TV Debut (and giveaway alert) for ....

... my friend Lovely Lynn.

Lynn's now starring in episode 1604 of The Quilt Show, where she talks about how she takes the fear of maths out of quilting, and shows her wonderful method of making complicated blocks by breaking them down into simple components.  In the show Ricky Tims also has a play with some components, showing how you can make different blocks using the same "bits".

By the way, you can buy Lynn's book through the Quilt Show, or through her own blog.

Lynn also talks about her strip taming device, aka a pasta dryer. Her clever husband, Mr Joe is a whizz at woodwork, and has come up with this super-duper improved version of it,

 and Lynn is offering one as a giveaway over on her blog at Sewn Wild Oaks. This link takes you to the post with the giveaway.   That same post gives you a link so you can watch Lynn's show for free. It's a fascinating show, and I urge you all to rush off and watch it, if you haven't already done so.

An Anniversary and a challenge

Last weekend we celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary by spending the weekend in London.  I contacted the hotel beforehand to ask if they offered any sort of upgrade, and they definitely did.  We were upgraded to a deluxe room, which was huge with a lovely sofa, a Nespresso machine and lovely toiletries and in the room was an anniversary card with a plate of macarons.  Sorry, no photo as we ate them!  On Saturday we were out for the day, and when we got back to the hotel, we found this in our room.

Today Scrappy has been here and we had a great day with no sewing, lots of chatting and some fabric stroking.  I had a bag of scraps to give her, and Scrappy wasted no time in tipping it out to see what was in there and to fold and stroke it all.  There was this little piece of orange in there, and she was thinking it might be too small, even for her and was going to throw it away, so I've challenged her to use it.  I can't wait to see what she does with it. With friends like me, who needs enemies?

If only ....

This was spotted by Scrappy on Facebook.  I love it.

What IS "modern quilting"?

This is a question that has been exercising my brain a lot lately.  I have seen various suggestions as to what constitutes a modern quilt, ranging from quilts not having borders, quilts with a lot of white in them, quilts that only use plain fabrics and various other suggestions.  So I thought I'd throw this one out to you lot.  Who can define modern quilting for me?

Just because a blog post must have a picture, and because I hope spring is on the way, here's a picture of a small quilt I made some years ago..

Pardon?

Here's a good example of how crazy technology can be.  My laptop insists that I have a password to access anything when I start it up or wake it from a sleep.  OK, that's not a problem.  At least, it wasn't until a few days ago.  Then, I typed in my password in the morning and was told it was incorrect, so I tried it again.  Same result.  Try again. Still no good.  (Incidentally, I had not done anything to change the password, nor had I mistyped it.)  So, what to do?

Well, Microsoft were very thoughtful, and up pops a message telling me I need to reset my password.  Mutter, mumble, grumble, says I.  Then I read the rest of the message on the screen.  To reset your password, visit www.whatever-the-address-was.com.

Sorry?  How do I do that when I am locked out?  How ridiculous.  Luckily, this laptop is not the only computer in the house, so I was able to access my account and change the password, but really?  There are households with only one computer in.  How are they supposed to do it?  Another well thought out plan by those-who-would-control-us I think.

I also think I must be turning into a Grumpy Old Woman. I blame my bad back which has been playing up again.  (Makes a change from me moaning on about gout doesn't it?)

Despatch note ....

I may have been quiet, but I'm still shopping.  I recently placed an order with the Missouri Star Quilt Company, who I love for their fabrics, speed of sending me things, tutorials, etc., and  this is the despatch note they sent me when my order was on its way:

We just want to let you know that your quilting supplies have been meticulously gathered, placed on a red velvet pillow, and delicately escorted by 25 of our finest employees to our shipping department. Our master shipper has dutifully performed his craft, lovingly packing your order in the finest materials known to man.
Our team gathered to give your package the proper send-off it deserved. Tears of joy were shed, speeches were given, and there was even a farewell cake. Following the festivities, the whole group, led by our local high school marching band playing the song Leaving on a Jet Plane, ushered your order through downtown Hamilton, Missouri. No, we don't own a Jet Plane, but your package was placed in the care of a roguishly handsome man who is riding in a majestic horse-drawn carriage which is on its way to your home as you read this.
Although the products you've ordered will be sorely missed here at MSQC, we are overjoyed that they have found a good home. Take care of them, treasure them, and when you make something beautiful with them, make sure you share it with us on facebook, twitter, or just send us an email, we love to see what you make!.
*Note the above is a slight dramatization of what actually happened with your order, but seriously we did ship it, and here is the tracking info:

Isn't it great?

Because I know you'll ask, this is part of the order.

I ordered three charm packs of this scrumptious fabric collection and some toning fabric yardage.

New Year, New You

(Sponsored post) That's what Craftsy are offering us this weekend.  They are having a Flash Sale with up to 50% off their top online classes. To see what's on offer, just click on the picture above. This sale is only on until Sunday 18 January at 11:59PM MT I'm off to sign up for a paper piecing class I've spotted so I must dash .....

Christmas presents ...

... Hello?  Is there anyone there?  Is anybody bothering to visit me nowadays, since I'm such a bad blogger?  I hope someone is still calling in to see me, so I thought I'd show you pictures of a couple of quilty Christmas presents I received.

This gorgeous table topper was given to me, together with the little Poinsettia, by my friend Scrappy.  There may have been a box of chocolate penguins too, but they seem to have disappeared - in other words, we've eaten them.

The topper was made from blocks in a book called Victorian Quilt Block Designs, and I loved it so much I have now bought the book too! It's on its way to me and I should receive it either tomorrow or Tuesday.

This gorgeous angel was sent to me by Naughty Nancie. I think this is so cute that I am going to find it very difficult to undo it to use the fabrics, but I do have a plan for them, so I will have to take her apart soon. (The angel, not Naughty Nancie.)

I also received a lovely calender from my friend Gail (Lynn's sister).  The calender has stunning photos of Yosemite Park throughout the seasons.  Since I'm not sure of the copyright laws, I am not showing any photos of it, but, take my word for it, the views are stunning.  Yosemite was somewhere we didn't get to visit when I was on holiday with Lynn as there was a strike of government workers at the time I was there so the park was closed.  I hope I will get to see it with Lynn, Mr Joe and Gail in the future.

So, I'm sorry I'm still talking about Christmas, I guess it will soon be Christmas 2015, but I really wanted to show you the lovely gifts I was lucky enough to be given.  Thank you all so very much.

Happy New year and quilt patterns

Happy (belated) New Year everybody.

We had a great Christmas and New Year.  Today the family left, spare bedding has all been washed, leftovers eaten for lunch and now I'm enjoying the Sound of Music on TV.

Now, due to the clever-clogs at the EU, new laws have come into being which state that anyone who sells digital things such as quilt patterns in pdf format to a customer living in the EU must charge VAT at the rate of the country they are selling to.  This means that if I sell one of my patterns through Craftsy to someone living in an EU country, I must collect the taxes and then pay them to the appropriate country.  There are something like twenty-eight countries and therefore twenty-eight different tax levels, all requiring different tax reports, etc.  Really, dear EU clever-clogs? Who has time for that? Craftsy do not have a system in place to identify where a customer lives, so I am therefore having to withdraw my patterns from them, and I will now be selling them through a company who will deal with all the horrid paperwork, calculations, collections and tax payments for me.  As from tomorrow, you can find my patterns for sale over here at Payhip. I apologise to those people who have listed any of my patterns on their wishlists on Craftsy, but there is no way I can get in touch with you to let you know what I have been forced to do. I hope that's a bit clearer than mud, but you are welcome to email me if you don't understand.

Give yourself a Christmas present ...

 

Craftsy's Best of 2014 Sale

(sponsored post)

Get the gift you really want during Craftsy's Best of 2014 Sale happening now through Christmas! Treat yourself while ALL our classes are $19.99 or less, so you can make your best projects in 2015. Shop now to stock up and save.

Once you enroll you'll own your Craftsy classes forever, so you can watch them at your pace in the comfort of your home, anytime. Hurry, offer expires 12/25/14 at 11:59 PM MT. 

A Fair Division of labour ...

... as I was listening to the radio the other day, there was a comment about the different jobs that men and women do at Christmas.  It struck a chord.

Women:

buy the presents
wrap the presents;

buy the food
cook the food;

buy the cards
write the cards;

buy/find the decorations
put up the decorations, etc, etc.











Men:

Buy the batteries!









That sort of struck a chord with me.  Mr Fixit's comment when I told him? "Yep, that seems fair enough.  I've bought the batteries by the way."

It's beginning to look a lot like .....

Christmas....

This morning we decided that Christmas was coming, whether we wanted it to or not, so Mr Fixit and I got the trees out and got decorating.  That really means, he checked the lights and then found something else to do in his workshop while I got decorating.  Being somewhat minimalist in my tastes, it really didn't take too long.  There are two more trees, one in the dining room and one in the hall, but they are more "sculptural" so they don't get decorated, just plugged in.  We've just been out in the wind and rain and strung lights over 3 bushes and round my father's porch, and that's it. Christmas sorted.  Apart from wrapping that is.  All the cards are done and sent, the food's all ordered, so now Christmas can happen.

Yesterday was my quilt group's Christmas party ( you can pop over and read all about it here if you like.  I'll wait.) and we all had fun making key fobs

This was mine, and I've just noticed that the ribbon is sewn on all wonky! I'm sure it was straight, so I reckon one of the Christmas elves popped in overnight and did that.

 It was also the Grand Handing Out of the name badges, and here are some of them.  I love how different they all are.

This and that ...

OK, what IS she doing now?

Our dining room chairs had cream fabric seat covers which can not be removed for washing.  That was perhaps not my cleverest idea with very young grandchildren around who sat at them to eat, paint, play with PlayDoh, sprinkle glitter all over cards they'd made, etc.

As you can imagine, they have become marked over the years and they'd got to the point where I either needed to replace the chairs or buy a new dining room suite. That's when I had the brainwave. Why not take the chairs apart and recover them?  Mr Fixit was quite impressed, as I think he'd resigned himself to the idea of me going out spending money on a suite.  So, fabric ordered online, staple gun and staples also purchased, and we were ready to go. Then, I discovered that my wrists are not very strong, so I could not remove the staples holding the original covers and nor could I use the staple gun - clever huh? Anyway, they're all done now, and look pretty good really.

I also treated myself to this the other day

It is wonderful.  I just chop up veg and stuff, add it to the pot with stock, turn it on, come back about 20 - 30 mins later and I have yummy soup.  I can even sautee the veg in the pot if I want to, and have the choise of having smooth or chunky soups.  All in one pot.  How clever is that?

Spot the deliberate mistake ...

... so, remember, last week Scrappy and I were meeting up to make name-badges for other members of Yorkshire Modern Quilters?  Well, by the end of the day there were about seven rejects in the bin (4 from me and 3 from Scrappy) and we had nothing completed, so we got together again today. Scrappy finished hers (no pictures, cos the name of the recipient is a secret) and here's a mock-up of the name badge I decided to make.

Can you spot the deliberate mistake? I made the badge, added the lanyard, etc and was proudly admiring it when all of a sudden Scrappy started laughing and then quietly asked me if I thought I should add the name to it!

Oops.

By the way, she didn't think I'd post about this.

UPDATE: Craftsy are at it again

Update: Now, they're having a Black Friday Sale too, with all classes at less than $20 (approx £12.70 to us in the UK).  The wonderful thing about their classes is there is no shipping to pay, no import taxes to pay, no Royal Mail handling fees to pay, the classes are all downloadable instantly and are yours for ever. I have taken several of their classes and can not recommend them highly enough. This sale is on now, and lasts until 11.59 pm MT on Monday 1 December.

This time, they're having a Pre-Black Friday Sale. 

I'm not going to write a lot, cos I'm sure a lot of you are busy with Thanksgiving preparations, etc, but you can visit them, here and enjoy B I G savings on classes, yarn, fabric and kits! Shop now because you won’t want to miss this incredible sale! You'll have to be quick though as the sale prices are only valid until 11.59 pm MT tomorrow (Thursday).

If it's not too crowded, you just might spot me there .................

(sponsored post)

Nearly there now ...

... this is what I've been doing while the conservatory has been out of action

and while I've been doing that, the conservatory has been redecorated, and we've moved some of the furniture back now

There's another cupboard coming on Friday, and, hopefully, the new blinds will be fitted in a couple of weeks.  Once the blinds are in I can start filling the cupboards, and then ... I will be able to sew again.  

Meanwhile, I am off to my friend Scrappy's for the day tomorrow and we're making name badges. The Yorkshire Modern Quilters Group we belong to are having a Christmas party next month, and everyone is making a name badge for another member, sort of a Secret Santa thing.  Anyone got any bright ideas for designs?  I haven't. 

On Saturday is the next meeting of the same group, and we're off to that too.  I'm so looking forward to getting back in the groove as I haven't touched any sewing since I got home from the quilt retreat last month.

Before, during and almost after ...

The trouble with a conservatory is that they have a glass roof.  The trouble with that is that the roof is not insulated.  The trouble with that is that it can be very hot in there during the summer, and very cold during the winter.  The trouble with that is that I sew in the conservatory, and some days I would need to wear a bikini (not a pretty sight) and other days I would need my hat coat and gloves. So we decided to have a new, insulated ceiling put it to help (hopefully) solve the problem.

So here are the before the guys arrived photos

when our dining room looked like this

A few hours later, the conservatory looked like this

and when they left a few days later, it looked like this

Next stage is to get ourselves painted, which should happen the week after next.

Then, perhaps, I can get back to sewing!

Craftsy are doing it again ...

... doing what again? I hear you ask.  Having another fun sale is the answer. (By the way, I have to tell you that this is a sponsored post.)

This one they've called the "Shop to Unlock" sale, You can get up to 50% off online classes for a limited time only, but, what's more, if you purchase a class during the flash sale, you will unlock a second set of classes on sale. For users that purchase, you will receive a subsequent email with a link "unlocking" the next set of classes.  

So, does paper piecing perplex you?  Freemotion feathers fill you with fear? The thought of curves curb your enthusiasm? Want to make quick quilted gifts for Christmas (sshh, only whisper that word)? Well there's courses to help you with all these problems and many others to expand your quilting horizons.

Woohoo, I'm off shopping at Craftsy's Shop to Unlock Sale and all you have to do is click on the link to join me there but hurry, this offer expires on Sunday 9 Nov 23.59 MT.

Scary ....

... I went to the Hairdresser this morning for my regular feather-fluffing session, and wow, my hairdresser has changed in the 5 weeks since I last went!

Happy Halloween everybody

and the winner is ....

Oh hang on, just let me explain first how I chose the winner of this e-book.  The review was posted on this blog, and also on Yorkshire Modern Quilt Group's blog, here.  All the comments on my own blog are numbered, but those on YMQG's are not (yes, I know I said I would get that sorted, but I forgot!).  So all I did was allocate numbers to the comments on there running straight on from those on here.  That gave a total of 64 for Mr Random.org to chose from, and the number he chose was comment number 53

and number 53 is Pauline, who said

Congratulations Pauline and thanks to everyone who entered.  Don't forget to keep an eye on both blogs as there will be another giveaway soon.

and now the party's over ...

... and just in case you were worried about how quiet I was, the reason was the internet connection at the hotel.  As I said in my last post, it was was broken, then it was fixed and we could all get online for the day.  I don't know what happened, but overnight I lost access again and could not re-connect until I got home, although other people were able to.  I could connect via my phone, but there was no way I was going to write blog posts using the phone.

Anyway, now we're safely home again, after a great 5 days.

Our days went rather like this:

Eat, walk, eat, sew. Repeat. I think the hotel proprietors were worried in case we felt hungry.  The food was all superb and everything was home-made by a great chef.  The walking was essential as a weight-limitation exercise, but I'm not sure it worked in my case.  We were on the coast so the walks were along the seafront and as it was really outside the holiday season, it was all fairly quiet. Of course the walks may have included visits to the local quilt shop by some people.

Here we are, just a few hours into our five days, aren't we looking neat and tidy?  That soon changed I can assure you, but no, there are no photos of the same areas later in the week.

As you can see, there were some very talented people making some wonderful quilts.

Of all the projects I took with me, several of them did not even make it out of their bags, but I did finish one quilt top, made some test blocks for some ideas I have for the future, and prepared the pieces for the blocks for another quilt.

By the end of the week, some people went home with completed projects, as you can see.

Scrappy decided to lay some blocks out on a bed, to see what they would like in a quilt.  I felt she needed a glamorous assistant to show them off, but she didn't.  Guess who won that battle?









It was a great week, thank you so much QuiltHaze for organising it.  Now, what date is the next one?

we're here ...

Firstly, I apologise for the 24 hour silence from me.  There has been a problem at the hotel with the internet, but that got sorted out this evening.

Do you think we've got enough "stuff?  Well, just in case, we've also got things on the back seat of the car, and my machine had to travel on the floor behind my seat, poor big Brother.

Anyway, we arrived safely, despite the best efforts of a couple of motor bikes on our way.  By the time we had taken our bags into the sewing room, and our clothes to our rooms, (yes we did just about find room in the car for a change of clothes and our toothbrushes) it was time for afternoon tea and home made cakes.  Then there was time for a little sewing before dinner. The dinner was superb, and the hotel proprietors definitely think that we all need feeding up if the dinner was anything to go by.  A little more sewing after dinner and it was time for an early night.

Breakfast was a 3-course meal again.  After that Scrappy and I went for a brisk walk along the seafront into the town and wandered around town for a little while.  Believe me, we needed to walk off the breakfast, but guess what?  When we got back, we found that morning coffee and home made biscuits were laid out waiting for us.  We did fit in a little more sewing, before lunch, followed by sewing, afternoon tea, a walk, sewing, dinner, sewing and then the internet was back, so here I am.

So that was yesterday, and today. Tomorrow I'll try and show you what we've been working on.

Ready to go ...

In a couple of hours I'm off on a five day quilt retreat.  Do you think I've got enough "stuff" to work on?

I've got three machine projects, (all throw size quilts, only one of which has been started so far), one hand applique table topper and a  load of experimental things to play with.  I've never been on a retreat before so I am very excited, but really don't know how much I should take with me.  I must remember to pack a toothbrush and change of clothes somewhere too. And I'll need my camera, and my Kindle, my phone and my laptop, oh yes, and all the chargers, some sachets of my favourite hot chocolate for when I'm awake in the middle of the night, and I've just remembered I need to take some Steam-a-Seam and some freezer paper.  Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that Mr Fixit and my father stay fit and well while I'm gone so I don't need to come home early. 

Assuming the hotel has wifi, I'll be back soon to tell you what I've been up to.

By the way, don't forget my giveaway, here