Quilting on the hoof

It is now that time of year where I am on the road teaching only making pitstops home to change clothes and pay some cheques in. Oh and to make 22 foundation pices log cabin blocks yesterday - well, I was determined that I should have some time off. My work pays very well so I am not really complaining but I do get a little wistful ( hell, lets be honest, I get sheer resentful these days) when I can't be at my machine for at least a few minutes a day.

So at the start of September as I ran out to catch a train I grabbed 6 fat quarters, a pair of scissiors, pins, needle and thread and began hacking up and sewing back right there on the train. The result is these blocks. There are actually about 20 of them and I have no idea yet what use I will put them to but they have kept me company in several hotel rooms whilst watching bad TV.

I did resolve recently to rearrange my working life into a better balance so that I didn't work weekends at all. Sadly becuase I take bookings up to a year - 14 months in advance it takes a little while to implement these resolutions and so I found myself at this keyboard today ( Sunday) writing an opinion. Grrr. I wanted to be at those strips and log cabin blocks that are scattered all over the dining table. To make the experience less arid I did my usual trick of going to the BBC website to listen to something on playback. Oh that the BBC did a radio show about quilts I thought . Da-Ding! Memory Flash - ddn't I read somewhere that there was someone in the States who did quilt podcasts.....

And so I discovered the shows of Alex Anderson. You wouldn't think that you could 'do' such a visual topic on radio but the three I have listened to so far whilst working have put me in a much better mood! Check her out on www.alexandersonquilts.com.