Published again in July issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited...

Wow...what a great issue this is, and I have a tutorial in it too, fantastic cover shot of Margaret's Quilt.
I am humbled to be in such illustrious company with people whose blogs I have followed for such a long time....
Margaret Solomon Gunn Quilts of Love
Judi Madsen The Green Fairy
Luann Kess in her thread shed to name but a few....

I am as ever very proud and happy to have been asked to contribute again to this wonderful magazine, it is surely the premier magazine for the machine quilting industry, if you don't already subscribe hot foot it to your nearest magazine store or subscribe at MQU online for a digital or hard copy version, it's easy, you just need your CC details and an email address.

WooHoo!

This and That...

Even though Ride Outs and Common Riding have and still are taking up one or two days a week I have been busy. What with? Well, a bit of this and a bit of that.....

I've piped and bound one of my own quilts and am trying to decide if it is really finished?

I have a custom quilt loaded and am doing the SiD work on it, I like to do all of the stitch in the ditch work first so that I can then roll the quilt back and forth and know it's all stable.

I decided it was time to do a little service work on my longarm. The chirper on my Stitch Regulator has been silent for too long. I had Amy at APQS send me a replacement circuit board along with another consignment recently.  It had been here a while so when I had a window and a few spare minutes I decided to tackle it. Only thing holding me back was getting someone to hold one end of the rails while I removed them, I can do it myself but it's safer with 2 people....then I just like to be left by myself to do the job.

All those wires look a little scary but really they are not, just unplug the wires, unclip the board, clip in the new board and plug the wires back in....screw the back panel back on and it's done....now my chirper is speaking to me again.....I like my chirper....


I had a couple of quilts picked up......

The first was a ZigZag quilt in blues and white, my customer Jan requested a watery theme as some of the fabrics were reminicent of indigos with Koi Carp prints. It was a big quilt for a Super king size bed.....

Janet's been using fabric from her stash, with a little forthought about the orientation of the fabrics it's an turned into an interesting quilt to stand and read....

I had a lovely phone call from Mary one of my customers during Quilts UK at Malvern to say that her quilt 'Stars in the Garden' had won her a 'judges choice' award and a 1st for me for Longarm Quilting. Mary is keeping the cup which already has my name on it and I get the rosette to add to my collection.

It's great to have a rosette of a different colour for a change, even though the rest are all golden yellow there is one second and a third the rest are all firsts....don't know why....must have been a bargain buy????

Catch up....

Thought I'd better catch up before moving on to April....

I had a couple of panto quilts, one from a new customer, a lovely delicate log cabin quilt in pastel colours, Patricia chose Primrose which looks wonderful on the creamy yellow fabrics.....





Patricia also chose the option of having me machine stitch the binding to the front of her quilt so that she could hand stitch down the binding to the back herself.


This is a great pattern that Margaret devised for herself....and is all hand pieced, Margaret always hand pieces her quilts, perfectly, another great finish....






Margaret chose Happy Times as an open design for a soft drape, it's a cosy looking quilt.

Before Easter I was asked to quilt up three large hangings for a country kirk at Hutton. Some of the Kirk Ladies had made up the hangings to brighten up a dark corner, I hope they managed to get them finished, bound and hung in time for the Easter Service....






These are all the same colour, I took the photos at different times of day, but they will look all the same when hung, I'm sure the congregation will appreciate all of the hard work the Ladies put into making these large hangings....90" x 55" each.

I 've been trying to quilt up a big quilt of my own, it's a good job I have zippers, the number of times it's been on and off the frame, I've already lost count!

Last week I was invited to give a talk to the Souter Quilters, one of the small local quilt groups in my area where I'm a member. It was a small turn out as the weather was a bit temperamental, there was another covering of snow when we came out to pack everything back into the car. I think all of my quilts, slides and videos were well received, we certainly had plenty of quilts to keep us warm if we were snowed in.

And the winner is....

So we weighed up the pros and cons and with a little help from the youngsters picked the winner.....

And 'Yes' we have snow again.....and it's now even deeper

Our friendly Partridge has been playing this game all along 'peeking and booing' behind the photo frames.....

The winner of a 6 month gift voucher for the Quilt Show is Robin Lancaster with Peekaboo....congratulations Robin!

Now, can someone help with directions for changing your no-reply settings for blogger.....it seems to be far more difficult than it was or should be.....someone must know how to change these easily?

For Ani.....

My very good friend Ani is feeling a little under the weather just now....flu and colds are not much fun....I'm feeling a bit under the weather too....but it's the real weather affecting us today....

Do you know this man...if you see him do not approach him......lol.....the radio says the roads are blocked and drifting but I'm tucked up nice and warm here in my Farmhouse unlike my DH who has to venture out no matter what the weather.......I can hear the hum of the tractors and farm bikes making sure all the animals are fed and safe, wish I had my camera two minutes ago to show you the horses galloping about playing in the snow....as long as they are fed they love it!

Decadent Diaries....

Every office needs a diary!

Well, any diary will do basically, but you know me?

My First Published Article.....

I've been harboring a little secret, well trying to?  Seems like ages now, but way back beginning of August 2012, I was approached by Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine to do a 'little' tutorial on my Flourish wholecloth quilt.  

To be honest I was happy enough that this quilt won 3 ribbons on it's first outing at the Scottish Quilt Championships 2011 but was pleased to think others thought it worthy of further mention.

 I took it all step by step, have to say writing out the article was the easiest part,  uploading and sending 1500 words and 14 photographs was a little nerve racking but all went well even with our very slow archaic broadband connection.   All must have transferred over correctly and there were no rewrites, isn't technology wonderful?

Well, we got back from England late last night to find a hard copy of the magazine here on the doormat.  I am thrilled with the layout, it covers 6 pages, my photos look really great, what a pleasant experience!

You can buy your own hard copy or subscribe to downloads here at Machine Quilting Unlimited there are of course many more interesting articles, it's a fantastic magazine, one of the best 'WooHoo'!

Designer Tablet Pouche....

The time I intended to spend on a new quilt project seems to have melted away. I did take a few hours to make a little designer pouch for the new tablet that Santa brought....finished hand sewing down the binding last night while a right old hooley blew off part of the cowshed roof and left lots of blown trees and damage....but everyone is safe.....

Did a bit of colouring in while the Grandkids played on the XBox.....

I didn't have enough lilac fabric for the binding so used this red taffeta on the bias, it worked perfectly......I love it!

Collectors....

I think as quilters we have many different collections, we have our fabrics stashes, thread stashes, rulers, patterns, machines, even quilts.

My new Daughter in Law has her own collection of DM's....yes Dr Matin's

My favorites with the roses...

On yer Bike!

The 'Tour of Britain Cycle Race' came through today...barely 1/4 mile from my home and right through our land, though on the road of course. I remember getting an hour or two out of school (years ago, I mean 'years' ago) when we lived down in England, that's when it was known as the 'Milk Race' as the Milk Marketing Board sponsored the race. The signs on our road said to find an alternate route....there isn't an alternate route?? Anyway, I was at work in town so saw them there....lots of motor cycle support vehicles and paramedics, then came the bikes.... 

Got time to take just three photos of the bikers and then they were gone......

  There was an unbelievable number of support vehicles and 'out riders....such excitement for two minutes.

One Hundred!

 Well, when did that happen?

Sometime Saturday......I would like to welcome my 100th follower  'The Nifty Stitcher' ...Rhianon also lives in Scotland in the Kingdom of Fife .....I think that we should mark this ocassion with a little surprise.....Rhianon, if you are interested please send me your address by my email link on the left ....thank you for being my 100th follower!