I just had to share

I believe in copyright. I don’t copy films, books or music but this really speaks to me. I can’t tell you how sick I am of all the copyright junk at the beginning of DVD’s. I too have screamed at the TV, “but I DID pay for this movie”. The same goes for some of the excessive copyright notices I have found on quilting products. I am a designer and I love to support others, but come on be fair. If you tell me something I already know, why shouldn’t I carry on teaching it? What constitutes one use of a panto and why should I be bound by a clause I cound’t read before I bought the product. How about we all play nice and get treated like decent human beings. If not I can see the ‘vote with your wallet’ argument becoming very persuasive.

Anyway I shouldn’t be on the computer I should be getting the car ready to head north tomorrow. See you at Pearoom Quilters tomorrow. Oh yes, and a quick plug for the March issue of Sewing World, there might be a quilter in it you know

Dublin

Sorry I didn't blog last night but by the time I had got home and dealt with the urgent business stuff it really was bed time. I had meant to look up the name of the ship as my Irish expert sent it to me, but I didn't so keep an eye on the comments. I just thought it was pretty and worth sharing again.On Monday we plotted a route to take in all the most commonly suggested sights. We started at Dublinea. We had planned to start with Christ Church but if you do it the other way around you get to walk over the enclosed bridge which I fancied. Dublinea is currently undergoing a lot of work but the Viking section is not being worked on. I thought it was a neat little museum and the information was put across well. There are lots of interactive sections which I always like. The best feature was probably the tower though. I do like my towers. This one has an awful lot of stairs. It's a modern square spiral, which makes it easier to climb in my opinion. From the top you get a panoramic view of the city. It is quite impressive. I love the backdrop of hills to one side. I think it is also the best view you can get of Christ Church. I was very pleased we came through the bridge. It has lovely stained glass windows. I think they may well inspire some new quilting patterns.The cathederal is also a great source of quilting inspiration. The floor is fantastic. I don't know if I managed photograph all the tiles, but I certainly tried. The columns were very pretty. I also like the higher windows, they have lovely shapes. Pillar wise I have been spoilt recently by Prague. I think I might be on pillar overload. This is one of the few cathederals I have visited where there is good access to the crypt. I am a huge fan or crypts. This one has a tomb with an iceburg on it. It looks amazingly modern and yet isn't. There were also costumes there from the series the Tudors down there as some of the scenes were filmed in the cathederal. The crypt was used for tavern scenes and torture chambers.From here we headed down the hill to Dublin castle. As we didn't want to wait for a guided tour we only looked around the chaple. I say only, but boy it's good. I hope I might be able to post a panorama of it, but as I used my phone I have no idea how well it will come out. It had the most amazing ceiling. I really hope my pictures come out well. The camera ran out of battery so we were relying on my phone. I think I liked it more than the cathederal. The ceiling was just like nothing I've seen before.By the time we had pulled ourselves away from the chapel lunch was overdue. I wanted to get steak and chips. We quickly worked out that the tourist area is not the place to buy lunch. On the advice of some very nice Garda (I am told they are all very polite and helpful, I tend to believe) we ended up in Flannigans opposite the spike (I like it, sorry). It claims a warm Irish welcome, which I am not convinced it had. Mostly overworked really. However the food was very good and when there were problems they were dealt with quickly and politely. Price wise, it was about equivelent to London but the quality was much better. Irish cow is very nice. In fact all the meat we had was good. I was particularly liked the sundae. On the whole I don't like either chocolate or strawberry ice cream but these tasted exactly like astronaut ice cream. It was very odd having cold wet ice cream that tasted like the freeze dried stuff.After lunch we headed for Trinity college. I hadn't wanted to pay 9 Euros to see the book of the Kells. Then I found out that it also gave us access to the long library. I am so glad it does, as actually the book of Kells was lovely. I hadn't appreciated the level of detail it had in it. They also have a fascinating video on bookbinding. I really want to have a go at it now. I wish it had been available as a dvd. The long library though was the most amazing place. So many books, and such beautiful architecture. I wish I could have stayed there longer, but there was a flight that I really had to get. The good news was there was no waiting around at the airport. The bad news was they had brought our flight forward an hour and we only just made it. On the whole BMI was very good to fly with. They did move the flight times a lot, and their in flight exchange rate is robbery, but they were great for luggage regulations. So that's your lot for now on Ireland. I will see if I can upload some more images if I get some time at home. I really loved this trip. I can't wait to come back. It also reminded me I need to get a plan to go to Scotland again too.

Bye bye An Grianan

The course is over and we've had to leave. I am very sorry to have only had such a short time there. The people, place and food were all amazing. I really hope I will get to come back and see some of the quilters again. Having longer to work on the art quilts meant that every one has gone home with an almost completed wall hanging. It was nice just to see the projects through that far.After the course we were delivered to Dublin by one of the organizers (did I mention how helpful everyone was?) and dropped at the door of our hotel. We figured we would have a day to look around Dublin, especially as it made the flight cheaper. As we have very limited time, we went to start exploring straight away. We walked down to the O'Connell then along the river towards the harbour. It was a nice quiet walk as it took us away from the main shopping and tourist area. It also gave a chance to look at several bridges and a ship.

I’m stuffed

I cannot believe how much I have eaten. It seems that food is the way to a quilters heart. Personally I think I am more swayed by the hugely helpful staff. Nothing has been a problem for anyone.I did forget a few things last night, it had been a long day. Firstly the flight over was great. London was grey and yucky, but Wales had perfect weather. Lots of lovely cloud formations. As we approached Ireland the clouds closed in again and I thought I would miss out on seeing the countryside. We decended through the top layer of cloud and underneath were the most beautiful small clouds. The sky where you could see it was stripy and the ground patchwork greens. Definately the way to impress a visitor.As I said yesterday we arrived in time for lunch and then had a couple hours of free time. We were advised to have a look at the beach. It is lovely I don't know if the picture will come close to doing it justice but, I've tried. The tide was a long way out and you have to go and see the sea don't you, when it's that close. I did get rather wet feet crossing the sand, and although it is warmer here than in London, it isn't really paddling weather.It turns out Ireland is the same time zone as the UK, phew! I made it to breakfast on time and then to my class. They are a very keen bunch and have made great progress. We have been doing art quilts by numbers, but with the added bonus of of a couple of laptops and a printer. This allowed us to work with students own pictures. A little stressful, but a lot of fun. As you can see everyone worked hard, this was actually some time after the class finished! Several students couldn't bear to stop quilting, which is just great by me.I am now watching the show and tell. Any minute now we will get to the nearly complete projects from the class. After that the raffle, then back to the bar. Oh did I not mention, they have a lovely bar here and quilter enjoy making use of it while catching up with friends. Hopefully tomorrow morning most of them will get their quilts finished, I'll try and get pictures.

Hello Ireland

It's been a long day, but I think most of the tired muscles are from laughing rather than any of the other exertions. Warm welcome wouldn't cover it, I feel more like I've just run into a lot of long lost friends. I expected Ireland to be similare to Scotland, and it kinda is, but it's also very different. Flying in it is clear there is a lot of space here. People are well spread out which I like. The building we are staying in is amazing. Yes, it's the one in the picture. It is stunning inside and out and just like Scotland people just can't help enough. Driving here the country feels very different. It does feel more European. I can't really put my finger on why, you'll just have to believe me that it does.After a late but very welcome lunch we walked down to the beach. There is a right of way that takes you across a golf course and then through the dunes to the sea. Having grown up in Sussex I m used to shingle beaches. The expanse of sand was quite amazing. I got back in time tovisit the traders before an excellent dinner. Just as well the airport only weight the bags, I suspect we are going to be heavier on the way home. I have got to be very careful what I buy as the cases were absolutely full of quilts so I can only add to hand luggage.I was the after dinner entertainment. I rather like eating before a talk, it's much more relaxed somehow. I had been a little concerned that the talk would be too short as I had less quilts, or that more of my audience would fall asleep because I had to talk without props for some of it. Apparently not just over an hour and the crowd seemed happy. I can't quite believe I can now stand up and just talk in front of a crowd. I never thought it was something I would do.Tomorrow I start my class. We will be doing 'Art quilts by numbers'. It should be fun especially as we have access to a computer and a printer so some students can work on their own images.Having just set an alarm I am now wondering. Is Ireland on the same time as the UK? This could get exciting.

Isn’t a PA supposed to save work?

I’ve realised I have no choice. I have too much paperwork to handle on my own. I’ve known for a while this was coming. My desk is constantly covered in paper which needs attention and do you think I can find the bits I am looking for? How about get the desk clear to design patterns or work on the book? No not a chance. So after getting multiple offeres of help in a week I took the hint. I am now looking forward to a less cluttered desk (and full of much more interesting clutter I hope). However to get to this point I’ve got to do rather a lot of planning. You see all the questions I answer regularly now have to be written down and the correct answers recorded. All the files I use need to be shared somehow and kept up to date. Email, phones calls and letters need moving around. It seemed simple until I really looked at the problem, now it just keeps growing. Fortunately I did have one offer of help from someone I see regularly so tranfering paper is fairly simple, but data and knowledge are another matter. It’s one of those scary and yet exciting projects.

Whilst I haven’t been doing as much writing as I would have liked recently I do have several patterns in various stages of completion now. I am also making painfully slow progress on my book on art quilts. It is going to cover a lot of the different techniques I use when making my art quilts. I am also writing up severl step by step projects for it as well. So hopefully it will be simple enough for anyone to produce a work of art but also provide some useful tools for more experienced quilters. Who knows it might just work. Oh and yes I will be getting lots of pictures of my art quilts to go in it too. Hopefully once I shift the more mundane work I will be able to make more progress on this.

My secrect squirel project for the Festival of Quilts hasn’t made much tangible progress this week, but I did meet a lady who helped me with a concern I had. I just happened to be teaching next to exactly the expert I needed at the weekend. How cool is that? I found out that my quick and dirty solution really won’t work, which to be honest I had guessed. However the slightly longer and only grubby solution will. That means I have a firm plan for at least one part of the project. It may not sound like much but I feel a lot better for it.

I suppose I had better get back to sorting and packing paperwork. Dull dull dull. On the other hand it is saving me from a quilt which doesn’t want to play nice, so I should be grateful really. Hmm, and sorry if this post is full of spelling errors, the new blogger editor doesn’t seem to have a spell checker.

Hmmm.

Over the weekend I was teaching in Nottingham. I was really impressed with myself as I remembered to photograph a class and I blogged it. However the post hasn’t appeared :(. Having just tried resending it, it still hasn’t turned up. Can I just say to any of my students looking for the post. I did do it really I did and I will keep trying to find a way to get it up.

With a bit of jiggery pokery I’ve got the post up. The Sunday class went well too, but I did discover that twice the students is easily twice the effort. I’ve never had the chance to test the theory with two classes so close to each other before. Now I have I’m sure. It was fun but boy an I tired today. Teaching is one of those jobs where you don’t always feel like you are working while you are doing it (sometimes you really do) but you always find out later how much effort you were putting in.

Blooming good class

Date: 06/02/2010 8:31 pm
I am terrible at asking to take pictures in classes. I usually remember just after everyone leaves. Today I remembered just before they left. I think that worked really well as you can see the project well underway. The class was at The Huskvarna Studio in Nottingham. It’s the first time I’ve been here and I did struggle to find it. Can we just say one way system with tram and bus lanes. When you do find it the workshops are very impressive. Space for two large practical classes and a computer lab as well.
Today the students were making caveman style tulips. This is a Ricky Tims technique. No templates, no rulers and very few rules. It’s a very free form project where most ‘design oportunities’ can be worked in seamlessly. It’s the second time this week I’ve taught this class. It’s been fun both times. With a group who are prepared to try something different it can be very inspiring for me too. Hopefully some of my students from both classes will send in photographs of their finished projects so I can put them up on my web site. I enjoyed today I hope you all did too. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Blooming good class

I am terrible at asking to take pictures in classes. I usually remember just after everyone leaves. Today I remembered just before they left. I think that worked really well as you can see the project well underway. The class was at The Huskvarna Studio in Nottingham. It's the first time I've been here and I did struggle to find it. Can we just say one way system with tram and bus lanes. When you do find it the workshops are very impressive. Space for two large practical classes and a computer lab as well. Today the students were making caveman style tulips. This is a Ricky Tims technique. No templates, no rulers and very few rules. It's a very free form project where most 'design oportunities' can be worked in seamlessly. It's the second time this week I've taught this class. It's been fun both times. With a group who are prepared to try something different it can be very inspiring for me too. Hopefully some of my students from both classes will send in photographs of their finished projects so I can put them up on my web site. I enjoyed today I hope you all did too. Looking forward to tomorrow.