Overwhelmed.
July 16, 2009I don’t know where to start, it’s been a mad few days (it feels like weeks since I last posted but it’s only 4 days!) and the title says it all. I guess I will start at the end. Thank you, if you think you might be due it, it’s for you. If you think you don’t really deserve it, you probably do or will soon :). I can’t begin to say how much I appreciate all the support my friends are giving me with my book. Who says self publishing means less support?From the people who have helped me name it, design it and test it, to those handing out flyers where ever they go.
It feels now like my book as a life of it’s own, and I am along for the ride. It’s a very strange feeling, but not a bad one. People have told me publishing is like giving birth, so I suppose it should have a life of it’s own. The strangest one I’ve noticed is my book being listed on Amazon in Japan! Don’t know why but google found that as one of the first links to my book. Very strange.
I am just about keeping up with enquiries about it, but other email is taking me longer to get to. Bear with me and normal service should be resumed just after the NEC show.
July 13, 2009
These two quilts have been waiting for a long time to get their turn on the quilt frame, but it finally came. I decided I needed a bit more of a breather between large art quilts and these fit the bill nicely. They will both be on display in my gallery at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, in August. It’s also a great feeling to be able to cross two pieces of my list i
n one go. Hopefully they will both be dry and ready to trim when I get back after my talk this evening, which will be another step I can cross off.
I had hoped to have more cars for the show, but who knows I may get another chance to show a body of work and I can put them in then. I really do need to find a way to add more hours to each day. I have too many ideas and not enough time. On that note I had better finish loading the car and think about making a move to Kew for tonight’s booking.
Talks, classes and books
July 11, 2009
It’s been a mad mad week. I hadn’t anticipated the amount of excitement and orders the foreword to my book would generate. Having picked myself up off the floor and dug my way out of the emails, we’ve put the order form up on my website. The pre-order price for “Ferreting Around” is £12 which includes postage within the UK. For those further afield I will charge the actual postage cost, which appears to be £6 to any destination, I will double check that before I guarantee it. I will be accepting pre-orders until the 15th of August at which point the price will be £15.99. Payment can be made by a cheque drawn on a UK bank or by paypal. If you email me the request I will send a paypal invoice. Er, I think that is everything but if you have a question please do ask. I am still a little stunned.
I’ve also been out and about. Yesterday I had a lovely day out, I mean I went and worked hard, with Harben Oaks. I wasn’t convinced by a morning talk (OK to be honest I am not convinced by mornings in general) but it actually worked very well. They are a very lively group and I was lucky enough to be speaking at their summer lunch. I was very impressed with lunch and spent far longer there than I had intended. It was a day well spent and I came home inspired and ready to work. So thank you very much Harben Oak.
Today I was back at Sprat & Winkle quilters. I did a talk for them earlier in the year and today was teaching a workshop. Again a fun and hospitable group. I was highly amused that they live up to one of my rules of teaching. The person who complains most about their fabric will manage the biggest success. She was thrilled with her work (a journal cover) by the end of the day, and had managed to really loosen up and go with the flow. I was also very impressed with how prolific one student was making not one but three covers in a day! I think though, having looked at several peoples work, my favourites are those using hand dyed threads. This group had several people who brought along really interesting fabrics which made wonderful, personal and utterly unique covers. I hope they will all use them for many years to come and hopefully make a few more.
Now I have an art quilt calling to me from the frame. I’d better get some more quilting done, and I might even have a really early night, well early for me anyway.
Whole dragon.
July 8, 2009
Hopefully you won't have to turn you head sideways, here it is finished. I didn't have time to play with how it was hanging. Sorry.
Very exciting news
July 6, 2009Well I think it is exciting, and I hope some of you will agree. As you know I’ve been helping out a couple of friends with their new book Cancertown. I was really impressed when they asked a well known comics writer to write them a foreword and he did. In fact he wrote the a stunning foreword. I’ve joked all along that I was chasing them and learning from what they did, to assist in getting my book out. The foreword seemed like a particularly good idea, I like reading them, and I suspect I am not the only one.
The question was who to ask? I knew what sort of person I was looking for, but they are few and far between. It needed to be a quilter, who did both traditional and way out work. They needed to be technically great, but not afraid to break the rules. I pondered it for some time and wasn’t coming up with an answer. When it did dawn on me, I didn’t think I had a hope of getting the person to agree, they were just too perfect for the job and way too big in the quilting world to bother with my little book. I plucked up the courage to ask and knock me down with a feather they agreed! I still can’t quite believe that Ricky Tims took time out to do this for me, especially as at the moment he is busy working not only on The Quilt Show, but also on his next music CD. Without further ado let me share with you what he has to say about “Ferreting Around”.
Every now and again, a new talent emerges in the quilt world that transcends the ordinary and is instantly unforgettable. I witnessed this first hand at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August of 2008 when an emerging artist’s name was announced again and again as a winner. Not only were her quilts fresh and exciting, but so was the artist who stepped on stage to receive the awards. It was a thrill to see a young talent making her mark in the quilting kingdom. It is obvious to quilters worldwide that the general quilting demographic is of a ‘certain’ age. It is therefore exceptional to me when someone from a younger generation latches on to this timeless art/craft and puts a fresh spin on it. To this I say, “Hear, hear!” However, I have discovered that Ferret enjoys creating her work using a variety of quilting techniques, many of which are rooted in tradition. She does not fly in the face of traditional quilting, but rather she embraces it and includes it into her extraordinary ‘quilting toolbox’.Ferret is young and talented. But being young and talented are not the qualities that I most have come to admire in Ferret. It is her enthusiasm and heartfelt desire to share her passion with others. Many artists have a selfish side—or at least they hoard a few secrets to themselves in fear that someone else might rise above them. Not so with Ferret. She has not chosen to write a book about shocking and unorthodox techniques. Instead she polled individuals to find out what they most wanted to learn. In turn she has authored her first book with you in mind. The techniques included here range from simple to complex, but in every aspect it is written with easy-to-understand language and presented with excellent illustrations.
I am honored that Ferret asked me to write a foreword for her first book (thank you, Ferret). I hope she will pursue quilting and fiber arts as a lifelong career. If she does, you are no doubt holding in your hand a collector’s item for it will always and forever be—Ferret’s first book!
Dragon update
I’ve actually got quite as bit further than this, but the rest doesn’t look terribly interesting on it’s own. I thought you might like to see the teeth and a bit more belly. I love the belly scales though cutting out the ones for the tail wasn’t entirely fun. I have two feet entirely quilted and most of the other parts cut ready to go on. I don’t know if I mentioned but I really need this off the frame tomorrow, so I have been trying to press on as fast as I can without getting tired enough to make mistakes. So far so good. I got to talk to the artist who drew the dragon for me today. Those who know me have probably guessed it is Glenn, the chap who drew and indeed tattooed the dragon on my arm. The even more astute will realise this is that dragon. He seems pretty happy with how it is turning out.
I can’t wait to be able to see the whole thing. I am getting to the point where I can’t really see the big picture at all. It’s getting hard to work out what things are unless I label them very carefully. It’s always a problem when the image is this big and I spend hours obsessing over a small area. Hopefully it will all look right when it’s seen in one piece.
Dragon teaser 2
Well I am making progress and I needed to check the eyes, so you get to see the picture. Working this size makes photographs a really useful tool for checking progress. There is still a lot of quilting to be done in the area around the face, but that wasn’t what I was interested in at this point. Having seen the picture I think the eyes will do. Bear in mind yo are seeing this as I do and to be honest probably better. This section is the whole of what I can see in one go, the roller shows in the top of the picture. As you can imagine it’s pretty tricky to grasp the whole image when you can only see a section.
I’m very pleased with the belly scales too. The ones that have their stitching on are looking very scaly now. I am trying to decide how much stitching they will have. If I stitch shading on it may make them look more shaped, or it may have the opposite effect as it will crush the fabric down. At the moment the fabric sits up and curves the way it should. What I may have to do with this one is take it off the frame with the minimum quilting on it and then drape it somewhere where I can study it. It’s going to be a close call either way.
Now you’ve all had a look I think I need to go and put some more quilting on this little beastie.
As promised
July 5, 2009
Here is a taste of what is on my frame at the moment. It’s a large art quilt for my gallery at the Festival of quilts. I am pretty happy with how it is coming on although like any of my big quilts I get frustrated that I can’t see all of it. I just had to unroll what I had done and take a peek.
It isn’t a great picture, but then conditions there are tircky. Light from the window does save putting the lamps on but it doesn’t help show the quilt in it’s best light. Also to make things as easy as possible I used my phone to take the picture. Every little saving counts at this point. I love the horns on the wing tips, I think they have come out exactly as I imagine them. I just hope I can get the face right too. I was very lucky to be able to get the artist of my original dragon to draw the starting art work for this piece and to trace off the quilting lines from the enlarged image. I am hoping this will give the finished piece a strong feel of him as well as me. Well enough chat I’ve got a lot to be getting on with. I hope you’ve all enjoyed having a little look at what I am working on.
Oh wait there was something else I was going to say. I’ve been asked to do a meet and greet session at the Festival of quilts. It will be open to people who are attending the evening events on Saturday night. After the show closes there would be a chance to come to my stand and talk to me without the bustle of the show. There is even the promise of a glass of champagne each. So if you going to any of the events that night and would like to come to the meet and greet, get in touch with Twisted Threads for the details. As I am teaching on the Saturday this will be pretty much the only time I am on my stand that day so it will be great to have a chance to meet people I might otherwise have missed.
Bad influence?
July 3, 2009It seems we managed to lead our host astray last weekend, she has joined us here on blogger 
Hopefully it will give all of us a chance to keep up with the goings on at Hobby Holidays. I’m looking forward to seeing her longarm up and running, then the quilts that will flow off it. For now Jo has posted and introduction and a bit of behind the scenes info about running retreats. She didn’t even complain about those people who manage to phone in the middle of the cooking frenzy If you would like to take a look it’s called Hobby Holidays Blog.
Now I had better brave the heat in the longarm room again and see if I can get to a point where I can post a photo later. My dragon is coming on pretty well, and I have to have it finished Monday or Tuesday next week so I can quilt a quilt for a friend, who needs it urgently.
A wonderful weekend
June 30, 2009
It’s taken me a while to get to my blog as I came home inspired to work, which is probably the best recommendation I could give for a weekend quilting retreat. Still it wasn’t the only thing that made the weekend a great experience. I have to admit I was a little wary about going to teach at a retreat. In my experience retreats (and actually most bookings, but shorter ones are less tricky) come in two types, very basic and absolute luxury. Until you’ve been there you have no idea which one you are going to be faced with, so the first time I go armed for every bear. Fortunately this turned out to be one of the ones where I got spoilt rotten.
Hobby Holidays is actually very easy to find. I wasn’t sure when I looked at the maps, but it really was straightforward. I did feel a little foolish when I got very close to the venue. I realised I couldn’t remember the specific address. I stopped to look it up, got out of the car and then saw the huge banner. Doh! I was right outside. The main house where the guest rooms are located is a listed building, and absolutely wonderful in my eyes. It is also cool even in the quite hot weather we had this weekend. There is a coachouse next to then main building housing the purpose built workshop which you can see in the picture. It’s a nice bright room and they supply lamps for each of the tables. It’s one of the features I find really handy at Patchwork Corner where I teach regularly, and surprisingly rare given how helpful they can be.
The class I taught was a very free form machine quilting workshop. Although we started with the absolute basics the students all moved on very quickly. I love it when students take a new technique and really go for it. Two of the students worked on freehand quilting projects they had brought with them. Another one completed a small whole cloth, and we got to plan quilting for another project. Frustratingly I forgot to take any pictures of their work. I am hoping they might read this and post it on their blogs (please pretty please As well as the time spent in the classroom we had a the chance to chat over the ‘light lunch’. When Jo and Phil say light lunch they don’t mean it. They do hospitality in a big way. It’s amazing how much more you information you can pass on when you can relax away from the machines for a while. It’s not something I’ve noticed at other retreats, I think because the classes often disperse at meal times. With only one class at a time this doesn’t happen so you learn more and bond better.
In the evenings, after the wonderful evening meals which are available for all the staying guests, I got to go and and look at the local wildlife. It’s been a very long tie since I last saw an owl, and they are even more beautiful than I remembered. They are quite eerie as they fly, silent flying is just weird. I didn’t think to take my proper camera, but if I go back I certainly will. I hope I will get invited back as a tutor, I really enjoyed teaching there, but if not I can see me going back as a student. Oh and if sewing workshops are not your thing then they also offer model railway weekends.
As you might expect I took advantage of the shopping opportunity. I was quite restrained, but I suspect I will have to make use of their online shop at some point. I didn’t buy any of the oriental fabrics at all, and I am starting to regret that already. I also bought some very strong magnets. I think they are officially for the train people but they have a lot of uses for sewers too. I am planning on making some name badges with them as they fastening so I don’t have to put holes in my expensive t-shirts and they are good for picking up spilt pins too.