon Schamber that offered another method of dealing with curves then discovered that there are several books on the subject on Amazon and I wondered why I had made myself figure it out by trial and error. My inaccuracies were probably caused by the loosely woven fabrics and in the end I decided that some antler buttons could be used to disguise them.

I investigated how I could print my blog out in book form since it would be useful to flick back and pick out references to the Yurt for the book. If I had used Blogger from the beginning then it would be relatively easy to "slurp" the entire blog into a publishing website but my website based blog is not recognised. I spent a very long time figuring ways around this and even worked out how to export it all BUT still got stuck with an error code. As a distraction I also became an electric guitar online-buying geek, shopping around for a full sized guitar for Fergus, reading reviews and watching demo clips on YouTube!

Mo and I went on a jaunt to see Yurtman, Paul Spencer, at the edge of The Highlands near Balmoral. We drove along the very scenic South Deeside Road all the way. The sun was glimmering on the birch trees despite the leaden sky. He was working on 5 yurts in various stages of construction. He has a large yurt that he rents out as a weekend retreat. It has an outdoor shower with a twisted birch branch as a rustic door handle. He has agreed to be interviewed for my book when he is less busy. He let me have a length of sturdy green canvas to make a waterproof bag for the Yurt to travel on the Landy roofrack. We stopped in Ballater to look for antler buttons but none of the shops had any. We each ended up buying something trendy to wear in a boutique then were advised to try the charity shop for buttons. I didn't get any buttons but ended up buying a 15 metre roll of hand printed linen that I could use for bedroom curtains. I'll just have to redecorate the room to match the fabric!

Sorting Circles

I was determined to make significant progress on writing some projects to go in the Yurt book. I wrote instructions that I think are simple to follow but I am aware that anyone who makes a claim that their pattern is "easy" is either optimistic about the skill of the person tackling the project or is just lying. It will be imperative that someone else can understand what I am trying to explain. I have taken several photos of various stages but some publishers prefer diagrams. I realised that I could use Smartpen to sketch the pictures and an editor could find someone who can actually draw to present them properly. However, the trouble with having gadgets and software that are not used frequently is that the operator tends to forget how they work. I could do all sorts of things with EQ6 if I had enough patience to remind myself how it works. It took a whole evening for me to figure out how to upload a scribble and save it as a PDF. It would have been quicker to scan in a sketch but there is really no point in having a Smartpen and not using it. It struck me that when I attended the meeting for parents about the school intranet, I should have won a prize for Geekiest Parent since I was able to comment authoritatively on uploading and plug-ins.

The abilities of computer literate quilters can be staggering. My parents are touring around the USA and they emailed to tell me that they had visited a small quilt show in Tombstone, bought a raffle ticket and left their mobile phone behind. I posted a message onto a forum, a quilter elsewhere in Arizona contacted the guild in Tombstone, the phone was found and they called the number that was stored to my parents' friends in California to ask how they could return it!

I decided that I would figure out the most accurate and easiest way of attaching bias tape to circles. Sally kindly posted a link to her method on Facebook and it worked really well. Not satisfied by that major achievement, I just had to crack the "Easy" method of sewing a closed bias loop around a circle. Several attempts ended up in the bin but I finally got good results and can now describe a blow by blow account of how to do it. I make sure that a piece of wadding goes underneath to add stability and to bulk out any fullness. The next challenge was to construct some Drunkard's Path type blocks to reform into a simple Celtic design. I used a variety of methods of turning under the edges of circles. It just goes to show that if you are going to write a pattern that works properly, it has to be thoroughly tested. I had to work out circle sizes or curved templates that included the correct seam allowance and would fit exactly next to a 4-patch block. Since I am not a mathematician and because I never studied a proper course in patchwork, I find resizing can be a bit tricky. It may seem sensible to use a template from a book but I often want to adjust the size of the project. I will make the other half of my Celtic ring before I decide which method gives the best results. Maybe I will decide that I should just make the templates using EQ6 and piece the Drunkards Path pieces together with a curved piecing foot.

I made carrot cake #3 using Nigel Slater's recipe. It was a good cake, although separately egg whites and yolks was a bit of a faff. I thought the texture was a touch dry if I am being really critical but the mascarpone and cream cheese icing was superb.

I contacted the British Council to enquire about travel grants for artists exhibiting overseas but I was told that all future funding has been cut. I emailed Radio 4 "Woman's Hour" to see if they would be interested in interviewing me as I could really do with finding sponsorship to help fund the Yurt tour. I sent a package of postcards off to Terri in Wisconsin to publicise the Yurt exhibition in the USA. I phoned Creative Exhibitions to see if I would be allowed to exhibit the Smart Car cover on an actual car at FOQ. The answer was that I may be allowed to enter it if I could obtain a car without a battery or petrol tank for Health & Safety reasons. The marketing department of Mercedes Smart in Birmingham is looking into my request since they could gain free advertising at Europe's largest quilt festival. The latest thing that I have decided to investigate is publicising my blog to date. I don't mean to sell any copies; it would just make it easier to flick through to pick out any suitable excerpts for the real book. I was fascinated to discover that I can see where my readers come from on the Blogger site. I was amazed to note that there are viewers worldwide. I think I will now go and frustrate myself with EQ6 for a couple of hours or perhaps I will go off at a tangent and look up some other international quilters' blogs!

Flying Teuchter

I flew down to London this week to be at the APQS technical training course in Surrey. Despite being "Europe's Oil Capital", Aberdeen airport is accessed via twisty country roads and it is decidedly compact compared to Terminal 5. I have been through Heathrow before but I had not actually tried to meet anyone there. I did not even occur to me that there would be more than one way out. Luckily, Yvette managed to phone me and find me! On arrival at her house I was delighted to be offered a large gin and introduced to Boris (Johnson) the golden retriever. Yvette dropped me off at Chris' studio for the class the next morning after ploughing through traffic hold-ups caused by school runs, commuters and roadworks. It was great to meet up with several APQS owners and to refresh my memory on machine servicing with experienced technician, Mark Caraher. After the class Yvette and I assisted him with major surgery on Ferret's hard working machine, replacing many of its moving parts. I joked that it would now be bionic and that she might have to "bond" with it all over again.

I spent the next day discussing the stand that Yvette and I will run together at FOQ 2011, she demonstrated the capabilities of her Intelliquilter system and we paid a visit to her shop in Horsley High Street, Woking called "Needle & Thread". It was encouraging to see several customers popping in for fabric, haberdashery and cards. There were a few simple quilts hanging up and I took a fancy to the Tanya Whelan collection and some other Fabric Freedom fat quarters. I decided that I will make Freya and Fenella a new bed quilt each using charm squares; maybe I will sneak a Featherweight into the car in the Easter holidays if I can wait that long before cutting it up. I think it is probably therapeutic to run up something easy now and again.

My flight home was delayed due to high winds in Scotland. In the end, the turbulence was not quite as bad as I expected but I was very relieved to arrive in Aberdeen. I had left the Landy at the airpark where they had warmed it up for my late arrival – it was like being met by a big, green, friendly dog with a waggy tail. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip down south but it felt great to be back home with bright stars overhead and virtually no other vehicles on the road. It looks like I have become a teuchter (Scots word for a country bumpkin).

I cut up fabric for a couple of so-called-simple Yurt panels involving circles. I wanted to run a wide bias binding around some 6" circles. I got extremely frustrated with the bias binding machine and even tried making the bias without it simply using the iron. Both methods kept missing an edge or crumpling everything. I watched several YouTube clips on bias binding making. I had cut the binding from a large square as shown in the Fons & Porter book. I think that the width of my strips must have been variable and certainly some fabrics co-operated better than others. I even got the gadget to behave eventually. Once I had made the wide bias, I then had to work out the circumference of my circle, add a bit for the end join and pin it into position by matching up some pinpoints. Explanations in books never seem to cover all of my questions. Should I use the outer circumference or an average midpoint so everything got covered properly? Should I use a tape measure or do calculations involving pi? In the end I seemed to get it all fudged in and pinned down without using any stupid pinpoints. I decided that a trapunto layer of wool wadding would help to bulk out any misfitting.

I experimented with the dyeing method that I use for yurt backs. I wondered if the dye would work at lower temperatures so I don't have to use the hot cycle of the washing machine which takes ages. I just filled a large bowl with hot water, salt and vinegar and let it soak in for a while. The colour was absorbed fine but it took so long to rinse that I'm not sure whether it all got "set" properly. I don't really need to wash yurt panels; there was a lot more effort involved in doing the dyeing by hand. I could have done with a mangle to squeeze out the excess water. I will definitely dye the new roof sections in the washing machine.

I have finally made some rough notes for Yurt Book projects and I will have to decide whether to include this one. I have to work out whether to attempt badly drawn diagrams or take lots of photos. I expect that many of my ramblings will have to be edited out since most patchwork books have to conform to a set number of pages. Perhaps it would be better to write a (quilt) recipe book instead as they seem to be pretty thick. In the meantime, perhaps I could produce some patterns to sell as it could be some time before the book is finished.

 

Focus!

 

I expect that I really do have plenty of time for writing a book except that I have a tendency to get a little side-tracked. I have just spent about an hour searching on the internet for a folk singer that I heard on the radio one evening. I memorised her name and meant to write it down but then forgot. After a circuitous trawl via Mike Harding and the Folk Awards, I remembered that I was looking for Emily Portman. Incredibly, when I asked Fenella who the singers were on Jools Holland's Hootenany, she immediately reminded me that they were called "The Secret Sisters". I am mentioning this because I have made a very simple gift quilt this week with large flying geese and rectangles. Surely nothing could go wrong? The thing is that when things are simple, I must let my mind wander and not concentrate fully. There was a good couple of inches difference between the two sides of the finished quilt top because I wasn't accurate enough. I don't know whether this was because the large triangles made things extra stretchy or whether I really should have used some pins to keep things together. I will tell the recipient that the quilt must absolutely never be hung on a wall as it has been specially designed to go on a spare bed.

I had similar lapses in attention when I made the effort to read through the Scottish primary curriculum guidelines that had supposedly been endorsed by the Plain English society. Either it has been deliberately written by a government quango in Gobbledegook or I am incapable of concentrating for long enough to reach the end of each flow diagram. However, while I was doing that I figured out how to draft some quilt blocks with curves, and even worked out the best construction method so it turned into a pretty useful multi-tasking exercise.

Something that preoccupied me greatly was whether we should consider putting in an offer on Durris Manse that came up for sale this week. It is a fantastic large Victorian house in wonderful grounds that requires substantial modernisation. It is also well out of our price range and doesn't even have a workshop. Somehow it appealed to me and I could actually imagine myself living there but it would be far more sensible and much cheaper to extend the house we already have.

I intended to start on some new Yurt panels but I realised that I did not have sufficient yardage to do what I had planned. I ordered some super pieces of organic, fair-trade cotton from http://www.fairtradefabric.co.uk that I will incorporate the other shot cotton and dyed yurt scraps. I want to work on some more panels that involve circles so I spent an afternoon mass producing bias binding that will cover up some raw edge appliqué. I decided that the bias binding can include prints which did not appear in the other panels; the main fabrics will remain as earthy plains.

The patchwork Smart Car cover appeared in "Popular Patchwork" and "Patchwork & Quilting" magazines this month and got some very good coverage. Taking it to a couple of the Ribbon Walks is something else I have to organise soon. I also have to find out whether I will be allowed to display it on a car at Festival of Quilts... I have now booked the APQS stand at FOQ 2011 and my book-keeper ensured that my accounts were all in order in time to complete my online tax self-assessment. But I did not realise that I had to allow time to receive a code in the post before I can complete this. I decided to send in a cheque to show willing even though HMRC will probably end up refunding it later!

I had a look at the draft of the Yurt book and was pleased to see that I have written more than I remembered. I need to concentrate on getting the instructions done for another 10 projects then can spend more time waffling on about Yurts and the wonderful stunt quilters. I even made Carrot Cake #2 which was too fluffy, although technically still delicious. By the time I have made all 6 recipes that I want to trial, we will either be utterly fed up with carrot cake or will have decided on the ultimate combination and it will deserve a place in the Yurt book.

 

 

 


 

Brringg, Brringg!!

I had a birthday this week and celebrated in style with my friends and family, surrounded by pink balloons; the lucky recipient of a retro phone, books by Nigel Slater and peanut M&M's. The 1960's rotary dial phone is great fun – Tania gave it to me as I am always complaining that my cordless phones are defective. The children had absolutely no idea how to answer or dial; I deliberately let it ring a few more times than strictly necessary as its old-fashioned bell tone makes me laugh. I decided that I would make a carrot cake so asked for recipes on Facebook. I now have 6 variations to test thoroughly in my quest for the definitive carrot cake recipe. I am classifying this as research of sorts, since I would like to include a few essential Quilters' recipes in the Yurt Book.

I have made a start on the Yurt tour plans, trying to work out dates, venues and logistics. I looked at the possibility of hiring an RV so that I could consider taking the children on tour to the USA for a few weeks but it looks pricey without even adding fuel, berths and food.  Perhaps I will need to think about making more than one trip across the Atlantic instead. Whatever I decide, my accounts show that I cannot guarantee making enough money for a grand Yurt tour based on quilting alone. This has prompted me to complete an application form for some work as a Primary relief teacher, hoping that I can save towards my air fare and Yurt shipping costs. I need to read up on the latest curriculum guidelines and spend some time in school as a volunteer. I am sure that will have to practise my patience skills considerably as they seem to have disappeared since I had children of my own!

I have cut out an easy scrappy quilt project that I will make for my book-keeper as a Thank-You gift for sifting through my receipts and notebooks so that I can get my tax return done by the end of January. This will have to be the last non Yurt project before getting started on some new panels, the USA Yurt roof, and some serious book writing sessions. With this attitude of getting sorted out to concentrate on more important projects, I bound a large piece of quilted tweed because I decided that the Blue Cat shouldn't really spend all day sleeping on my antique Welsh blanket. I also completed the quilting and binding on the Fresh Start spring quilt. It is wide enough to go right down to the floor and since it has been such a cold winter so far, I used a double layer of cotton and wool wadding. I tried Sew Simple waddings for the first time but they are flatter than I like so I think the quilt feels a bit rigid; hopefully it will soften up as it gets used. However, I decided that it was actually pretty warm and I could probably take off the other quilt and wool blanket that are usually on top of the duvet as it was quite becoming difficult to turn over in bed under all of that weight!

 

 

Ready 4 (x4) Adventure

January 16th - text got lost so I'm reposting...

 

I really felt that I got some things done this week as I worked my way through TO DO lists. In between all of the admin tasks I worked on piecing my king-sized Spring quilt. Basic sewing seemed to help me come up with ideas and possibilities for how to organise the Yurt's tour of America. It looks like I will need to travel around the USA for a few weeks or fly over more than once. Three fairly major snags in that plan are my children so I am even considering looking into RV hire and taking them with me. In order to save up enough money for this grand scheme I have investigated signing up as a primary school supply teacher. However, first I have to get references, attend an interview, refamiliarise myself with the curriculum and hope that enough teachers go sick that some nice jobs come up where and when I want them, despite Aberdeenshire Council making major cutbacks to their education budget!

I ordered 35 metres of fabric to dye for the USA Yurt roof and some procion dyes since I was inspired by pictures posted on Tamarack Shack's BlogSpot about snow dyeing techniques. I have avoided the mix it yourself dyes before because I couldn't quite figure out the recipe. The mention of potash, bicarb, salt, heat, differing amounts, calgon and synthrapol has previously put me off but the results look great. As soon as I placed my order, our lingering snow finally melted but I will at least be ready for the next lot. I have to decide whether to overdye coloured fabric or whether to see if I can get good results on white. It should give a crystalline-batik effect so it will be interesting to see what happens.

The result of the slow thaw was that our track turned into a lethal luge run of 4" thick ice running with surface water. It became impossible to drive or walk on it until the Farmer came along and gritted it. Freya stood still and slid downhill for 150 yds to catch her school bus. Our new glass shower enclosure was delivered to the end of the track where the driver shoved it into the back of my Landrover and tied the door shut with rope. The missing roof-rack finally turned up on Friday and was also dropped off at the end of the track. I am disappointed that I paid £50 carriage to get it delivered but it took a month to get here, got lost and then I had to carry it up from the main road with Tania's help.

I have handed over my accounts books to a friend who is putting everything all onto Excel. It is such a relief to hand it over to someone who seems to know how to organise it all properly so I should get the tax return sorted out by the end of January deadline.

I made enquiries into reserving a stall at Festival of Quilts – this year I hope to share the pitch and get something a bit bigger on a corner so I will complete the booking and tick that off a list as well.  I also booked flights to London to attend the APQS technical training day at the beginning of February. It is important that I spend a bit of time networking with some of the UK longarmers and I will be able refresh my knowledge so that I can run a technical class myself for APQS owners in the North.

There was a thought provoking series of documentaries on TV this week hosted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage. He is campaigning for the wasteful practice of discard to be abolished, raising awareness of the impact of catching small fish from the other side of the world to make fish-food for farmed salmon, and exposing tuna fisheries that catch endangered marine animals as a by-catch. Hugh has become a most articulate environmental activist for sustainable fishing methods. The River Cottage team has tried introducing a tasty alternative to cod in UK Fish & Chip shops; we made battered mackerel in a bap for supper on Saturday and declared it delicious. I urge you to pledge your support at http://dev.fishfight.net so that Hugh F-W can go back to the European Parliament with a petition showing overwhelming public support for sensible and sustainable fishing, particularly in the North Sea.

Finally this week, I even tackled one disorganised kitchen cupboard. It was only a small cull from the recipe book shelves. I threw away all of the unused free leaflets from the supermarket and jotted down the scribbled post-it-note recipes that actually work into a proper notebook with alterations in temperature to accommodate my oven that burns everything. I removed the bag full of cookie cutters that fell out every time I opened the door and stashed them in the pantry. That is also due for an overhaul because I can't fit any more stuff on the shelves. There are flowerpots on the top shelf just in case I ever decide to make a Barbie-doll cake and about a dozen ice-cube trays from the era when I mistakenly believed that my babies would eat frozen vegetable puree, so that should create a bit more space...

Fresh Start

As the holidays drew to a close, I felt compelled to reorganise everything that I could think of that required sorting. Shelves went up in the workshop and Music Room and the decorations were tidied and put away until next Christmas. I made an effort to be a "Yummy Mummy" a couple of times and involved the children in some cooking or baking; I even let Fenella have a sleepover that involved making decorated gingerbread men and popcorn. I bought a trendy skirt in the sale when I went to get more hen food at the Farm Supply Store and wore it with smart leather boots to go out for coffee with friends. My children thought that I looked unusually smart so just to reassure them that I was just the same, I took them into Banchory wearing my old green Doc Martens and ancient multicoloured patchwork knitted cardigan so that Freya felt obliged to walk behind me and pretend that I was not her Mother.

One of my greatest bugbears is all of the wire spaghetti hidden in drawers that belong to gadgets and chargers. I am convinced that we have a collection of cables that belong to cameras or mobile phones that are now obsolete but no-one even knows what they are. I have kept all of my cables in labelled sandwich bags but whenever I go on a trip they get all muddled up and I am sure that one day I will be stopped by Security, questioning why I may need to travel with all of that wiring. I decided to make a few small drawstring bags with embroidered labels but when I laid all of the cables out separately on the table it became obvious that I would have to make at least a dozen just for my own stuff – the house is still full of many more cables for IPods, Nintendo DS, headphones and cameras!

I cut out 3 sizes of squares for a large, everyday bed quilt so that I can put the Christmas quilt away. I pieced a small section but wonder if it is a bit too girlie for me. I wanted something light and fresh for Spring but it feels odd to be using pretty prints after working with plain fabrics so much last year.

Despite endeavouring to crack on with my book-keeping and prioritising my projects, I got bogged down in making phone calls to chase up the long overdue heating oil delivery and trying to find out why my LandRover roofrack had still not been delivered. The roofrack seemed to have disappeared entirely between couriers and will need to be tracked down again this week. I felt that all of these mundane tasks had to be done in order to clear the way for greater focus during the coming week, as long as school transport is running since we have now had more fresh snow...

Glad it's all over?

I cannot believe that it is now 2011 and that two weeks of holiday have sped by...

 

The week before Christmas was hectic with snow and ice continuing. The children's piano concert was the only event that was not cancelled; there was no end of term carol service or party. My husband thought it might be fun to take his lowered Golf GTi for a drive in the snow one evening but then could not get back up our track. Even the Landy couldn't pull it out on solid ice so it had to stay there until the farmer arrived the next morning. He has been terrific at clearing our track of snow as usual so I left a few bottles and chocolate on his doorstep on one of the festive supermarket runs. I made an effort to buy plenty of local produce from a farm shop this year despite it being more expensive.

Mo, Tania and I exchanged gifts with Christmas cake, truffles, salmon pate, champagne and coffee. We had chosen each other exactly what we would have picked ourselves, such as scented candles, home-made cushions, incense and in my case, a ceramic book that actually hides a secret gin stash! The children were delighted with their haul of presents that included a violin, camera, Xbox, Lego and hair gadgets. We spent a lot more time than usual preparing, cooking, eating and washing up. We ploughed our way steadily through gammon, turkey, smoked salmon, pate, cheese, nuts, cake, chocolate, relishes and other tasty treats until I began to dream of enjoying a more frugal diet.

I was amazed to be offered a vintage fur coat that had previously belonged to a friend's Great Aunt. It is very heavy but incredibly warm, ideal for watching a Hogmanay firework display. I think it will be well used this winter. I had to splint one of the garden Yurt roof spars that snapped due to the weight of wet snow. I lit the wood stove to dry the canvas out but the damp logs just spluttered – I need to get some peat to get it to burn hotter.

Every now and then I thought about clearing out some junk and old clothes before deciding it could turn into a much bigger chore. I deliberately put off making any To Do lists for the coming year as I didn't want to start worrying during the holidays. I can wait until the children return to school, then panic. I hope to make an everyday bed quilt in frivolous fabrics while working on mundane January tasks like book-keeping. Instead of using up leftover Yurt fabrics or existing stash fabrics, I ordered a Heather Bailey selection just for fun. I have made a few New Year resolutions that I hope to keep... I will try to be better organised, waste less time on the computer, make more use of the gadgets and software that I thought would be so useful, eat less chocolate and dress smartly on occasion – hmm, Good Luck for 2011!!

Shopping for a Fur Coat

I attended Freya's first secondary school Parents' Evening after she gave me a stern warning not to stand out too much; she even tried to convince me to wear a smart cardigan. The temperature outside was plummeting again so she had to suffer me wearing the tweed jacket, woolly scarf, pink ostrich leather handbag and red Docs. I felt quite smart compared to everyone in their fleeces and hiking boots, actually. The art teacher even told me that I looked "Arty", which I took as a compliment. I considered it polite to say "Bonjour" to the French teacher but had to admit that my French was pretty rudimentary – then I asked why the school did not offer Latin on its curriculum.

I placed orders for wadding and other essential supplies that I might need before the next lot of snow and was irritated when told that couriers in England were refusing to take any deliveries north of the border in case of a blizzard. This was during the thaw when all of the major roads were clear. Nationally there was great consternation that Christmas deliveries from Amazon might not arrive on time. I warned the children that Santa may have a few problems with his suppliers this year but Fenella was confident that he would manage perfectly well since he is Magic, after all.

By Thursday it started snowing again and I had to drive the children to school. I decided that I really ought to get into shape if I am going to have to make a habit of climbing into the Landy via the boot when all of the doors are frozen. It is not easy clambering over two rows of seats wearing wellies and several layers of winter clothing. I could not zip my jacket up because I was wearing a woolly vest, shirt, jumper, waistcoat and thick knitted cardigan underneath it. I decided to shop for a fur coat in the Red Cross shop but was disappointed to find that only mangy fake furs were on sale at £50. I daresay furs have become vintage and fashionable, although I don't imagine Freya would agree. I asked my Mother if she might have an antique fur coat but she admitted that this may have been a victim of her latest clear-out. I may have to settle for a Paddington Bear duffle coat or simply continue with my long waxed coat over some hideously unfashionable layering. I defy any fashion gurus to come to Aberdeenshire in the middle of winter and get me to wear flimsy items in my workshop!

I did some quilting this week, working fast to keep warm. I finished a customer quilt to add to the other one that has been awaiting collection for since the weather turned wintry. I quilted and bound two Christmas table runners then worked on a crazy sketchbook cover for Mo's sister. I love working on those as they are such fun. I am often asked why I don't sell them but an A3 piece takes around 10 hours to complete so they would be too expensive to produce except as presents. I made it a bit bigger than I needed so that there would be enough left over for an A5 book and a camera case.

We went to the Banchory Farmers' Markey on Saturday which was made festive by a stall selling mulled wine, snow falling and people wearing Santa hats. We bought local sausages, cheese, bread and cold pressed rapeseed oil. It was almost like being at a French market except that it was well below zero and we didn't have a basket. We went to choose our Christmas tree but the forester had not been able to cut any local trees and had resorted to buying some in. The children were not all that impressed with the modest tree that we chose but it still looks the part with its baubles and lights and at least it doesn't take up as much space.

Freya asked me to shorten the hem on her 1950's style prom dress because "only old people wear dresses down past their knees". This was quite a feat for a non-dressmaker as it was a completely circular skirt. I measured down from the waistline and marked points with a blue pen then used the overlocker to trim it down then finishing off a neat hem by machine. Then I had to cut down the circular underskirt with net frill and felt pretty pleased with my efforts. Unfortunately, the junior prom has now been cancelled because of the snow but she wore it to a friend's party where it was declared a success.

The week ahead is likely to be similarly affected by snow but at least I have ordered a local turkey and veg. In the hopefully very unlikely event of a power cut, I could cut it up and barbecue it or attempt to cook it on my Yurt's wood stove. I am fed up with seeing interviewees on the news saying " - the snow is such a nightmare!" It is just a bit inconvenient and the landscape looks wonderfully festive. We need to pay heed to the wartime reproduction posters and tea towels in all the shops declaring, "Keep Calm and Carry On!"

Wishing everyone a Calm Week Before and a very Happy Christmas! xx

Wrapping Up

Despite there being no fresh snowfall, there was severe ice which meant that there was still no school on Monday. There were no mail deliveries and everyone was getting rather bored. I even edited my address book and diary before frittering away some time in a virtual cupcake shop on the internet. However, I also finished planning out 10 new Yurt panels and felt that I had achieved something worthwhile for the first time in days.
By Tuesday the school made the decision that parents with four-wheel drive could take children to school if they considered it safe to make the journey. The back roads were still treacherous with compacted snow and ice. Some vehicles did not crawl along slowly enough so ended up in a ditch or spinning on ice. I decided that the Landy is the BEST vehicle so I have ordered it a roof-rack as a Christmas treat. The school day was shortened so my time was limited for catching up with correspondence and dog walking was still quite an endurance test.
I went into Aberdeen on my own to crack my Christmas purchases and wished that I had an old-lady shopping trolley instead of struggling to carry all of my bags. Books, piggy banks and packets of natural liquorice are actually quite heavy!
I made stripey jelly and a Lego brick cake for Fergus' birthday party and had fun stabbing cubes of cheese, pineapple & raspberry onto cocktail sticks. The party was after an indoor football tournament, the hope being that the 9 year old boys would be worn out. They still managed to be excited and noisy after playing football afternoon, followed by a medley of old-fashioned party games that included charades, fan the fish, beetle drive, memory game, alphabet minute,and pass the parcel. The guests declared that the party was awesome and ace so I will take that as a successful outcome.
Blue Cat aka, Her Majesty the Pepperpot, has decided that she will deign to sit on laps occasionally. That is when she is not sitting on a shelf attempting to impersonate a rather large ornament. She has finally made herself at home. Bitzi MacBob can now tolerate to sit near her but still swears at the posh cat in Doric.
Due to telephone repairs in the local area, we have had problems with the internet connection. This is absolutely maddening. I can use my mifi modem to check messages but it is not nearly as convenient as instant access broadband. My laptop has still not got back online so I am blogging this week on the ipad. Typing is fine but I have not added any new photos yet.
I did a 6 hour marathon wrapping session on Sunday in order to clear the tables in my workshop as I am determined to get three quilting projects finished this week, Post Office done and get all of my materials ordered BEFORE getting snowed in again, possibly by the end of next week....

Gauntlets & Gaiters

We had such a lot of snow and ice all week that there was no school, and according to the BBC News, the entire country ground to a standstill. It was bitterly cold and no-one really wanted to do much. I did not go anywhere all week as my husband was taking the Landy to work. The postie only came twice and I had to wade through knee-deep snow so I could defrost the hens, fetch logs and take the dogs out. I caught up with some correspondence, wrote Christmas cards and even worked on a few small projects. I won't post pictures of these since they are presents for friends. A left-over piece of quilted yurt roof was cut and bound to and make the cats a mat each to sit and look out of the window at the record breaking icicles. The children kept themselves occupied with some sledging, a little homework on the computer and some baking. I came in from the workshop one afternoon to discover grated chocolate all over the worktop and clouds of acrid smoke where attempts had been made to bake fairy cakes under the grill.

Tania and I walked to Mo's for coffee and mince-pies at the end of the week. We felt that we deserved two each with a liberal splash of Kirsch after stomping through the snow; Tania striding along in her walking boots with gaiters. Mo had been nursing a young buzzard back to health with raw eggs and sausages which was why the word, "Gauntlet" appears in the title! Apparently, the wild rabbit population has been decimated by a virus that rabbits take underground to infect the entire burrow so there is very little food available for birds of prey this winter.

I took Freya Christmas shopping at the weekend where we managed to make a few purchases before we got fed up with the crowds and over-heated shops. Online shopping is great as long as you know what you are looking for and probably less distracting, although I do tend to get sidetracked by checking emails and looking at Landy roofrack configurations on the internet! Needless to say, my Christmas shopping is nowhere near finished but at least I remembered to email my order for local turkey, ham and veggies. This week I am going to stock up on Bondaweb, wadding, stabiliser and freezer paper in case this weather continues until the New Year. I have spent some time sketching out new ideas for more Yurt panels so I hope to get on with some fresh work soon.

Brrr!

Brrr!

When snow is forecast before Christmas in Scotland we don't usually pay much attention since it is usually only a short-lived dusting, or so I kept telling Marjorie who came up to learn about longarm quilting. We had a busy couple of days looking at gadgets and techniques and I kept dismissing the flurries as being too early to take seriously. I had to take her to the airport on Wednesday evening while weather conditions became serious and none of the roads had been treated. It was an eventful journey on icy, white roads, with cars sliding off or getting stuck. The local radio news kept announcing fresh accidents and blocked roads so I had to make several detours. It took twice as long as it should have and the airport was even closed for a while to clear the runway.

Obviously, schools were closed for the rest of the week as we were hit by the worst pre-Christmas snowstorm for 17 years. We had pink sheet lightning, thunder, blizzards and the roads were unusually quiet. The children arranged a sledging party so I lit the Yurt stove and made a large flask of hot chocolate. Over the weekend we had a lengthy power-cut which meant that we had a full day without heat, hot water and worst of all, technology. Thankfully we were able to light the wood stove and warm up one room downstairs; it is amazing how reliant we are upon electricity even to make a cup of tea. We have got candles lined up and a flask of hot water ready in case we get cut off again since there is no sign of it thawing just yet. I could do some sewing using the hand crank machine but when the workshop heaters are not working I would rather do something else. I will make sure that the laptop and ipad is fully charged so I can do some writing at least. I could even write the dreaded Christmas cards if I get really desperate.

At least I have made up my mind that I will now be keeping my trusty Landy since it is definitely the only way to get about with caution in these conditions. I did some internet research on roof-racks and made some calls to find out what alternatives there are to the over-priced Landrover branded ones. I already have a ladder, so will have to practise standing on the wheels and doing lorry-driver knots to hold on my cargo. I will manufacture some sort of heavy-duty canvas bags to transport the Yurt roof poles. The other option is to get a trailer but if I get lost somewhere I don't fancy reversing more than is strictly necessary.

 

Cats and Curtains

It was not until halfway through Monday morning that I finally realised that I was a week ahead of myself again and did not have a visitor coming to spend 2 days longarming in the studio. Instead of getting on with my customer quilt, I decided to spend two days making the curtains for my new room and remembered why it has been around 10 years since I last made a decent pair. Even though I now have large work table it was still a lot of fabric to measure, cut and sew straight. I am very pleased with how it is all turning out and glad to be finishing a room off properly for a change. I do still have to fit in the new digital piano as I can't bear to scrap the Victorian one and I can't find a grateful home for it either. I suppose that having two pianos should mean that that there is every opportunity for the children to do plenty of practice.

I heard one of the Monday Quilters say the words "Blue Cat" and happened to mention that I have wanted one for a very long time. She was very sad to be re-homing Pepper since her grand-daughter is so allergic to cats. I was completely amazed when my husband said we could take her on a trial basis as long as Bitzi wasn't too annoyed. Since then we have had an interesting few days as the cats get used to each other. On the first night there was much hissing and hiding from both of them and both hissed their disgust at me. The next day I was really worried that I may have lost both of them. The Blue Cat was shut in the kitchen but had completely disappeared and Bitzi seemed to have gone off into a wet and windy day and didn't look like she was coming back. This made me feel doubly guilty and wondered if I had done the right thing at all. Much later on Bitzi sauntered downstairs from having spent all day sleeping in someone's bed and Pepper's eyes gleamed out from a tiny space behind the microwave, much to my relief. Since then they have spent most of the week avoiding each other and generally being pretty huffy with the humans but overall, things are fairly settled.

Sheena Norquay came to the Aberdeen P&Q Group this week and gave an interesting talk on hidden images in her work. There are so many of her quilts that I have never seen and they are all terrifically symbolic with references to Norse folk-tales, cats and runes. I attended a workshop where we printed circles onto fabric using everyday objects. I foolishly decided to experiment with linen which did not absorb the paint as easily and I used two colours where everyone else sensibly stuck to one which I thought looked beautifully simple. I remembered how to free motion quilt on a DSM which was actually good fun on a small piece so I hope to finish it off as a cushion cover for a Christmas present. I was particularly interested in how many ways circles can be used in quilting since they seem to have been motifs that I have used many times on Yurt panels.

I eventually got the customer quilt done and binding cut just before we went to see the latest Harry Potter film on Sunday afternoon - it was deliciously dark; much closer to the book than previous films with plenty of action and tension. It is a thoroughly British film where London looks great and the heroes appear so ordinary. I hope we don't have to wait too long before Part 2 is released...

 

 

 

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.