What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Don’t be too shocked – I have done some actual sewing at last! At work I did a very nice Liberty star quilt for a customer and finally got to grips with the L890 project, “Bloom & Grow”. There were parts that I really liked on the project but others that I would probably change if I do it again or teach it as a Quilt-Along. Mainly, it is not super accurate but it is fast. The point of the project is to experience lots of techniques that the L890 excels at but sometimes I felt that it would have been ...

I am blogging in my garden! While farmers are no doubt worrying about potential drought conditions, I am basking in sunshine. I got my plant troughs filled which has created another chore for me keeping them watered. I had to take down one of my window boxes because it was dribbling mud all down the wall. Having been warned that removing the dangling wires would cause certain death by electrocution, I decided to disguise them with fake wisteria. It does need more strands to bulk it out but I think it looks jolly. 

At work I have cracked on with ...

It is funny how a week with a Bank Holiday can seem longer than normal. I could not stop thinking about a solar candle lantern that I had seen in Aldi at Bodmin but left behind so I drove to another store in Plymouth to get one. I love how it flickers at dusk on my back doorstep. 

I had to deal with several cabbages and a pile of runner beans that I got in a veg box so I blanched and froze them. I just have to remember to eat them;)

Since I am renting my cottage, I don ...

Late April into May has been like High Summer as far as I am concerned. Far too hot to be inside! I trawled through my photos to find images of quilt binding for a class that I was teaching. There were a lot – many with prairie points, would you believe?! My class was about how I almost always attach binding to the reverse of a quilt then machine stitch it down on the front. We also discussed trims, piping and how to make bias binding.

I visited Pencarrow House in Cornwall with my friend, Mel who had a 2 for ...

I had a couple more days off with Nella this week and we explored a remote beach on the North Devon coast which could easily have been somewhere like Portugal. It’s a pity it takes about 1.5 hours to get there. 

It was ridiculous that with water running down my wall in heavy rain, most of the town had no water due to a burst pipe. There is no doubt that I am experiencing a totally different climate to Scotland as Sunday was like high summer and I spent all day in my garden, grass cutting, potting up ...

It has been lovely having Nella here for her Easter holidays. She had been a bit worried that my new place would not feel like home but she says it does as there are some things from the old house. She has been busy doing some free motion embroidery on my Bernina 475 for her textile projects. 

We had a couple of outings to Tintagel, Calstock and Looe, despite some very heavy rain that Nessie was not impressed by. I was not impressed that my bedroom sprung a leak and has made a mess of my lovely white paint. 

I ...

My long anticipated Art & Stitch retreat week was a success! The amount of preparation that I did paid off and I managed to pull off the illusion of being an expert on a complex digitising program. The folk who came along all gelled nicely as a group and all went home as far more confident users of the Q-Matic with Art & Stitch computerised quilting system. 

It was a beautifully sunny week here in Devon (nearly Cornwall) so it was a novelty to have a mid-week day off. I did not head for the seaside but pottered around at home then ...

I had a bit of a scrappy week at work, doing lots of “this and that”. The highlight was that an Oscar winning cinematographer (married to one of our clients) came to share some filming tips with me and our media apprentice. His advice for our Youtube tutorials was “keep it simple”, using natural light where possible and even shooting everything on an iPhone, rather than a complicated, fancy camera!

I attempted to do some simple crafting and made some fused bead shapes that might become a dangly curtain (or not.)

The weather was lovely and I sat outside to ...

This week I have been glued to my 2 computers in every spare minute! Last June I was meant to teach a week’s retreat all about the “Art and Stitch” software for Quilt Direct but it was postponed due to low numbers as it is a tad niche. I was almost ready with the preparation then shelved it all thinking I would have months to finish it all off. Obviously, I got side tracked by moving and DIY so my good intentions kept slipping. Hence, I have spent hours finding, revising, copying, and checking all of my files! The ...

I travelled back to my cosy Devon cottage on Tuesday via Stonehenge, according to the Satnav and that seemed to take ages, although it was scenic. I was back at work for 2 days this week where I dashed around making cups of tea for visitors, attempted a sewing machine inventory, basted a customer quilt and answered the phone, plus loads of other things;)

At home I painted what I could reach of the grubby upstairs landing. It is pretty small so that did not take long. My long awaited garden furniture set arrived from Temu. Instead of being 4 ...

It still feels weird that I now have limited holidays. When I was teaching in school there was just mandatory term-time and when I was my own boss I just took time off whenever I pleased. I had to use up 4 days of holiday so decided to spend time with my family in Norfolk since I had not visited for 5 months.

I don’t know why I bothered to take 2 laptops to Norfolk, thinking I might have time to review the Art & Stitch software retreat that I am teaching in a couple of weeks. I have said ...

I swear that next week I WILL take pictures at work just to prove that I have a job and am very busy;) I think that is proof in itself that I am so busy and forget to take photos. My 2 day ruler course went very well with the participants telling me that it was “outstanding”. I am so pleased that everyone went home with the confidence to have a go at ruler quilting. I worked on finishing 2 customer quilts that I feel have taken far too long way as I have been redirected to other tasks, including ...

Maybe I am too hopeful but March has started with lovely weather – frosty first thing then sunny and mild. Such conditions are wasted if you are working of course but 2 days of nice weather at the weekend lifts everyone’s mood. I even decided to cut the grass which was long and straggly and had never really stopped growing. The old guy next door said it was too soon but his whole property is a mess so I ignored him. My grass is awful anyway and could not get any worse. 

I finally got the overhead locker up in ...

My sister and her boys loved my tiny cottage with all of its quirks and Nessie had people to play with all week. I took 3 days off and obviously it rained constantly every single day. We did not let that stop us and did a driving tour of Dartmoor, admired Tintagel Castle in the howling wind and followed that with ice cream in Port Isaac. Looe was the driest place that we visited between squalls. Of course, it was a glorious spring day when my visitors left but the next day lashed down with rain again!

It was lovely ...

Nessie spends a lot of time snoozing or looking out of the window when she is not out on squirrel patrol. I think she thinks that is what I do too when I am not at home. She is very much mistaken! I had a busy week preparing for my class on “Quilting with your Bernina”. The participants learned lots but on reflection, there was too much for just one day’s class. Feedback from one student reported that they were not in the least bit interested in the history of quilting which I mentioned in passing so that has ...

Nessie and I went on a charity shop mission to find Victorian style pictures for my arsenic green sitting room. I could not resist a barmy cross-stitch of kittens in frilly dresses. I hasten to add that it will be part of a “gallery” collection and not a main feature!

My DIY ventures continued with me spending an entire evening attempting to put up a curtain wire for curtains across my wardrobe area. After a lot of dropping tiny screws and shimmying up and down my step stool, I finished the job which would have been better attempted with 2 ...

Freya finally arrived on Sunday evening! We had a lovely week together – she was able to work remotely and entertain Nessie. She loved the cottage and enjoyed cooking most evenings except when we went out for tapas and pizza. She was a huge help with little DIY projects like putting together some IKEA shelves, since I never bother to read the instructions. We also moved the furniture around to accommodate the new-to-me armchair. 

It was really nice to have such easy company, from chatting in the evening to our outing at the weekend. We spotted a kingfisher on the river ...

It was my 57th birthday this week – the first one on my own but I had the most amazing cake at work. It was a bit of an error that it ended up being such a fancy carrot cake topped with macarons but it gave everyone enough cake at coffee time for 3 days. I FaceTimed my children and am still waiting for Freya to arrive for a visit after a dreadful train journey, plagued by train cancellations due to another bad winter storm in Scotland. 

For a change, I made a couple of successful purchases at the junk shop ...

There was a cancellation in this week’s Sewing Mastery class so I took the space and had an intensive 2 day training course on getting to know a Bernina sewing machine. This was enlightening as I have never had any training on how to use all of the features on my machine. Whether I will remember it all is another matter;)

On Saturday I gave a 2 hour lecture-demo for the QGBI virtual retreat, complete with a cream tea interval. 2 out of 3 cameras co-operated, I had extra lights and a wireless mic. I think it went pretty ...

There was snow on Dartmoor this week which was all a bit dramatic but it only rained here in town. I was invited to met my cousin for a nice walk this weekend but I guiltily cancelled because my house was in such a muddle. 

It took ALL weekend to get almost everything to fit into the back bedroom and some stuff out in the shed (with my lovely red sofa which is now up for sale). I have a tower of boxes all of workshop and office stuff that I can live without and no pressure cooker. I ...