Run 1

Well we made it. We have a run on the board. A touch red, but still we will be racing tomorrow. We dialed in 13.75 we didn't want to break out, and we ran 13.87 so that much worked. 0.127 break out though. I am hoping he has that out of his system now and we will get a ood run later.

Finally

We made it to the track late yesterday evening after rewiring most of the front of the race car. Front in this case is defined as everything in front of the battery, -which lives over the rear axle. There wasn't a fault, but several, some were not actually implicated but were fixed anyway.Hopefully we will get two qualifying runs today, the whole field will go through to eliminations so any run will do. Realistically we are in the hands of the weather. We woke up to torrential rain, but now we have clear sunny skies. Hopefully this will last. Now I had better get signed on and we will be ready for our first run arround midday.

Progress. Slow

Well, the race car doesn't have a faulty starter motor, and we are about to get the alternator tested. Apparently it is a likely suspect given our symptoms. If it isn't that we are back to tracing wires. Not our favourite sport.On the other hand I did find and fix Joker. Her coolent expandion tank had developed a crack. Quick theft from our other 2.8i and we should be good to go. Now fingers crossed on fixing Trogdor.

poop, poop, poop

No that doesn’t cover how I am feeling but I do try to keep the language clean here. So what am I doing blogging when I really should be at least half way to the track. Well, as you may know, our race car is street legal. Not only does it drive to the track but we can also use it as transport. In the last week I think it may have done more miles than my street car. It’s been running great, better in fact than any of our other cars. So tonight we prepare to set off, it turns over once and dies. Dead deadity dead. Auto electrics are not our favourite subject at the best of times, and this isn’t the moment. So we are now planning an early morning to try and fix it in the light, and hopefully only miss one round of qualifiers.

Of course, never a household to have only one sick vehicle, the bike broke down earlier (which is why we are so late leaving) and my car has become incontinent again. I swear they talk. How else could the all manage to get sick at the same time every time? I suppose I may at least have a chance to tape up my hose before we go now.

Lots of progress

I think I mentioned I have a rush of wedding quilts to do for customers. As I am trying to take it a bit easy after the festival I am doing an hour of longarming then an hour of something sitting down. I am loving the drawing board. Not only does it make drawing my designs a whole lot easier I can use it to support the applique block as I make it. I didn’t quite finish it yesterday so no picture yet. I guess I did about half of it and a test of of the stitching as well. I also made about half the blocks for a quilt that is now stuck in my head. I want to finish the top before I share that one, sorry. It is inspired by Ricky Tims, which is kinda why it is impatient and quick to make. I am pleased with it so far.

Today has also been productive. I have the top for my Hever quilt made, I just need to quilt and bind it now. It will be quilted on a domestic machine so I can do it along side the customer work. I might have got further but I had to unblock a drain. Never the most glamorous job, but not usually a big deal. Take the ubend off, clean it out job done right? No, take off the next joint, clean that too, still no good. Eventually after two hours work with poky things and acid I have a clear drain. Great but I would have rather been quilting.

Still I have a few days away from the studio now. I am putting on my crew hat for the weekend. We are off to Shakespere County Raceway to play with car. Hopefully the weather forecast will be right and we will have dry days with the rain restricted to the middle of the night. I can’t honestly call it time off as I do intend to do some more work on my second book while I am way, and maybe find time to try drawing again.

Proud to be sticky!

I know at least one reader will understand. I have been playing with glue stick and I am actually sticky. To me this is amazing. I went and bought a brand new glue stick earlier and it is working great. I was really good. They had a great deal on 6 sticks but I only bought two. Given we think my problems in the past have been down to old sticks I am determined to only try to use fresh. Oh and it is working for what I am trying to do as well. Maybe later I will show you.

I wonder what strange searches will lead here today

Back in the real world

I’ve almost recovered from my five days at the Festival of Quilts. It was great to meet so many of you there, and welcome to all the new friends I met. I had a lot of fun at the show, and surprisingly spent very little. I did get a lot of hand dyed fabric, from both Ricky Tims and Heide Stoll Weber. I want to have some more interesting backgrounds for my wholecloths, although it is going to make it trickier selecting threads.

I can finally show you some better pictures of my quilts, and the awards you get from the Festival. I know a lot of people have very strong views on ribbons. Love them or hate them, personally I don’t mind what form the award takes. I can display certificates just as easily as ribbons, and they all have their own character. I guess if pushed I would most like trophies, but there are plenty of those I don’t like the look of, so I’ll just enjoy anything I get. I am, probably excessively, pleased to have the little plaque with the judges comment on. I think it is a really nice touch to give them their say actually on the winners plinth. Even if you don’t agree with the judges you can now see some of their reasoning. The other thing I thought was really good was that the judges are named on that plaque too. I was very lucky, the first show I ever entered I met one of the judges, who told me she had judged my quilt. She was happy to tell me what I could have done better, it made sense and I haven’t forgotten her advice. That was so helpful. I don’t know if I am thrilled or petrified that Sandy Lush judged my wholecloth, but I am glad I know.

I’ve mentioned that I am working on a couple of projects with people from the comics industry. Well some of you net them over the weekend, and if you would like to have a look at Cancertown there are some sneak previews here. You might also like to take a look Raggedman in the links section to the right.

Finally, if you haven’t already had a look there is an article on my web site from Canadian author Lorina Stephens. I met her many years ago when I was looking for costuming patterns. She used to run an amazing web store with everything you might want for period costuming. I was very disappointed when she gave it up to write. However she turns out to be a very good writer, so I guess I have to forgive her. I also love her art work, so when you’ve read her article do go and take a look at her site.

Virtual Book Tour

I am the third stop on Lorina Stephens Virtual book tour. Take a look at the article on my web site. She is a very creative lady who has self published several books. If you would like to check out the second stop on the tour you will find it here.

He get’s it.

Wow. If you ever get the chance to see Ricky Tims do. He is very entertaining. However, never offer him salmon, and especially not salmon sandwiches. He finds they like to get cozy in his sleeve, and they really don't flush well.My favourite quote of the evening is "however bad things are they could always be worse". It's so true, and when people forget it, it often makes itself felt. He also reminded us that freelance is a fancy way of saying unemployed. It's something I have often felt so it was good to hear someone agree with me.I enjoyed hearing where he has come from, and where he wants to go. It was great to see his dogs, hogs and buildings. I would love to be able to go on retreat with him, if nothing else the landscape there is so inspiring.Finally, I have to mention his music. His first couple of pieces were not to my taste, but I could see why he chose them. As he went on he played a lot more of his own compositions, and those I loved, especially when he played the flute, it seems to push so much more emotion than the piano. Sorry Ricky, the piano was great, but for me the flute was better. Sorry the picture isn't better, but there is a limit to what I can do as a small image on a phone.

Workshop at the FoQ

So, when I wasn't wandering about like a stunned fish yesterday I was in a workshop. It was a lot of fun marbling fabrics. I know I can't spell the tutors name without it in front of me, so rather than butcher it I will leave it for now. She is a very bubbly german lady, who had brought over everything we needed, all we hhad to do was turn up. It made it a ver relaxing experience, something of a holiday before the main event. We mostly worked in small A3 ish trays. I think I did about 13 small pieces of fabric, some of which I think are lovely. In the afternoon she showed us how to work on larger pieces, which is even more fun, and I suspeect highly addictive. The pictuure shows her removing one of these larg pieces from the tray. i would highly recommend her classes.Today I have been out and about in the show and helping on the Patchwork Corner stand. It's been busy and we seem to be selling out of things fast. i hope this means packing up will be easier, but I am not holding my breath for it. i suspect however much you sell it always feels like you have more to take home than you brought with you.I am now on my way to an evening with Ricky Tims, who's name I have spelled wrong forever, sorry Ricky. I finally managed to meet him today nad he is a lovely guy. I thought he would be from his DVD's but you can never be sure. It's good to know I was right. I might let you know later how it wen't, depending on how late it is and how tired I am.