Keep Calm - it's not real snow!

My Christmas Crafts class kept me on my toes since some of them asked to do a couple of patchwork projects that I had not actually planned in advance. In addition to bunting and a zigzag table runner I had to design a Christmas tree block and draw a stocking template on the fly. They seemed to have fun and even discussed coming back in the New Year to do a modern sampler quilt from start to finish. 

We had a light dusting of snow but it was not enough to cause any disruption and although I almost looked forward to a snow day, the reality was that I would rather not have to hang up wet snow gear and make hot chocolate quite so early in the winter. I made sure that I got a large load of dry logs delivered just in case ;)

I had two frenetic school days in a row, trying to help 24 children bake, spell, sew felt shapes, sing and listen in P.E. I woke up the next morning feeling relieved that I did not have to teach that day so I decided to forge ahead with some festive shopping in Aberdeen knowing that things will start to get very hectic towards the end of term. I found it easy to pick out gifts for my girls and wonder why it seems so tricky to shop for boys. 

I enjoyed visiting the pop-up French cafe for parents at Fenella’s school on Friday and dusted off “mon petit peu” rusty French to order a café au laît. Nell wore her beret and a striped t-shirt to be my waitress but she refused to fetch me a refill!

 Over the weekend I finally got to start on a customer appliqué quilt, using invisible thread to stitch-in-the-ditch around all of the motifs and blocks. I even managed to complete the  straight line stitching in the borders and some of the sashing blocks. I hope to get the little background fills done this week then I will decide if the large appliqués need any additional quilting. 

I have made no further plans for the week other than paperwork so I might work on the peppered solids or even try to swap over longarm machines since a replacement for the one that was giving me trouble has arrived. I also want to arrange to send Odin’s Trilogy back to the USA for Road to California before the Christmas post frenzy! 

Moving On

I had pretty much made up my mind to hand in my notice at school to leave at Christmas   and sitting through the tedious In-Service-Training-Day made me pluck up the courage to inform the Head of my decision. I have decided that there is nothing new in Education, just new jargon! I thought I would feel guilty about moving on but in fact I feel relieved that I will be able to concentrate on quilting full time again. I plan to take at least the next term off to finish off The Book, crack on with my totems and do more customer quilts. I won't rule out doing the odd day of Supply Teaching for pocket money here and there if it is local and they pay me a decent rate ;)

I now have 14 strip-sets for the Beltane totems so I have started looking around for more leather hides. The Scottish tannery where I got a deerskin hide sounded a little bemused at my enquiry for dyed sheep-shaped skins but I would prefer them to be local if possible.

The chain-piecing is all done for my solids bed quilt so I can now work on the blocks if I fancy some easy sewing when I have just a little downtime. 

There is a group of ladies coming on Monday for a fun Christmas sewing workshop so I had to write down the instructions for an easy table runner and festive bunting. Space will be tight so I decided to make the "string" for the bunting in advance - all 40 metres of it! Halfway through the project I remembered that I had a Simplicity Bias Tape Maker so I fed the 2" wide by 20 metre length through the little machine so that I only had to press one ridiculously long crease with my iron. 

While I was in instruction writing mode I wrote out my version of machine-sewn utility binding. Because I have such difficulty understanding directions, I jotted down every detail that I could think of and ended up with a 1000-word essay on the subject. Next I have to take a series of photos then see if someone else can see what I am on about.

While my current Postie will not deliver anything larger than a standard envelope, I have to take umbrage with Fedex's more casual attitude. First they wanted me to pay customs duty on a warranty replacement then they just left the large, valuable item in the wood-shed and fraudulently signed that it had been safely delivered using my neighbour's signature so I won't be recommending their parcel delivery service!

With only a spare day and a half this week I doubt that I will be able to complete the customer quilt that requires invisible stitch-in-the-ditch around lots of applique and mini fillers in every block. Mind you - it might snow...

Fitting Things In

  

As well as the usual circus of after school activities, I also had to fit in a Halloween party, two parents' evenings, two meetings, give a talk and get Fenella to Brownie Camp on time. Everything was written down so that I would not forget where I was meant to be. I came across a fun quiz by the BBC on Facebook that would calculate how stressed the participant was. I answered very honestly but still scored very low for stress levels which  indicated that I must be totally chilled out - which is a relief ;)

I created two minor distractions from what I had planned to do in my workshop. Ann showed me a simple block that she had made years ago as a sample where a square was inserted into a fabric aperture and appeared to have no seams. She had forgotten how it was constructed so I challenged myself to work out the method using a hexagon. This proved to be a time-consuming challenge since machine sewn hexagons are tricky enough without trying to fit biased edges into a similarly stretchy opening. I eventually managed to get a tidy sample done using pen marks to line everything up. I suspect that pins may have come in handy but I was determined to come up with a hassle-free solution. I daresay I would become speedier with practice but I admit that it was really fiddly. I just wanted to  investigate how it might be to create an entire piece of patchwork with seemingly no seams in case I ever feel the need for a slightly difficult project.

I must have been in a figuring-it-out mood this week as I wrote some more project instructions for The Book. They are still not ready to share but I decided that if the text was drafted then it should only need tweaking after I am ready to get the photos done. "All" I have left to explain to myself and potential readers is binding, zips and bolster cushions with piped ends..!

It is an inescapable fact that Christmas is coming and I remembered that I had bought a simple fabric panel Advent Calendar that had lines of pockets to attach. I decided to get on with it before I go into panic mode at the prospect of fitting in Christmas shopping. I have now decided that these simple panels are meant to look rubbish. The pockets are apparently supposed to be sewn on first then a little minimal quilting should finish it all off. All I could see were puckers and lumpy bits so I added rickrack and embroidery before I was satisfied that it looked reasonable. Maybe one day I will get around to designing something neater where all of the background is quilted first before any pockets are applied - or I could just buy a chocolate one.

"Odin's Trilogy" has been juried into Road to California in January so I will have to think about sending that off in good time to avoid the Christmas post. I might even send it off to the WMQFA museum in Cedarburg so that it is in the correct country before January. 

I have still only reached 11 completed yellow/green wonky strip-sets despite feeling as though I have been working on them for ages. I have decided that 14 of these slightly wider units should be enough then it will be time to source some more coloured hides. I am not sure whether I can face sewing as many beads onto those as the original white goatskin that I used for "Imbolc" but I will worry about that later or even come up with an alternative plan.

Cooking Cures Writer's Block

My usual way of avoiding work that needs to be done is to do all of the tiny insignificant jobs that I think are holding me up. Getting the planning for the school week and battling with the online banking system that is meant to save time but mostly wastes it, meant that I had to get on with drawing quilting diagrams for my book. I doodled them out in ink then tried to replicate them using a graphics program. The problem is that I think my drawings are not very “arty” - they certainly seem to have been bogging me down. 

The next challenge will be to do actual quilting videos on both the domestic machine and a longarm. I had a sneaky look at some others on Youtube and noticed paper rustling, sniffs, bad lighting and skipped anything that lasted more than one minute. I wonder if it would work better to record the sound separately so you don’t even hear the machine competing with the explanation?

I decided to move on from worrying about how to present the quilting designs after having a bit of a Bake-Off morning. I made and sampled granary bread, sweet potato soup and pumpkin loaf before feeling ready to draft the text for some of the half-dozen simple book projects. I will probably have to make all of them from scratch in order to take high quality photos of each stage. 

Feeling that I had hardly done any sewing, I used the Bernina to do a few yellow and green wonky strip-sets for the Spring totems. I have refined this method now so I don’t bother to iron them until the whole “block” is complete. It was actually quite a keep-fit quilting process previously as I had to get up and walk round to the ironing board after joining every single strip.

I have a hectic week coming up with two parents’ evenings and two other meetings on top of the usual after-school activities. I will relish the days when I am home-alone even more and try to fill every spare moment with writing or sewing - apart from when I am making gingerbread biscuits, suppers made in advance or cutting out 48 felt stockings for my class to sew together...

Let Them Eat Cake

There has been rather a lot of cake in my house this week. I was busy in my workshop for a couple of days so the children decided to have a go at baking which was great until they spilled a large bag of caster sugar on the kitchen floor. This took several attempts with the hoover and mop before all crunchy or sticky traces were removed. 

We threw away the silicone cake tins that seemed to taste soapy and bought some new heavy-duty traditional ones. These were well road tested after making blondies, flapjacks and chocolate cake. The whole family enjoyed watching the final of BBC’s “Great British Bake Off” and really admired what the contestants were able to produce in a limited time. We made a pink velvet cake for Fenella’s 10th birthday the day before so that it would cool down and could be sliced more easily to add jam and butter cream. She requested that it should look like a rose but Freya and I have limited sugar-craft skills so we simply covered it in LOTS of rich buttercream icing. It was delicious but made your teeth hurt!

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been back on the telly with Channel 4‘s “River Cottage to the Core” and inspired me to have a go at traditional Cornish pasties. I don’t know why I had to make more than twice the recommended amount of pastry but they were pretty successful - it looks like this could be yet another recipe that I will need to tweak until it is perfect. 

I kept telling myself that I should be dutifully planning for the next term at school but the only school related activity that I did was to quilt and bind the 3 small quilts that my class sewed together. They turned out well; I managed to flatten the wonky seams and fix one obvious hole. I think they will be impressed with their efforts and want to make a few more Linus quilts this term. I tried to get a hand-crank Singer running for them and I had it stitching well for a while before the feed dogs just stopped moving. I now have three seized antique sewing machines that I would like to get working again. 

In complete contrast to those cranky old machines I have been lent a super Bernina 710 by Bogods of Bernina UK. I will use it for the video clips on my Ebook and so far I am really impressed. I love the fact that the whole foot detaches easily to be swapped for another one. It does all sorts of things that I don’t know about yet so sometime I hope to visit David Drummond’s shop in Edinburgh for a proper lesson. It did not come with a 1/4 inch foot but I adjusted the position of the needle and used it for the first two Beltane/Spring stripsets. I have not got used to the knee lifter yet but I daresay that will come with practice. 

I managed to complete a small customer quilt that I should have kept quick and simple but as it was for a friend I could not resist experimenting a little with leaving gaps in between more intense quilting. I also wanted to play with machine embroidery around the blocks after quilting. I really like this look, a little like crazy-quilting but it always takes far longer to do than planned. If I ever get around to tackling BzB I plan to add embroidery around some of the large quilting motifs. However, it is a huge quilt so could take quite some time!

Oban

Infinity and Beyond

 

The week started off mundanely enough with bill paying and getting the bump in the Landy straightened out. On Tuesday my class of 6 year olds made pizzas in two mini ovens in between reading, PE and Music. They even managed to keep the dough off the carpet!

The school where I have been doing long term supply cover asked me to stay on until at least Easter. I said that I would stay until Christmas then decide, depending on how my other projects are getting on. They are even willing to accommodate my trips next year if necessary. I feel like this is a commitment that seems to be stretching out indefinitely. On one hand it is good to know that a regular income is coming in but the school days are getting in the way of quilting and writing.

Late on Tuesday night I was delighted to receive an email from MQX Pacific North West Quilt Show which informed me that "Odin's Trilogy" had won a prize. I had to wait until after the awards ceremony on Wednesday evening, Oregon time, to discover that it was awarded 2nd place in the Solo Artist category. 

It is thrilling to receive an award from a prestigious American show and read complimentary comments on Facebook. The organisers of MQX are so professional that the results were posted on their website immediately after the prize-giving dinner and they even managed to send out the judging sheets as PDF documents while the show was still running. The kudos of winning that prize has really encouraged me to keep going with my ambitious henge project and keep on track with the Ebook.

I always try to make the most of the two days in the middle of the week that I can devote to quilting. I managed to piece 9 autumn strip-sets and also made a start on the Peppered Solids scrappy side project. I re-worded my book's preface and crossed a few topics off my list. The main things to tackle next are projects and diagrams. 

A major distraction has been reacquainting myself with my Smartpen since I had completely forgotten how to use it. The Smartpen can record sound - if the reader has Adobe Reader then they can click on any part of the diagram and the audio description will correspond with what has been drawn. I am still messing about with the type of diagram that I want to include in the Ebook. The easiest thing to do would be to draw everything in ink and scan it in but I am keen to animate the diagrams if possible. I have determined that I will need to do lots of examples then see what format my quilty friends prefer...

Working Out

Judging from the state of my notebook, I spent the week making calls, notes and progress on The Book. There are several pages of scribbles, coffee stains and large ticks through checklists. I also completed and bound the customer quilt ready for it to be posted back to its maker. 

I now have a weighty pile of 16 berry strips and even started the first of the autumn ones in gorgeous, rich colours. There is an assorted pile of strips waiting to be wonkily joined every time I have a spare half hour. The time that each one takes has almost halved since I started this project. 

I have to admire quilting-friend, Ann’s determination to work on finishing all of her unfinished projects before she starts anything new. There are times when I try to follow this mantra but I am  currently breaking every rule on project management. 

I figured out Bonnie Hunter’s “Patches and Pinwheels” quilt-recipe in several different sizes then decided that further shortcuts would really speed things up. I made a couple of mock-up blocks to have a look at what worked for the quick way of making a set of 4 half-square-triangles out of two squares that Ann had seen on Youtube and figured out the mathematics required for various sizes. This may not sound that impressive to someone who finds algebra easy but I was impressed at my tenacity. 

The next challenge that kept me awake late one night was how to cut up my 25 Peppered Solids so that I would get all of the pieces that I needed for an 80” or thereabouts quilt with absolutely no waste or leftover pieces. Having solved the puzzle on paper, I felt obliged to get on with the cutting so I could have an easy, no-pressure type of fun project in the background.

I drafted two “chapters” for the Ebook then I researched how to make my sketchy pen diagrams look professionally drafted. I thought it might be something to do with vectors which is a just a posh name for a bendy line. I found a drawing app for my Ipad which can smooth out a jerky scrawl and even present it as a dotted line which looks like stitching. Instead of being content with that small triumph, I wondered if my sketches could be animated for the Ebook to show how they are done. I have not quite worked out whether I am capable of enough geekiness to make this latest idea work!

The whole family went for a hike around Loch Muick on Sunday and everyone except for Fergus enjoyed the wonderful scenery and looked forward to the reward of fish and chips for supper. No doubt he would rather have watched someone else doing something far more entertaining on Youtube but we kept telling him that the fresh air and exercise was far better for him ;)

Is there anything worse than poke in the eye with a sharp pencil?

It has been a funny old week and I was not thrilled when I bent down to listen to an answer phone message and my eyeball was almost impaled on a newly sharpened pencil that was standing upright ready to take down messages. This incident was not quite as nasty as machine-sewing through my finger when not following my own sage advice about keeping fingers out of the danger zone.

After a rare trip to town on Monday I planned to launch the computerised system on a simple customer quilt. I got it to do basic customer stuff to save my back for the insane freehand quilting that I really enjoy but it has had a series of glitches that are not making it an enjoyable tool to employ. It required a software update and some technical help from Americans who are 6 hours behind the UK so all in all, it made for a stressful day off. 

Tuesday was not a great day in school. I was “told-off” for not keeping a close eye on the children so they had the opportunity to scribble on the carpet during art. I received a life ban on glitter and crayons and was instructed to photocopy a picture that they could colour -in which would be more appropriate for an infant class. Apparently the parents would not want to buy Christmas cards of the artwork that my class produced. Feeling suitably chastised, like a struggling probationary teacher, I wondered what I was doing back in the classroom instead of creating quilts and writing books in my studio. It may be time to throw in the chalk...

The customer quilt had a tight deadline so I just got cracking on freehand Baptist Fan type swirls instead of getting frustrated with supposedly time-saving technology that is actually making life more complicated. I cheered myself up by ordering Pepper Cory’s fat-quarters in shot cottons and they are fabulous. I still have not completed 16 wonky berry strips but there are only two left so surely I can get them done next week?

My chaotic week was interrupted by the arrival of my parents who came to stay for a few days and we went for walks by the river with the dogs, picked brambles, shared meals and caught up. The children enjoyed spending time with them as they live 12 hours from us and we really don’t see them often enough. They came along to the Strathspey fiddle practice and were impressed that it looked like I was keeping up with the fast reels.

There was a bit of shouting and nagging about lack of homework and music practice on Sunday morning but I decided to take the kids along to a guitar jam session at the pub in Torphins in the afternoon. A pint of Guinness and some off-the-cuff Jimi Hendrix soon lifted the mood, making me look forward to a new week of trying to fit more than is advisable into 168 hours.

Balance

I was absolutely worn out after spending part of Sunday helping Nell to learn how to ride a bike. She is almost 10 and just never learned before because we don’t have any concrete or tarmac on which to practise. I bought a new red bike to encourage her because the  bikes that we already had were the wrong size or just old and rusty. It was quite hard work speed walking up and down the track, holding onto the handlebars explaining how to steer, turn and stop. Hopefully, she will soon get the hang of it as long as the fine autumn weather continues.

I taught for 3 days this week but one of them was a treat since it was at our local school where the children behave so respectfully and are keen to do their work. My other two days were more challenging and I did not see two kids using oil pastels to add colour to the classroom carpet until it was too late. I will take brown paper and an iron into school to see if I can get some of it off... 

I crammed as much quilting as I could into my two other days in order to complete a customer quilt since I need to do another one this week in time for a wedding at the end of September. I probably did not need to spend several hours adding machine embroidery to enhance the ditch seams of the borders but I could not resist just “finishing it off”.

I managed to get two pricey quotes to repair the damage on the Landrover - I will have to claim on my insurance as it looks like that tiny knock will cost £1200+ to fix! Luckily, I used my wonky strip piecing exercise as a de-stressing technique and I now have 13 out of 16 sections done. I even managed to run up a new homework book cover for Nell who still appreciates my home-made stationery items. 

Taking a leaf out of Judi’s book, I intend to make a purely-for-fun bed quilt using one of Bonnie Hunter’s designs. I am going to order fat quarters of the entire range of the new shot Peppered Cottons for this side-line project and maybe just quilt it using an old-fashioned Baptist Fan pattern. I am also tempted to have a go at making the simple dress pattern that I downloaded but I may need a friend to hold my hand when I do that because I tend to get fazed by words like “darts”, “facings” and “shirring elastic”. And keep writing chunks for the Ebook, of course!

Crush

I enjoyed the two really good speakers at the QGBI Region 16 day in Perth on Saturday. Judi Mendelssohn gave an amusing talk on how she does not consider herself to be a championship quilter with many examples of how some projects did not quite turn out as originally planned. I was struck by her belief that the act of sewing and creating unravels any stress that she is experiencing. Lizzie Wall spoke about how her pictorial quilts led her into creating fantastic, contemporary ecclesiastical garments.

Judi’s point about sewing being a stress reliever has never felt truer for me although some of my self-inflicted stress is actually caused by my desire to create huge projects while also trying to write, blog, teach and be a responsible parent. Fergus is currently very resentful of my efforts to make sure that he does his homework, pack his school bag and do some music practise. He is constantly telling me that he hates me which is rather trying!

I spend my time in school reminding the class to listen, to be attentive while I am explaining, pick up the pencils from the floor and hang their coats up so it is a drag to come home and not get a little co-operation. 

I have been working frustratingly slowly on a customer quilt because I am still getting to grips with the tension settings using the new, jumbo bobbin. I simply don’t have enough hours in the week to keep up with my to-do list. On Thursday I sussed online banking, paid bills, posted a parcel, remembered to get my haircut and took my great friend, Mo, out for a birthday lunch. 

It is hardly any wonder that after enjoying a fiddle session with new strings, my attention must have wandered for a split second and I stupidly managed to clip the back end of my Landy on a metal rail in a tight car-park space. Because the wings are made of aluminium, it just crushed and crumpled the rear section out of shape. I was really annoyed with myself and felt awful that a tiny bump has caused such expensive damage to my vehicular best friend. 

Autumn blew in on Sunday morning so after a brisk dog walk it felt good to get laundry and school planning done so that I could do some more blackberry picking and piece one small section of the wonky berry strips. It seems to have taken ages to make 10 free-cut bits and I think a total of 16 will be necessary. I am looking forward to ordering a plum-coloured leather hide and dyeing some some more linen an interesting shade of pink. That could involve a trip to IKEA but on the other hand, it would probably be far more economical to order it online, not make a round trip of 250 miles and be tempted by Swedish flat-pack furniture!

Strung Out

It is all very well waking up at 4am with a whirl of things to be done on your mind but if you are too tired to get up and sort them out it is a bit pointless and very annoying! I may have to blame this nocturnal brain energy on my latest online purchase of very strong Arabic coffee laced with cardamon, providing me with highly addictive rocket fuel. All week I felt that I was not making visible progress but when I wrote a checklist that could be ticked off, I was reasonably pleased. 

I kept up the momentum with my Ebook material and drafted various rough sections that I can work on. My editor is trying to make me stay focussed on the type of book and engage with my audience. I will endeavour to follow her sage advice since no-one has ever made suggestions about my ramblings before. I have also made contact with two professional photographers to ensure that the close-up shots are crisp and well lit and it gives me a more definite deadline if I know that someone is being paid to come to take photos for a limited period of time.

My two school days were jam-packed with activities and I lost count of the number of times I heard my name being called. I am probably trying to cram far too much into my curriculum; it is tricky juggling keeping track of reading-books while teaching 6 year olds how to make soup and operate a sewing machine. I enjoyed playing fiddle with the Banchory Strathspey Society so much on Thursday evening that I decided to order a set of new strings for the first time in 25 years. I wonder if that will dramatically improve my performance?!

In my “spare” time I picked several bags of blackberries and put them straight into the freezer to be made into crumble, jam or liqueur later. I got rather annoyed with my new longarm machine as it is giving me a thread tension headache. I never had to think about that with my grumpy, old machine so we had a bit of a falling-out. It has a larger bobbin than before and a thread break sensor and seems to be far too posh and fussy for its own good. I will just have to show it who is the boss...

I have now made 8 wonky strip-sets for the berry and heather inspired trio of totems and think I need around 6 more. Although they do not look complicated, each one takes about an hour to construct. I am aiming to complete the whole Henge of Totems by next May so I can consider entering them into a show or two. I will need several very large boxes to ship this series!

I received good news that Odin’s Trilogy has been juried into MQX West and Norma from Wisconsin sent me pictures from Quilt Expo in Madison of the USA Yurt attracting crowds of curious quilters. Suzanne Labry in Texas sent me a link to a super article on the Yurt that she wrote following its appearance in Houston last November. 

http://www.quilts.com/home/viewer.php?page=../sfancy/column 

There was an email from Generation Q magazine to let me know that there will be a feature about the Coracle in November and that they will send me a copy.

I was not quite as impressed with the official photos that FOQ finally posted on the Press section of their website this week. The colours were definitely not right and the pictures did not do any of the pieces justice. These photos were reproduced in QGBI’s rather serious journal, The Quilter. I am hopeful that the other independent quilt magazines in the UK will publish better ones. 

On Sunday evening as I write a new list for the forthcoming week I am gearing myself up to go to a gig in a pub for the first time in a few years. Freya and I are off to see local band, Victoria Sponge, in action. I should think I will probably need a pint of that new coffee tomorrow morning ;) 

Produce

Determinedly, I sat in front of my laptop on Monday and made a start on my Ebook. I drafted an overview and then fleshed out what chapters there might be. Although I maintain that my projects just seem to crop up and develop organically, a book on my work needs to have more substance. Inspiration, even the unconscious sort, comes from all sorts of places. Articulating those random and changing ideas into cohesive text proved to be a tricky. In order to explain to readers what to do, I had to try to figure out and describe my process of design. Obviously there must be one but my thoughts tend to leap around and they don’t often flow logically. 

I have told myself to keep the main points of each chapter brief but I reckon I can always add little asides later in text boxes. Becoming side-tracked halfway through is my nemesis.  I need to assault this task using the “New Linzi and Ellen Quilt-Show-Method” - where we systematically go up and down every single aisle with the catalogue not deviating from the floorplan or getting distracted by retail therapy. 

I thought it would be a major chore searching my computer files for relevant high quality digital photos but in fact I will need to take new shots with the help of a professional photographer for better lit and close-ups. Making decent video clips and diagrams will be yet another challenge. 

I finished marking the BzB anti-wholecloth which seemed to take ages but all the time I was doing that I was making a mental note of which quilting designs to include in the book. This  unintentionally solved the problem of what to do with the pastel silk strippy that was not right for the back of BzB - I could use it as a sampler for the Ebook. 

Finally, I had time to piece some wonky strips for the summer totems. These are meant to be berry and heather colours. I was mostly using up leftover pieces from other projects like BzB and Willowbay Herb or pieces that I had dyed. I was surprised at how quickly I used the heap of strips that I had cut and realised that I probably did not have enough. My smallest pile was green and yellow because they are colours that I rarely use. To solve the problem I ordered 15 half yards of plain fabrics online from “Simply Solids”. It is risky buying fabric or paint online as you cannot see the true colours but I was pleased with my selection. Some of the colours were not quite how I imagined them but they will blend in with all of the others, even the juicy tomato red. 

There is a great crop of brambles, blackcurrants and purple gooseberries this year. Picking them is hazardous since stinging nettles are guarding the fruits and the thorns are pretty fierce. I made a crumble and a large jar of slightly tart jam. Battling just a few prickles each day and freezing small quantities should provide enough to make sauce for ice-cream or a handful of purple fruit to add to a plain apple pie.

Most of Saturday was spent on planning and evaluating for school. I am not paid to do that amount of extra work as a supply teacher but for a regular class it needs to be done. As quilting commitments build up for next year I am reminded that it would be difficult to commit myself to a permanent position unless I was able to work for a very accommodating Headteacher. 

In an effort to make time spent on business more efficient I attempted to set up online banking. This is because it is no longer possible to phone my local bank direct with a simple query without first being diverted through a series of call centre operators all of whom demand answers for the security questions that I have forgotten. The system crashed before my registration was complete so I was told that I would have to be sent an activation code in the post! There is no doubt that it would be less stressful to keep cash in a biscuit tin.

Back to School

For the first time in years I had to go to a school staff meeting before the start of term and I was horrified to discover that I would be expected to hand in my weekly plans and evaluations just like when I was still a student. Planning for a regular class is quite an undertaking since text books are definitely out of favour once more and it is really time consuming searching the internet for suitable and relevant teaching material. I was relieved to discover that I share a very nice class of 6-7 year olds and they seemed to enjoy their two days with me. I suspect that I have planned far too much as usual but I am determined to fit a little French, pancake making and sewing in somewhere. I did not actually need any new stationery but I could not resist ordering a mechanical pencil sharpener that should keep all of the classroom pencils nice and pointy!

Wednesday was a blissful day when my own children were in school and I did not have to be anywhere else except for my studio. I felt energised to launch myself into at least two new projects and prepare a customer quilt. I wasted a bit of time dyeing and piecing some wide strips of bamboo-silk to make a backing for BzB. I decided that they looked too pastelly and it seemed like it might be rather too slippery to attempt marking with a Durham wholecloth design. I opted for basic, dyed calico in the end and started tracing the design that I created several years ago in a class with Lilian Hedley. This was drawn onto greaseproof paper with a pencil and the pattern had become brittle with age. Now that I have seen a few feathers in quilt shows these ones seem rather big and ugly and I wonder if I will eventually add some swirly stuff inside them. My plan is to start with a very traditional wholecloth design but then make it rather unconventional. It could all go horribly wrong...

I selected a wide range of plain fabrics from my stash that would be suitable for the remaining 9 totems. There are fresh greens and yellows for Beltane, rich blackberry colours for Lughnasdh, and a range of russets for Samhain. I plan to dye some more background linen, track down more metallic spandex and source coloured leather hides. I need to work out how to make the foam columns more cheaply and pluck up the courage to sew yet more beads and gems onto the leather pieces. Because none of the pieces is particularly large, this can be a project that I can work at in fits and starts. 

My plan for Monday morning this week is to stay off the internet and make some headway with planning an Ebook. It has taken a long time for me to accept that producing a book exclusively about the Quilted Yurt is probably too specialised; the processes of making the yurts and other 3D projects can fit into a book that is more technique based. My main problems are deciding what to leave out and concentrating on the task long enough to actually get it finished ;)

Forward Planning

It was to be expected that the past week would be a bit of an anti-climax after FOQ along with the feeling of dread as the new school term approached. Before I had even unpacked I went straight into town to buy new uniforms and school supplies to get it over and done with. I then proceeded to label, laminate or iron everything I could find to put off the tedious task of writing lessons and schemes of work for my temporary teaching post. 

The entire week was spent making lists, emailing and “researching” important information on the internet. One useful search involved shortlisting USA quilt shows that I may like to enter or visit as a member of the teaching faculty. I had woken up in a slight panic when I realised that Odin’s Trilogy had not returned from its tour with IQA following its success at Houston. They replied to my email immediately, explaining that I had said that I would collect it in person after the Houston show on my original entry form then I forgot to amend those instructions after it won a prize. I decided that since it was already in the USA it might as well be entered into MQX West and possibly one or two other American shows next year. 

It was probably not as essential to look up acoustic guitar pickups, Bernina sewing machines or the best pyrex casserole dishes for Fergus to take to his Home Economics lessons when he joins Banchory Academy. He was not at all impressed with the striped apron with funky skulls pocket that I ran up and he made it clear that he no longer wishesd to use the indestructible PE kit bag that I made when I started school at the age of 5. 

I caught up with Mo who was dog-sitting a cute, snorty Pug and we decided to have a last Friday of the Holidays Yurt Night which involved drinking lots of Cava and Gin, and discussing  what we want to do when we grow up ;) I made my annual 4 tiered Victoria sponge for a friend’s birthday which was outrageously good and she has already requested that she should have an 8 layer masterpiece when she next celebrates her next decade. 

In the end I made myself knuckle down and do the teacher stuff so I could relax a bit on the final day of the summer holidays and prioritise what quilt projects I plan to work on over the next couple of months. These seem to fall into 3 main categories - Possibles, Maybes and Definites. I started by dyeing some bamboo-silk to make a strippy back for BzB which got sidelined earlier this year. The strippy back will actually be the front for the first part of the quilting process as it will be easier to trace the very traditional wholecloth design that I drew on baking-paper rather a long time ago. The Plan, which will inevitably be subject to multiple changes, is to stitch the wholecloth design onto the back of the quilt first then turn it over to work on some elaborate background quilting. I can’t decide whether The Other Project will be to work on 3 autumnal totems, work on a new leather/spandex idea or even do something useful with a set of wonky house blocks...

Festival of Quilts UK 2013

I seemed to be so organised with my packing for my trip to Birmingham that I decided that I had so much spare time that I might as well make a pair of velcroed curtains for my classroom sink. I set off early, taking the Cairn O’Mount road and enjoyed seeing the heather in full bloom. I made a leisurely trip, collecting Kay in the Scottish Borders, having supper at IKEA then having a well deserved G and T after my 12 hour drive. 

The APQS stand was situated in HAll 9 at the NEC which was far more spacious and had plenty of natural light. We were able to drive our vehicles right inside and unload very close to where we needed to be. The blue and white quilts, bunting and flags looked very smart indeed. We had a bit of a technical hitch with our computerised quilting gadget - it was on loan from America and its connector did not match up with the rest of the bits that we had in the UK. We set off on a quest for a tiny electrical component, starting at Maplins in Edrington. A nice young man called Mammoud advised us to head for RS Components in Aston so we googled it and fed that info into the satnav. Satnav Lady had other plans for our afternoon, deciding that our destination was much further away on the other side of the sprawling city of Birmingham. We passed through the vibrant area of Soho past sari shops, Indian banks and mosques. Later we travelled through districts with a Caribbean flavour, wondering if we would ever reach our intended destination. We eventually found an electrical wholesaler but it did not have the required part. Luckily, the shop owner took pity and rewired the two bits of electrical cable for us instead.

When I eventually checked my emails I was delighted to be informed that The Quilted Coracle was the winner of 3D Creations. I really had not expected that at all as I wondered if it had been too much like a novelty item. The Quilt Angels confessed that they unwrapped this huge package last, not knowing what to expect. On the way back to our stand I noticed that Dunes Duet was missing from its place which I found puzzling. I was stunned to discover that it had been taken to the photographer since it too had won a first place for the Two Person Quilts.  I was utterly thrilled to have received these two prizes at Europe’s premier quilt show. 

Kay had two gorgeous quilts in the show - Casaopoeia and Flower of Scotland. Both of these were worthy of prizes and she was pleased when the her thistle quilt received a Highly Commended award. You can see more of her beautiful work on her blog: 

http://borderlinequilter.blogspot.co.uk

I have to admit that despite my two wonderful wins, I was disappointed that the judges had not been blown away by the totems which I had considered my best work. Later on they were given a Judge’s Choice by Greta Fitchett and I was able to sneak a look at the judging sheets. One judge had ticked all of the Excellent boxes but the other one ticked Good or just Satisfactory, indicating that it should not have been entered into the Art Quilts category and that they were not particularly impressed by the choice of materials. This will not stop me from intending to make another 9 columns in this series so that I can exhibit a standing-stone circle of 12 symbolic tree columns!

The Fine Art Masters finalists seemed to cause controversy amongst many quilters. There were some beautifully executed pieces but most were beyond the comprehension of most quilters. I wonder whether I should enter a facetiously arty entry next year just to see what might happen. Kay told me that she could hear my brain whirring with new ideas at 4.30 am so we just brewed some tea and ate shortbread with no prospect of going back to sleep.

There were a few criticisms about the presentation of prize-winning quilts this year. They were all moved to a winners’ wall in a tight corridor with poor lighting. Their labels were fixed to the wall around a corner so it was not clear which quilts had actually been chosen.  (Almost a week after the quilts were judged there were still no official photos from FOQ13 available online.) The awards ceremony had a few hiccups and I felt that my achievements were less valued than they had been at IQA Houston where every quilt was spotlit. There the winners wore badges with ribbons and were expected to proudly present their quilts to the show visitors. I received many lovely comments from quilters and I was delighted to know that a trendy art student wanted to know more about the Coracle. 

I buzzed about over the next few days spending most of the day demonstrating on the APQS stand. I gave two lectures about The Quilted Yurts and did some vid-cast filming with Bonnie McCaffrey which was terrific fun. I caught up with a few folk, discussed the possibility of doing a longarm quilting cruise and knuckling down to sorting out my long overdue book. Each evening the “Team” went out for supper and laughed a lot about the silliest things. We discussed business periodically but mostly came up with ideas for quilts or making quilting demos fun. 

The after-show pull down was far less stressful this year as we decided to pack everything before going to fetch the vehicles, thus avoiding a long and pointless wait in traffic. The Landy was full to bursting point and I had to lock the back doors to stop them from popping open. At least I did not have to take the Coracle away on the roof-rack since it will now travel to the Knitting and Stitching Shows in London, Harrogate and Dublin.

It seems such a pity that I have to come back down to earth and think about starting school next week. At least I am all fired up with enthusiasm to work on some unfinished and new projects, feeling validated in the UK quilting world at last :)