What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I have not done much social media since pre-Pandemic and I have not missed it! With courses to promote at Quilt Direct in Devon, I have really had to push myself to get back on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube to remind quilters that I still exist. It is more time consuming that you might imagine, searching for photos, coming up with a caption and checking back in for comments. Freya told me that I needed to learn how to make cool online posters as well as making short movies about what I am up to. Hopefully, my classes will be ...

I have embarked on a childish challenge to grow my hair as long as possible. I was never allowed to have long hair as a child and my Dad recently disparagingly asked how long I was going to grow it for to which I replied, peevishly, “Until it reaches the pavement!” I don’t go to the hairdresser very often because they usually want to chop 6” off but every now and then I have to trim my fringe (bangs) with dress-making scissors, sometimes pinking shears, usually in the reflection of my workshop window. I have been getting it remarkably ...

I spent a lot of my week testing out the Tech that I needed to use to do my Zoom lecture and demo for the Scottish branch of the Quilters Guild of the British Isles. I was using the MacBook Air that I got from Music Magpie and a usbc hub since the MacAir hardly has any ports where you can plug in gadgets. It turns out that there is more than one version of a basic usb port! I wanted to use 2 Camlinks in order to livestream images from my 2 GoPro cameras but they needed a faster ...

While my kids were still at school, Life was pretty busy, getting them to where they needed to be, running a business and entering quilt competitions but at least there was a schedule. These days, I don’t have many time commitments so I can please myself how much work I do. The trouble is that I make myself try to get too much done, all at once, so I hardly ever allow myself any down-time. I felt so harassed that I dug out a planner that I used to have in 2019 up until Life came to a grinding ...

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 ...

I decided that since I only officially had one customer quilt to do last week, I would crack on with making progress on my circles. I finished all of the machine stitching but the large zigzags did not seem very stable to me. I had reduced the tension substantially so the bobbin thread would not show on top. I decided that the answer was to secure the zigzag stitches with a double trip around each circle edge with silver thread. The process for each circle square is quite long-winded and I wonder if anyone will even notice. It took almost ...

It has been a snowy week which is a bit of an affront for March but not unusual for NE Scotland. I wrapped up in thermals and woolies because we had no heating (again) at the start of the week and it was actually warmer in my fridge-like workshop. After all of the excitement of the Glasgow exhibition I made myself catch up on admin which I swear takes me 20 times longer than the average person;)

Suddenly, I found that some quilt ideas were bubbling to the surface. I wrote some notes about the ideas, realising that I probably ...

I probably spend as much, if not more time, researching and messing about with Tech than I actually DO anything with it. I have become a serious Nerd about tripod ball heads, cold shoe mounts and “overhead rigs”. What this really means is suspending a camera above a table in order to get a birds-eye view of a project. The main issue is that even small cameras will weigh down articulated camera arms. My solution was to attach a straight arm to a pole clamped onto the table and use a tripod ball head to change the camera angle. 

I ...

November may be a bit dreary at times but it tends to be busy as Quilters want projects done in time for Christmas. I will be going to Norfolk for a week or so in December so I need to get all of the jobs done by then. Apart from going out to collect a second-hand mini Dyson hoover from a Facebook Marketplace seller, I have pretty much been in my workshop getting stuff done. 

Using zips to attach quilts on the longarm means I can get the next quilt ready to go and if someone comes in with a ...

Considering that I own a plethora of cameras, I should be ashamed at the lack of photos documenting my week! I spent all day Sunday filming how to place and stitch a whole cloth quilt using Qmatic. It took me all of Monday to edit my feature-length movie into 2 halves, each approximately one hour long. My computer suddenly decided that its memory was full and could not cope with saving all that work so we had “words”, deleted some junk, reduced the quality and eventually stored the files. I decided to invest in another external hard drive so I ...

It has been a weirdly quiet week here without Nella at home. She seems to be doing OK in Norwich, finding new friends and looking after herself. I had to do a couple of projects on the Bernina L890 so I spent 2 days filming / making and 2+ hours editing for two short videos, both of which were less than 10 minutes long. I made “boho” bunting using scrap sari fabric from bags that my dungarees arrived in and a crazy-ish patchwork heart-shaped cushion that Nella had started. The trickiest part of that was constructing the cushion but ...

It has been quite a week in the UK! Just 2 days after swearing in the new Prime Minister at Balmoral, The Queen died aged 96 in one of her favourite places. The News has been filled with royal tributes and trivia as we become the subjects of a King for the first time in 70 years. We went down to the gates at Crathes Castle to witness Queen Elizabeth II make her final journey via Edinburgh to London for her state funeral in a week. It was a surreal ...

Like many quilters, I am acutely aware that I accumulate far too much stuff that I don’t use so I sold my Bernette Funlock (coverstitch machine) on Ebay and sent it off to its new owner with a courier. The new owner tried it out but the handwheel was jammed. Since it worked perfectly before dispatch, I think it got dropped in transit. Now I have to waste time and do battle with the courier to get compensation. 

I was encouraged to purchase a gimbal for my camera by some enthusiastic YouTube videographers. I followed the tricky procedure to ...

What is it about having a long To Do list that makes me want to start something new? I came back from FoQ with plenty of things to do or finish but then decided that my filing cabinets looked drab and needed a facelift. I used to enjoy painting furniture to give it a new lease of life but I really did not enjoy this job. I should have emptied them, taken them outside, sanded them then given them a quick spray-paint. However, I decided to leave them in situ then paint with primer and ...

We had one of the hottest days on record on Tuesday – 30C in Scotland is very unusual and I tried to hide out in my workshop, which is always significantly cooler. I made 2 little bags for my dji Pocket cameras and pieced a whole cloth practice quilt that I will experiment with using Q-Matic.

I got sidetracked seeing if I could use a heat-gun to remove tatty stripes from the side of my caravan. This became a whole-day project, followed by trying to remove 25 year old sticky residue. Peanut butter was suggested as a household remedy but I ...

It has been mid-term for Nella so there was no need to rush anywhere. I got her quilt all joined together with a majority of the points matching and downloaded a pumpkin-patch  digital quilt design from Intelligent Quilting. It was quite a busy pattern so it took most of a day but it looked cute and was dense enough to hold all of the pieces down. I had the binding ready to go so I attached it as soon as it came off the frame and the quilt was on Nella’s bed by Tuesday evening!

We had an outing ...

Several weeks after telling myself that I would be filming a How-To video on making zippered leaders for the Q24 have gone by and I still have not done it. It turns out that making instructional videos is not as easy as it looks. I think I am actually good at delivering the demos on camera – it is the technical side that has been tricky. The camera angles have to be clear and in focus and it is important to have good quality sound. I have got so much gear now that I could probably rival a BBC ...

I have always loved gadgets, even though I was the first person in my school to get an Ungraded mark for O-level Electronics. This week’s whim was to order a mini thermal printer with a teddy-bear face after seeing it on a Youtube vlog that Nella was watching. It does not use ink or batteries and the till-roll type paper is very cheap. The images are pretty good and it can also print sticky labels so I think it’s great. Since I love organising and labelling everything, I think I will have great fun with it:)

I now ...

Don’t tell Nicola but we paid Freya a quick mid-week visit in Glasgow… Nella’s doctor said it was a good idea since she had never seen where Freya moved to last September. We were very careful to avoid busy areas. Nella and I have both had two doses of Covid vaccine and we always wear face-masks. The studenty flat is great, although on the top floor, up 77 steps and counting when you have to take a Scottie dog out for a wee. It is in the West End and even has a Waitrose about 2 minutes walk ...

I started the week all fired up to make short instructional videos, kicking off with showing how to make an elasticated bowl cover. I was just filming this on my own using my phone, using the Apple Watch as a remote control. I realised that things need to be recorded in several takes, possibly having done an entire project as a practice. I did not use any of the footage but put it down as a good dummy run. 

Logistically, if I don’t manage to teach online I wondered about a Plan B and made a list of things ...