The National Quilt Championships, Sandown
June 17, 2008
Well the car is packed and now I am at a bit of a loss. I am normally panicking right now. I guess this is the advantage of entering quilts you’ve already made. I have five quilts going into Sandown this year.(Why is it quilt shows are more often known by their location than their name?) ‘Guide me’ will be making it’s last UK appearance before it heads off to the World Quilt Show. Perttu, the cellist has only been seen at my gallery show so this is his first competitive outing. I hope he will go down well, he does at least have some clothes on.
I’ve also put in “Where is the North Star?”. This is a quilt I made for the theme category at Malvern a couple of years ago, and it hasn’t been out since. I show it as my talks and it is a very popular quilt, so I decided I aught to put it in another quilt show. If It hadn’t had such an amazing response in talks I would still be sitting in the storage unit.
This is “My Fat Quarter of Paradise” It is one of the quilts DHL failed to deliver to a show. It is HUGE. I have no way of getting a good picture of it at home, this is it in a Hotel room. I love the quilting on it but I don’t like paying postage to send it to shows. So as I can deliver it to this one, it’s going. The hanging sleeve isn’t at the top of this quilt to keep the bottom of it off the floor. Hopefully this will work at Sandown.
My last entry is “Lily”. This is another quilt I have entered because of other peoples reaction to it. I can’t say I like this quilt, but I have to accept a lot of other people do. I would say it was the second most popular quilt in my solo show. I don’t get it but I figure it has earned it’s place in shows. If you are in Region 1 of the Quilters Guild you will have seen it in your regional magazine recently. Here is your chance to see it in the flesh. It will be interesting to see it the judges agree with my visitors, if they do I will be checking with more people before spending money on entering quilt shows 
World Quilt Show
June 15, 2008
I got home to an email telling me that both of my quilts made it into the World Quilt Show. Just as well I didn’t manage to enter ‘Guide Me’ into Houston as well. One of the really nice things about this show, is that you send the quilts to a local coordinator so you don’t have to worry about international postage. No customs forms, no couriers. Just a very reasonable fee and Christine Porter deals with all the tricky bit for you. If you are looking for an easy way into showing quilts in the US do consider this show next year. I would have given you a heads up this year, but I nearly missed it myself.
Poop
We woke up to blue sky, not bad given the weather forecasts we have had. Could this be a promising start to the day? Over night the ladder (list of who races who) had been re-written, so we were no longer against the Weasel. We were now racing Dan Devlin. We had a long pause in the pairing lane while the track was cleaned, but managed to meet up with a friend who helped us push the car, which was much appreciated. Before running we do a burnout. This is spinning the rear (our driven wheels) wheels to heat up the tyres, to help them stick. We do this by sitting the wheels in water so the lose grip then pulling the car forward a little. I was worried, the water was minimal and I've not had a lot of practice, but I thought I had done OK. The tyres spun a little then the car pulled forward and stopped. Did I miss? I wish it had been that simple, the throttle cable had broken and we had to push the car back. Our competitior obviously took the win and is through to the next round.We managed to drive back to the pit by raising the idle speed (how fast the engine runs when you don't press the throttle pedal). On the way a lot of concerned racers came to see us. This is what I love about this sport. Most racers want to win on the track, not with a mechanical failure. So down to Halfords to look for a spare, without joy. They do have bycycle spares though, so we are using a bycycle brake cable instead. It might hold to get us home and if it brakes we will come to a graceful halt. I like things that fail safe. Even better I will be the car behind and I know it might happen. In case you hadn't gathered the race car is street legal and drives to and from the track. One of the race cars I have just seen leaving goes one better. It tows it's support caravan as well. How cool is that, a race car that can drag it's pit with it.I guess it's time to watch some racing and take some photos before we head home.
Time on the board
June 14, 2008Woo hoo, we have a time on the board and it isn't raining yet. Heavy on the yet. We ran a 13.97 on a 13.93 dial in. That's pretty good, oh and here comes the rain.On a quilting note, I've designed a new class quilt today. My Thursday regulars have asked for a new quilt as you go project, which rukes out my second sampler quilt which is almost ready to run. So yet again I needed to come up with something special for them. It has to include some piecing and some applique. That's tricky as I don't normally do functional applique, but I think I have come up with a good solution. In between runs I've even managed to start writing it up.
Erm
So we are either thrilled or disapointed or maybe both. We do what is known as bracket racing. You predict the time your car will take to run a quarter of a mile from a standing start. You then try to run exactly that time without going quicker. This allows fast cars to race slower ones on an equal footing. As we aren't sure how many qualifying runs we will get we wanted to make sure we didn't run faster, breakout and not get a qualifying time.Trogdor, the Capri has not run a 13 second quarter mile at any of the other events, but it has run very low 14s so a conservative 13.97 second seemed a good bet. The track is good and a lot of big cars ran before us (which helps). So a nice launch, a good reaction time, and by half track I was worried. This was looking good, possibly too good. Indeed 9.92 came up on the end board. So this is the fastest run yet, which is great, but a lousy qualifier. Let's hope we get another run today.
Yay!
Well we made it through without any problems, sadly a lot of others had a much harder time. Apparently convertibles aren't supposed to be running, and there are so many rules about wheels I've lots track.On the other hand they have sorted out the supplier of electricity. Cables are being supplied and the staff are working their socks off to make sure everyone has power. I wasn't here for the other events but I can tell it's a huge deal for those who were.Hmmm rain… That wasn't supposed to happen yet.
Summer nationals
June 13, 2008
So I've made it to my first race meeting of the season. I'd got out of the habit having been very busy with work and not keen of sitting at a drag strip in the rain, but it's great to be back. Being able to pick up the pit pass and tickets without hassle was lovely, and getting to catch up with people I haven't seen for months was great. I am now sitting in our pit while the car goes through scrutineering. Aparently they are being more strict than usual, and I know I don't deal well with authority so the most useful thing I can do is keep out of it. It's a shame I was quite looking forward to seeing what goes on, but it's more important that the car gets through. Our main concerns are all wheel related. Whether there is enough stud length coming out of the hubs and whether our wheel nuts are 'right'. Both have been fine so far, but others have been turned back, so we are worried. Watch this space for the result.
Speed Quilt 2
June 10, 2008
Strangely I was just putting the binding on this quilt when I got an email asking for a picture of it. I figured I may as well finish before posting. So here is Speed Quilt 2. I guess I would call it a large single, and most people should be able to pretty much complete the sewing in one day. It is a reversible quilt as you go project, and being quick is ideal for those people you aught to give a quilt to but you know they won’t really get it. As you can see mine is quite soft colours on the front and something a bit more striking on the back.
If you would like to have a go at making one there are still a couple of places on my class on the 24th June. Call Patchwork Corner to book a place as they are running the class. Alternatively you could ask your local quilt group or shop to book me to teach it there. Sorry, but if you are not in the UK you will either have a large travel bill or need to find some other groups who will also book me.
For those of you booked already, I hope this will help with picking your fabrics, the quilt will be at Patchwork Corner as of tomorrow.
Faux pas averted
I normally keep pretty good records of where my quilts are when. yesterday I dutifully updated it and checked which quilts I could enter into the Houston show. Then this morning I spoke to Sally who happened to mention the World Quilt Show. Abut and hour later my brain finally kicked in and pondered what I had entered into that show. According to my records nothing! OK I know that is wrong and I have that sinking feeling. One of the quilts I had planned to put into Houston might already be committed. Fortunately Christine Porter, and her lovely husband are more organized than I am and confirmed my fears. “Guide Me” is trying for the world show so cannot be entered into Houston. The upshot is I remembered just in time to avoid committing a cardinal sin in the quilting world. Don’t you just know it would have got into both shows if I hadn’t spotted it. Of course I have probably jinxed the world show now but I think that is better than the alternative. I have just couriered my entry of “Herd Mentality” to Houston. Wish it luck.