I managed to squeeze in a quilt for a friend for her elderly mother’s birthday and load up another one ready to start next week. I decided that the “Bloody Big Bargello” is big enough at 96” square. I wanted to give it some borders but laid it on the bed which is not actually king sized and realised that it is already huge. Now I have to decide whether I can be bothered to piece the back or buy some wide fabric. The choice is not inspiring but it is quite expensive, especially since I want to use wool wadding and would prefer to get it all from one supplier so I don’t have to pay twice for carriage.

A letter arrived from the QGBI President informing me that my bid for the travel bursary had been unsuccessful and that they have awarded it to someone who has never been abroad for a quilt show. I wonder if the recipient will pass on as much knowledge on her return as I would have done. The Guild could have done with a resident longarm expert – YUK, the taste of sour grapes!!

My sister’s baby arrived safely so now I am an Aunt to Daniel. I have not been an aunt before so I suppose I have to decide whether to be indulgent or formidable! She and her husband are delighted by their new arrival and I’m advising her to ignore the health visitor even though I know she will feel obliged to do everything she is told by a professional, just like my Mother told me to ignore the health visitor…!

I attempted to go and fetch the bacon pig twice but on both occasions the butcher promised he would be driving past and drop it off. I have decided that I will need to hold up the butcher’s shop if necessary in order to reclaim Ginger – and there will be trouble if my Tamworth bacon has been swapped for a common pig!

I had a frustrating couple of days when the email was on the blink. It turned out that my website server had been hit by a virus or maybe lightning. It drove me mad and made me realise that I am completely addicted to email. I received a great letter from an ex- teaching colleague but she has moved to Skye and doesn’t have Broadband yet so it looks like I will really have to use pen and ink to reply.

I packed up lots of thread, gadgets and books for my trip to see 2 APQS customers in the middle of England. As it would have been a very long trip of more than 8 hours for the Landy, I flew from Aberdeen to Birmingham. Angie and her husband collected me at the airport. She had a mini quilt to wave in case she didn’t find me but the green boots were a giveaway. They looked after me very well and we spent several hours over the next 2 days testing out threads and freehand techniques. Angie was a very willing pupil and was relieved that we had managed to sort out a major thread jam over the phone the evening before I flew down. We even fitted in a jaunt to the impressive “Bramble Patch” where 3 workshops were going on. It’s a big shop with lots of studio space.

I travelled onto my next destination by train. I always like to give public transport the benefit of the doubt but there was a major breakdown in Birmingham so the short trip was diverted around the whole city and I missed my connection to Shrewsbury. By this time, it was chaos at Birmingham New Street and the trains were full. People were tightly packed in like sardines. No-one ever seemed to get off at any of the stations but more people fought their way on. A young couple drank most of a bottle of bright red vodka then he struggled his way down onto one knee and begged her to have children with him. She was understandably moved and everyone on the train was grinning. I wonder if they will stick to their decision after the hangover wears off.

Diana’s husband met me in Shrewsbury and we drove towards Oswestry (that’s almost Wales). I was made very welcome there too and after supper we spent a couple of hours in Diana’s studio giving the machine a good going-over. She had not managed to bond with her machine previously. There had been some teething troubles and eventually she received a replacement. We decided to start from scratch and talk about thread, tension and technique. She is actually a dab hand at pantos and even got me doing one. When I was a beginner I thought you had to stay right on the line but it always went wobbly. Now I see that you just aim in the general direction with confidence BUT lining the next row up and planning where everything goes with the tricky ones is a bit of a science! Diana has a studio and shop above a dental technician business called Castlecroft Quilter. She has an impressive line-up of tutors and a fantastic and refreshing range of fabrics. Since she struggled with tension issues in the early days she has a vast collection of thread. We tested a lot of them and decided that a different colour of the same type and weight of thread can behave differently to one that worked perfectly well before. Diana even demystified the Towa tension gauge for me. Hopefully she has gained some confidence and will now be able to enjoy quilting with her machine.

I was impressed by Aberdeen Airparks who had been looking after the car. They picked me up as soon as I had landed and had the Landy waiting – engine running, heater on ready to go. It felt great to be back in my own vehicle again. I had even toyed with the idea of getting a more practical car for my travels over the weekend but I just love that muckle, green beast!

George had fitted a new workshop door and insulated the workshop ceiling while I was away so all I have to do now is get the rest of the work done, re-paint, re-do the ceiling calico, get rid of the dust…

The new computer did not get delivered as I was out and they can’t say accurately when they can redeliver so perhaps I will have to go into Aberdeen to fetch it. There was snow on the hills this morning and I’m afraid the blog was a day late as I caught up with washing, unpacking, emails, customer queries and helped Barbara at the shop. And still plenty more to fit in this week…