What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I made use of my nephews who had a half-term holiday to give me a hand setting up the longarm frame. As they were not my own children I had stop after a reasonable time and I had to pay them. I don’t think the frames are really meant to be dismantled and set up again 3 or 4 times. I had difficulty getting some of the side bolts to hold but that could well have been down to my own incompetence and impatience. Let’s just say that I may have invented an emergency support using a piece ...

Have I set up my quilt machine?… Not quite. It’s such a palaver and I really must try next week.

I had a couple of extra days working for Singer and I went for a wee wander in Norwich, taking myself out for a cup of tea so I will claim that I was busy.

The garage is still a disaster zone where I dumped all of my possessions and I can’t find a thing, including any jumpers for this blustery weather so it needs a big sorting session.

Freya and Fergus both came down from Scotland for ...

I had a great team of friends help load up the removal van and it all fitted in – only just! My journey with a brief stop took about 8 hours but the van man got stuck in a traffic jam for hours and eventually turned up the next morning. He then discovered that the roller door was jammed shut because some stuff had shifted. We levered it it open a little with blocks of wood and a plank then my sister became “Flat Stanley”, shimmied into the van and dislodged the longarm poles.

We quickly realised that the garage would ...

Just like that it was my last week at Quilt Direct. There were 2 hectic days at the start of the week while an Embroidery Mastery class was running. There was much running about fetching goodies from the warehouse for the attendees and many, many cups of tea to make. My final 2 days were spent teaching how to be confident and creative with the L890. The pupils all enjoyed exploring the techniques like gathering, flatlock and fringing. My colleagues had a whip round and gave me some money towards getting a 3D printer because I want to make an ...

How can it only be that I have one working week left in Devon? The time since I started packing has flown. I just want to get going now because almost everything is packed but I am trying to savour living by myself in my own space.

I reduced the price of my velvet sofa on FB Marketplace and found a buyer but they want to pick it up this weekend. I don’t have any garden chairs left then figured I could move one of the hideaway single beds downstairs to make into a temporary telly-watching spot. 

I have ...

I have made a bit of an attempt to check that the cupboards are in order at work – everyone thinks I am the only person who knows where anything is;) Most of my week was taken up with longarm tuition. After 2 years this has really taken off so it is a pity that it will have to come to a halt, although some people seem to think that I can transfer all of the skills I have accrued in 18 years and it will just take them a couple of hours to pick up…

I am so fed up ...

My “Teacher Glare” never worked on my own children but I did have to employ it at the start of my 2 day ruler class this week. I started out with quite a demanding crowd but after I went into full-on teacher mode everyone got on famously;)

As well as that, it was all Go Go Go, making sure that I have got all of my customer quilts done before I leave Quilt Direct. Therefore, I also did a binding, 2 quilts and basted a stuffed cross that will become a Church wall hanging. 

Packing to move must be one ...

A very Norfolk expression is “Slow you down!”-  meaning you should rush around less and chill out more.

That has NOT been me this week…

At work I bound 2 quilts, supervised 5 DIY quilts, did some one-to-one tuition, prepared for the Quilt Direct Open Day, attended the Tavistock Goosey Quilters exhibition, sold 2 machines, and carried out all of my usual side missions.

I was too worn out to do much in the evenings apart from veg out with Nessie but my Saturday was a blur of activity. I packed the non-essential kitchen items which means I obviously own ...

This was a very busy week! I had quilts to do at work and a couple of staff members were away so there were more than usual phone calls, demos, admin plus a full 2-day class with umpteen cups of tea to provide.

In addition, I did 2 evenings of overtime for the Singer Helpline. Since the weather has cooled down it appears that people are dusting off their sewing machines (or not!) and hoping that we will solve all their problems.

I had a good attempt at packing up the sewing room / spare bedroom. I am trying to vacuum ...

I had another unusually busy week long arming which makes me happy! There was a house quilt, postage stamp squares and a Kaffe Fassett diamonds one. In addition, there was class preparation to do and sewing machine demos plus an interesting phone call where the customer was irritated by me asking what brand of thread she was using – all she could tell me was that it was “cotton”. 

So now for some Big News… I am moving to Norfolk! It all boils down to Big Family Stuff and I want to be around so I can help out. Plus Nella ...

I made all sorts of different things this week, not all of them easy or useful. At work I have made some ruffled samples to prepare for a forthcoming class. People seem to have mixed feelings about whether ruffles are IN or OUT;)

I tested out the new 790 Ultra to see if it did all that it claims to. It performed very well but I think if I had several thousand pounds to spend I would still opt for the top of the range 990 which has a camera and can do pretty much anything.

I gave 2 new ...

This weekend I have been recovering from working 12 days straight, including FoQ. When I worked for myself I could unwind gradually and last year I headed up to Glasgow. This past week was far too long and I did very little at the weekend, even going for a Sunday afternoon snooze.

Nessie went for a hair-do but the groomer insisted on leaving her ears shaggy so she now looks like a gremlin. 

I made some mindless Hama beads to finish off my kitchen doorway but when I move I will have to repaint because I stuck them up ...

Another Festival of Quilts is already over! I first attended as a visitor with 3 small children in tow in 2006, represented APQS for a few years and Bernina UK Q-Series long-arm machines for the past 10 years. I think I missed 3 shows in all those years, possibly 2007, 2009 and 2020 (like everyone else). I do not have a complete set of pin badges for every year and this year they were sold out by Day 2. I took quite a few photos of competition quilts and their labels and decided to put them in a Flickr album ...

My week at work was mostly spent being involved in FoQ preparation. I long-armed mini quilts pieced using the Accuquilt system, packed up 2 sewing machines for demos, tidied up ruler quilting samples, and helped stuff leaflets into envelopes. I have selected some camera gear, hoping that I might do some filming at FoQ. I really want to take the mini Hover drone but its battery is dead!

Garden report: I have ONE hollyhock flower… I bet the rest won’t mature until next year. I have quite a few tiny tomatoes, raspberries that show no signs of fruit, very ...

Nella graduated from Norwich University of the Arts with a degree in Textiles. We could not be prouder of her achievement!!! We had a lovely celebratory week with her friends and family, wishing her well for whatever future she chooses after a well deserved break:)

I spent all of last Sunday working out how to put my patchwork coat together which was not technically difficult at all, apart from me not getting my head around how to get the sleeves together. I had to unpick the cuffs because I created a closed tube somehow. Basically everything got “bagged out” apart from the sleeves which I finished with binding because I can do that. I topstitched all the way round to hold it all together. I believe there should have been some under-stitching, whatever that is but I thought that was too much effort. I think ...

I consider myself to be a problem solver or a fixer, without the dodgy associations of crime or MI6.

My children have often commented that they just want me to listen sympathetically, rather than come up with ingenious solutions to whatever problem they have. 

This week a non local customer, who was on a fishing trip, came into work first thing to present me with a lovely bunch of flowers. I had helped her to fix her jammed longarm machine remotely by telling her how to get everything unstuck. 

Someone brought in a battered vintage Bernina that she had inherited ...

Before I left on my Norfolk mini-break I completed a lovely customer quilt, an Irish Chain with silver metallic thread. The Q24 did a beautiful job – a thread net and slower speed helped.

I have been having a long weekend in Norfolk with my girls because I wanted to see Nella’s final year textile art exhibition (and meet her new boyfriend!) I will actually be back in July for a slightly longer visit to attend her Graduation. 

One of the days was unbearably hot so Nessie and I did not venture out at all. We had a cooler seaside ...

This week at work was all demos, teaching and customer quilting as well as cracking out the machine inventory, preparing the classroom and all of my usual dashing about. Every evening I did some extra hours for my Friday job because they were short staffed. I was glad when the weekend rolled around and I did not have to set an alarm.

Consequently, last week’s laundry still has not been folded, my “sewing room / office” is in a muddle and I have been eating the same thing every day to save time. 

The Slug Pub was not a success ...

First I tried straw, then I teased out wire scourers to apply as mulch, splitting open the end of my thumb but NOTHING seems to stop the pesky slugs that are trashing my strawberries. I have been out at dusk with a trowel, waging war against the slimy pests. My next strategy is to put out beer traps, otherwise I will not be able to eat a single homegrown strawberry without biting into something vile and squelchy. 

It was all-systems-go at work with customer quilts. I think 4 different ones were on the frames this week ranging from brightly coloured ...