What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I have said it before – Time in Norfolk is elastic. The days pass quickly doing very little. Nella and I had a couple of wanders in the City, admiring the spring blossom. We stumbled upon a textiles exhibition in the Forum, including an entire knitted model of Great Yarmouth!

I took my Mother on an outing to Southwold, despite the squally weather and spotted an amusingly titled beach hut (Star Wars reference).

I did not even open the sewing box that I took with me but I did some of the slideshow about Q-Matic that I am working on.

My ...

I was so determined to make a good impression at Quilt Direct that I got everything organised and was pretty much packed by Monday! I had got all of my customer quilts out of the way so I had to give myself something straightforward to do for a couple of days. I received the new Bernina 475QE that I intend to take with me on teaching trips when I go by car. It is smaller and more modern than the 710 that I have set into a table. I had coveted the turquoise Kaffe Fassett version but there are no ...

When I was little if you were “At your Auntie’s / Granny’s House”, normal rules did not apply. My sister and her boys came to visit for their half-term hols and they were allowed to do pretty much what they liked;) Luckily, we had decent weather almost all week so we went for long walks with Nessie and had a trip to Aberdeen on the wet day. Other than that it was very relaxed with video games, crafts and snacks. The boys thought my cluttered house was great as it contains every known gadget, book and musical instrument yet ...

As a person who owns several cameras, these days I take very few photos which does not adequately document my week. I had a huge customer quilt that took 2 days and a DIY quilter who spent 2 days here custom quilting. 

I considered starting on my Tula Pink butterfly quilt kit but that would require my full attention so I decided to dip in and out of the Art & Stitch manual. I think I am absorbing it more easily and it was pointed out to me that I don’t actually need to know it off by heart – I ...

Christmas with one extra person and a dog seemed more chaotic than usual. I did not get to do my jigsaw puzzle much because there was nowhere safe to leave it out. I have often accused Nessie of eating one piece so leaving set up with a curious puppy did not seem like a good idea. Nessie ended up mostly opting out of the sitting room – she and Fizzle kept out of the way, probably hatching plans for revenge.

Freya made me a cute little sconce from clay, Nella gifted me a non-alcoholic blood orange cordial and Fergus got me ...

I had to collect Nella from Aberdeen bus station so went for a wee wander around Union Square shopping centre while I waited. I went into the new Seasalt shop which already had a sale on. I stroked the velvet dresses to see if they were as wrong as the ones I had seen in Norwich and to my horror, I discovered that all of the nap was running in the wrong direction. When I helpfully informed the sales assistant, she insisted snippily that the designers would have requested that. It made me shudder to think that if I ran ...

When my children were younger Christmas did not begin until after Fergus’ birthday on December 11th. We have an artificial tree now so it has been up with only its lights on, waiting for Nella to “dress” it when she arrives home. I must admit that I sort of miss the frantic round of Christmas concerts and performances. The trouble is that since the festive season starts so early nowadays, the whole thing is spread out and there seems to be no definite Christmas period (for me, at least).  All of the Christmas Fayres are over already and I never ...

Nessie and I travelled back to Scotland by train which is a long way with a dog on your lap, sometimes the floor. She was very good, especially at Edinburgh Waverley where we had 10 minutes to change platforms. Thistle (Fizz) was delighted to see me and was especially pleased that she could get access to my bed. Meanwhile my room had been turned into a recording studio and Nella’s room seemed to have been filled with the junk that everyone else had decided they no longer wanted in their rooms. It seems that I will have some serious ...

Things were ticking along nicely in my workshop – I had to do a couple of customer quilts with binding and I planned to keep working through the Art and Stitch manual. On the side I was posting junk for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

Everything changed mid-week when my sister called to say that it looked like my Mother was having a stroke! I threw some stuff into a bag, booked a one way train ticket and headed to Norfolk with Nessie.

Things were up in the air for a while until we knew how serious the episode had been. It ...

At the start of the year I declared that I would like to be fitter but I confess that I have done nothing about it. However, this week I had quite the quilting workout. Liz and Frances were here with an impressive collection of quilts. We had both machines going doing freehand and computerised quilting, using up more than a full roll of wadding. The results were super:)

The other thing that had me dashing about was having a bit of a clearout – I had some success selling a few things on Facebook Marketplace and Vinted which has spurred me ...

Despite my Q-matic system being a bit temperamental since it needs a new cable, I managed to keep it going and completed some customer quilts. I had to watch it more closely than usual so I was not able to go away and work on anything else, although I did manage to put a few stitches onto the quilted coat back. I have 2 front pieces still to go, depending on how much embellishment I feel it needs.

I decided to take my caravan on a Last Hurrah for the year to head north to Moray for a Scottie Dog ...

After another epic drive north I spent the next day trying to get reorganised. My workshop could do with a big sort out but I am trying to remind myself that it does not all need to be done at once. Indeed, the universe does not even care whether I do it at all. I have a mega customer quilt to get done before I leave to teach 2 groups in Glasgow next week. It was frustrating that the Qmatic system kept stopping with an error message that there was a problem with the sewhead. On closer inspection, I discovered ...

After all of the excitement of FoQ, this week was spent low-key pottering. Nella had also been away at Freya’s and visited her cousins in The New Forest. Every now and then I decide that my house and / or workshop has reached saturation point and has way too much “stuff”. I like to think that I am organised until I can’t find something. I know that I had some strong magnets which came out of a magnetic pin dish that smashed but I honestly don’t know whether I threw them out or whether I put them in ...

This week I got down to putting together some class specs and requirements. It has been a while since I came up with “lesson plans” so I struggled with the discipline. I usually aim to plan more than is required which is what most primary school teachers do to keep the fast workers occupied. I will be teaching my Northern Lights improv curves class in Glasgow next month but I decided to add another element which is improv bridges. I am experimenting with machine appliqué methods. The original class was just free-cut strips but I decided to give the pupils ...

This week has been high summer for all of the UK and even here it has been in the mid twenties with clear blue skies. I stood no chance of getting sunburnt because I have been in my workshop all week pushing on with “Help Ma Boab” aka the mirror quilt. I am off to Norfolk next week so I knew that I had to get as much done as possible before I go so I don’t have to stress about it while I am away and then rush to finish it when I get back.

My original vision ...

I took Nessie to the beach at Stonehaven on Bank Holiday Monday. It was busy with volunteers doing a beach clean-up operation. The tide was out but it was pouring with rain and pretty breezy. I had decided to leave Nessie’s raincoat at home so we both got soaked. At home the wild cherry trees are already dropping their blossom. Because it has been so damp and grey I had not even noticed that they actually had any flowers. In Norwich Nella has been experiencing thunderstorms and heavy rain and so far does not believe that Norfolk is one ...

Nella and I headed down to Norfolk via Glasgow where I dropped off an amp for Fergus who had sold it on Facebook Marketplace. The May blossom was out and the trees were definitely greener than in NE Scotland.

Nella settled back in to her room in Uni and I became the annoying Mother who insisted on cleaning the student kitchen.

I had a couple of outings during the week, including a very bracing visit to Southwold. I managed to stay out of junk shops (not completely, obviously). Time passes at a different rate here – it is very elastic in ...

The trouble with having a phobia about Maths is that I can waste a lot off time trying to work out a simple problem. I wanted to cut out a lot of concentric circles in t-shirt vinyl that were either ¼” or ½” wide but I had to convert them to decimals and factor in gaps. Long story short – I tried to come up with a new set of circles, even though I already had a perfectly good set of circles because as usual, I was over complicating matters. I eventually spent a whole day cutting out a life-time supply ...

I bought a cheap, short step-ladder which was white. It was important to me that it should co-ordinate with my newly painted trolley so I painted it matt black to match – 3 coats so far. The trolley will be on show at the exhibition (Scottish Quilt Show) whereas the ladder does not need to be. It will enable me to hang the quilts, after which I could put it in my car or I could use it as a chair. I think I have assembled everything that I need now and I have made prompt cards for my talk on ...

One of the reasons that I like Amazon so much is that it is possible to order something, try it out then return it easily if it is not suitable. It is also a very good place to go and look at reviews for stuff. Youtube is also helpful – to a point. I find that there is so much information that after a while there are too many conflicting opinions. For some time I have been hankering after a better monitor for my Mac Mini desktop computer. I had a small, basic Dell but I needed to use external speakers ...