What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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 ...

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 ...

I have no idea how people find time for hobbies in the evening after work. I am getting used to the idea of getting up at early every day, not wasting time on social media, getting ready for the day, going for a dog-walk and making sure I leave on time for work. The journey takes about 45 minutes and the worst part is the single track, bendy, hilly, bumpy stretch until I reach the main road. We had a final burst of summer this week and it was too hot to take Nessie to work if she had to ...

Thank goodness my great friend, Mo decided she would help me get organised for my move to Devon because without her I would be running around like a headless chicken. We always were a good team when it came to us having adventures so we shrink wrapped, packed, chucked stuff out, took things to the Red Cross shop, and did some wheeler-dealing at a vintage emporium. I have also been selling things on Facebook – some very popular items and many where the prospective buyers did not turn up. Gradually though, I have made enough for my van hire!

As if ...

I first attended FoQ in 2006, missed out 2007, can’t remember whether I went in 2009 and 2020 was cancelled which means I have been to 17 (I think) and at least 14 of those years I was working as a longarm demonstrator. 

Birmingham is often hot while FoQ is on and set-up day was around 30 celsius so we all melted as we got the stand ready. Thank goodness for the good humour of the UK Bernina team and everything was made ready, with just a few swear words, for the crowds on Thursday.

Thursday and Friday were ...

I am trying to sell all sorts of things on Facebook Marketplace. After some to-ing and fro-ing I have at least sold my caravan. This is both sad and a relief. I spent a lot of time and money doing it up but I have not used it at all this year and would only have gone on solo expeditions which I don’t think is as fun. The new owners want to go on occasional trips but mainly use it as a nail salon.

My second longarm machine is also up for sale because I don’t use really ...

After a weekend of torrential rain, the sun finally came back out on Monday and started drying everything out. Luckily, no water flooded into my workshop this time. The river was incredibly high when Nessie and I went for a walk. Instead of being a once in 20 years occurrence, it seems to happen annually now. 

I set myself ups for a busy week, knowing that I am going to Norfolk later this week. I did some online teaching, in person teaching and a couple of customer quilts. 

In a phone conversation with a Bernina Q-matic owner, she mentioned that ...

The lingering cold that I had after my Glasgow trip turned out to be Covid. I was not especially unwell but lacking in energy and had no sense of taste. I hunkered down in the workshop and just got on with some quilting. It was not that easy actually, because my machine keeps conking out and giving me error messages which I tell it to ignore before starting again. New wiring has been ordered which should arrive in mid-October so hopefully we will keep limping along. 

I received a letter from Police Scotland informing me that I was caught by ...

Well, Festival of Quilts 2023 has already been and gone! I arrived at lunchtime on Wednesday for set-up after an overnight stop in Glasgow. It takes quite a team effort to set up a longarm stand where we had 2 Bernina Q-Series frame machines and 6 sit-down machines. Things can be a bit fraught until everything is all sorted out. When you finally get dinner and a long awaited beverage you wonder if you will be able to get up bright and early the next day. Of course, you always do;)

Imagine my surprise the next day when people said ...

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 ...

Wildlife has been visiting frequently this past week. This deer was behind the house on the hillside, almost concealed by the very tall vegetation back there. She can eat as much of that as she wants. Actually, I would like her to eat it all, LOL!!

Wilson, our resident woodchuck, stopped by to slurp up some seeds that fell to the ground below the feeder.

Two female turkeys have made regular appearances, pecking at the ground. They may have had a tiff between them as there are a bunch of feathers in the yard.

I was the program speaker this ...

I have to admit that I was both excited but also dreading the Scottish Quilting Show at the SEC in Glasgow. It is a long time since I have had to set up a booth and do a talk. I had my checklist of things to take and felt very well prepared yet I managed to leave behind 2 big quilts! Luckily, I had spares so there were no gaps on the wall. I was glad that I had decided to take the old Mac computer with a rolling slideshow to let people see some of my other quilts and ...

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 ...

There goes another week! Admittedly, most days are the same these days. The unseasonably warm autumn weather seems to be finished – there was a bit of a storm midweek which blew off the last of the leaves off the cherry trees which are now bare for winter. I was trying to make a video but the rain was hammering loudly on my workshop’s tin roof.

I did a couple of customer quilts, using a favourite pattern, “Stacked Snails” which looks like a modern Baptist Fan.

I came up with another project on the L890 overlocker / coverstitch machine. I fed ...

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 ...

The quilt above was pieced from scraps sent to me after the colorful fabriholic finished her kaleidoscope quilt. I have made good use of them, and their colors are perfect for this time of year. Now I let these scraps sit waiting for this time of year, because I like to work in colors of a season.

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 ...