Beth Ferrier’s Blog

Some things you just say yes to, no matter what. When the wonderful folks at American Quilters Society ask if you’d like to teach at the show in Paducah, KY there is pretty much just one answer.

 The request came the day after my first book deadline, while I was in Houston at Quilt Market. I was already booked for the weekend of the show and ordinarily I would have just declined the invitation. But since AQS is a pretty big deal, and the group already camping out on those dates was able to shift to the next weekend, I was very happy to say yes.

 What I didn’t figure in was the amount of paperwork that would need to be done immediately. As in, before the next book deadline. As in, the instant I returned from Houston. Yikes! But  it all got done and now registration is open.

I’m thrilled to be teaching a ton of classes. One class is on a new applique technique that will be included in the new book.

Two piecing classes are available. The first is Tools Rule. This is a fantastic class for those of you who chop your stash up into strips or noodles or worms. Of course, the class will also include tons of my favorite sneaky piecing tricks and tips. (The fabric is way prettier than shown. I need to work on my photography skills.)

The other piecing class is Slick Slicing Tricks. I’ve squeezed lots of my very best sneaky piecing tricks into this little quilt.  Kits will be provided for all three of these classes, with lots of the prep work already done so we can get right down to business.

And finally, I’m teaching three classes on free motion quilting. It’s kind of funny. Guilds book me mostly to teach applique and piecing classes, but when I lecture most of the questions are about the quilting on my quilts. Even though I do mostly traditional quilts I would say that my quilting style is a little more contemporary. It is most definitely playful.

The first class, Romancing the Stitch, is an all day workshop that covers from basic design, specialty threads, bobbin work and fills galore.

Feathers and Ferns focuses on creating marvelous motifs in our quilting.

And finally, Beginning Free Motion Quilting is just the right class for those who have never dropped their feed dogs but would love to learn how.

Registration is already started and classes are beginning to fill. I’ve never been to the show at Paducah so it will be quite an adventure for me. Have you been? What words of advice do you have for me?

What a season this has been! I thought I was being terribly clever, lining up event after event. Book deadline, teaching travel (twice), celebrate birthdays, book deadline, Christmas party for 20, travel, Christmas Day, Christmas party for 30, and then the final book deadline in two days.

I did it, I pulled it off, and I, for the most part, enjoyed it all. Every now and then the enomority of it all would get to me. I’d throw a first rate pity party (which almost always included Pringles) and  then get over myself and get back to work.

In the process I discovered something about myself, something I wonder if I should work to change. I’m never really here, now. I’m so busy checking things off my to do list that I project myself to the end of the event. Ferrier Christmas party, done. Birthday dinner for David and Elaine, done. Book deadline, done. Where was I during the event? Planning how I was going to conquer the next deadline, trying to anticipate the needs of my guests. During dinner I am working out what is left to stage for dessert.

I’m not sure how I’m going to fix this, or if it even needs to be fixed. I don’t much like the idea of being the kind of person who is so driven that they don’t enjoy their lives. I used to be like that, when the boys were really little and I still thought it was possible to be perfect.

But I love my life. All of the good things in my life have come with hard work. In my world, only desserts come on a silver platter (and then only after I’ve been the one to polish the platter and bake the desserts). One of my favorite mottos has always been that luck favors the prepared. Is it really so bad to look ahead, to watch for the curves (and deer) in the road?

So now that the holiday season is winding down it’s time to consider the fresh, new year ahead of us. Wait, wait! Am I projecting again? Am I already so busy looking forward that I’m not where I am? Oh, this is going to be much harder than I thought.

Thank you all for your terrific comments. You know, we bloggers love comments. They really help us know that we’re not talking to ourselves. It makes blogging a little more of a conversation and less of a monologue.

I used a random number generator, which chose the numbers 56 and 3. (Please note, the numbers on the comments will change as more come in. These are the correct winners at the time of the drawing.)

Barb Pindel

Colleen

(I love that Colleen lives in the same town with my best bud and she also knows how terrific Karen is!)

Doing the podcast with Annie was such a lot of fun. Being one of the last people in the universe to own an MP3 player (I just got one for Christmas), I listen to Annie right from the computer while I sew. I hope that we’ve generated a whole lot of new Annie fans with this little drawing!

 Life is almost back to normal, all of the pressing deadlines are nearly behind me. Any minute now I will be able to start work on stuff that I can show on the blog. While stressful, it is gratifying to know that, when I have to, I can conquer deadlines with aplomb.

One of the cool things about being a quilt teacher is I get to do stuff that I never would have imagined possible. I watched Simply Quilts for years, a loyal fan, and then one day I found myself on the set with Alex! I’ve taught on a cruise ship. I’ve traveled to Europe and Australia to teach too. And now I’m on a pod cast with Annie Smith.

I’ve been a fan forever! Annie’s voice is so gentle and welcoming. Her point of view is so refreshing; I guessed that she must have a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke. When I finally got to meet her in person, I wasn’t disappointed. She’s just as charming and kind in real life. Recording the pod cast was especially fun because I shared the interview with my bff, Karen Boutte.

To those of you who are finding my blog for the first time, welcome! If you come back again in a few weeks you’ll be right on time to start my new, free block of the month project. (Which I am still designing, but so far I’m thinking queen size.) Please feel free to poke around my website. There you will be able to see what previous projects looked like and learn a little about what we’re up to at Applewood Farm.

Tell me, how did you learn about Annie’s pod cast, and how long have you been listening? On December 27th, I’ll draw TWO names from the comments and send each a copy of Hand Appliqué by Machine AND Moondance & More.

It started innocently enough, as these things do. I found myself at our tiny local airport facing a day of travel with no book. With just one tiny little gift shop as my only source I looked hopefully over the rack of paperbacks. My rule for reading on the road is simple, happy and light in, meaty and deeper out. Books tend to stay with me and it just wouldn’t do for me to arrive at class still engrossed in someone else’s story.

Most of the best sellers before me were crime novels, how depressing. But there, between John Grisham and James Patterson sat this small book, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Hey, it’s for kids, right? A quick read, and not too challenging, topic wise, how perfect. I’m a big softie, I don’t do spooky or gruesome, but this book was written for teens, even I should be able to handle that.

Well, what can I say? I loved it. Always feeling like an outsider myself, I felt a kinship with Bella immediately. Between flights and layovers (and a nap on the second flight), I devored three quarters of the book before arriving in Virginia Beach.

Quilt with Me, the shop in Windsor, VA that had hired me for this trip reserved a room for me at the lovely Smithfield Inn, owned by the folks who make the hams. My room was beautiful, decadently decorated, and the bed felt like sinking into the best feather bed ever.

After a wonderful dinner with the shopowner, Jackie, and her family, I returned to my room ready to rest and more importantly, finish my book. Just as I was deep into the climax of the story, poor Bella about to be killed by the evil vampire, I heard a ruckus out in the hall.

The innkeeper was conducting a tour. Outside my door I heard her say, “and this is the Sykes Room. It’s the scary one, it’s haunted.” Her voice trailed off before I could hear any more of the story. Haunted? Vampire stories? Dark and stormy night thrashing at my window? “Oh, hell no,” I said to the room, finished the book, sank blissfully into the bed and dreamed of being young and desperately in love.

Fans of the book will love that the next morning I discovered that I would be teaching in a dance studio.

So, in the last week I have devored the remaining books in the series, book two while on retreat, book three for the travel day home. And book four because I had to get these people out of my head so that I could concentrate on the book I’m supposed to be writing.

 I guess what touched me the most about the story was that I remember so well being young and hopelessly in love. Even though it’s been decades, mostly good years, but some very hard, I still see my guy as the seventeen year old that I fell in love with. He will always be that tall, handsome, gentle young man who held me safely in his arms and taught me about unconditional love.

It’s been a busy few months, filled with writing, teaching and travel. Word just came from the publisher that they are happy with the manuscript. I can finally breathe air all the way to the bottom of my lungs.

I’m just home from a retreat, sort of quilty, sort of professional. Some old friends of mine who are also in the quilting industry get together once a year to kick around both business and personal issues. We laugh until our sides ache. We cry together over our losses. Some of us sew until the machine catches fire, some work on quiet projects and some of us just relax and read and regroup.

It is easy to underestimate the power of kinship. Few things are more comforting than confessing a terrible transgression only to find heads nodding with understanding. Misery really does love company and in times when our worlds have gone crazy it’s nice to know that we’re still normal.

It’s wonderful to be back home, done with my professional travel for the year. I love to teach, don’t get me wrong, but home is always where I long to be. It’s time to tidy up the studio and dive into those last few projects for the new book. How lovely that most of what’s left to do involves playing with fabrics and thread!

But for today, all is quiet. We’re having our first measurable snowfall. The heavy gray clouds hang low, falling snow muffles the sounds of progress. Like the inside of a cocoon, soft and white and quiet, we wait.

If it weren’t for deadlines I wouldn’t know when I was done. For the past three weeks I have been slaying deadlines. Deadlines that I knew about, deadlines I’d forgotten about and deadlines I didn’t even know I had.

The manuscript is off to the publisher. Every now and then I remember that someone is reading it. That someone is reading it with a critical eye, because that’s her job. She’s deciding what’s good, what could be better and what needs to go. I spend a moment or two thinking good thoughts, sending hopeful thoughts to hold the words up while they are under scrutiny. And then I am blissfully distracted by the next deadline.

And then there was the deadline to finish a quilt using my fabric line for McCall’s quilting magazine. The top has been finished for a very long time. Some how I misread a deadline and discovered that I had a week less than I had planned for to finish the quilting. Thank goodness a friend of a friend is a fabulous long arm quilter and she was willing to let me take cuts in line. She did an exquisite job. The issue with my quilt will be on the newsstands in February.

Out of the blue a new deadline presented itself. On the first day of Quilt Market an email arrived from the organizer of one of the biggest quilt conferences in the country, an invitation to teach. Oh good golly! But I couldn’t say yes because I was already booked for those days. Oh lordy me. For the first time ever I asked a guild if they were able to change their dates so I could teach for both groups. After several days of holding my breath (good thing blue skin looks nice with my gray hair), this wonderful and delightful guild was willing to shift their dates to a week later. Yippiee!

I spent several days filling out all of the paperwork for class descriptions, supply lists and establishing kit prices. The forms were sent off a day early, another deadline was conquered!

So, now I’m working on the deadline that I knew I had. December 9th. The day that all of the sample quilts are due. A deadline that involves sewing. A happy deadline. And after that, I may even be able to work on something that I can show on the blog.

Houston is alive with Quilters. For ten days the streets sparkle with quilters of all ages and sizes, laughing and gabbing. We’re a walking quilt show.

 Quilt Market is the twice yearly opportunity for quilt shop owners to find the latest and greatest new fabrics, patterns and notions. They have a chance to chat with the actual designers of the products, meet the authors of the books and rub elbows with our quilting celebrities.

Today is the last day. I’ve been busy searching for nifty new stuff that will make our quilting lives easier. I’ve been talking with manufacturers about developing the things I want but can’t find. And, oh, the fabric!

We’re about to run out the door for one more day of adventure in Quiltmarketland. I’ve been a good blogger and have been taking lots of pictures.  Wait ’till you see the faces I’ve captured!

But for now, it’s off to shop. It’s a good day.

The manuscript is done. Weeks of writing, organizing, sewing have been distilled down into a couple of boxes. The step outs went out on Monday, a box of  zip top baggies filled with bits and parts, all ready for their big moment with the photographer.

 The words head out today. Piles of paper, checklists, image logs, oh my! All those hours at the keyboard distill down to this little box. The mess left behind is an amazing thing. Every horizontal surface in the studio is piled several layers deep.

Quilts, fabric, threads, piled higher and deeper.

What a disaster! My jobs for today? Pack for Quilt Market in Houston, I leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Ship off the manuscript. Get a pedicure and a book to read. And, oh, yeah. Clean up this mess!

Eight days remain before my first draft is due. I must have everything ready and report to the Fedex outlet before five pm one week from tomorrow. I swing between smug confidence that all is going well and abject terror at what I may have grossly overestimated my skills.

 Luckily my family has provided lots of distractions this past week. Living in one’s head for too long is not good for creative work. My sons have graciously stepped up with dramas of their own to get my attention.

 Caleb, who has been suffering with a really bad cold, finally saw the doctor. A chest xray thankfully proved that, while miserable, it was nothing more than a cold. Some really good cough syrup provided the much-needed sleep. My sunny boy has returned.

Jake showed up last Tuesday evening with a nasty infection in his left hand. A small pimple on his index finger on Sunday was now an open wound, red swollen hand and frightening streaks heading up his arm. We packed off to the emergency room.

 Two hours later, after a round of IV antibiotics and a prescription for heavy duty anitibiotics for the next couple of weeks, we left with Jake’s arm in a sling and a diagnosis of MRSA. He’s made four more trips to the family doctor to monitor the condition. He’s made a terrific recovery. While he still needs to remain vigilent for reinfection, for now he has a clean bill of health.

I still can’t show you what I’m working on for the book. Most of it is pretty boring to look at anyway, just words on pages, planning inserts for pictures, unformatting fractions, blah, blah, blah. The quilts aren’t due until December so I’ve delayed most of the fun until after the words are done anyway.

But I can show you how I unwind at the end of the day.

 Knitting is what I do so that I know I’m not working. The first sock was started last Tuesday in the emergency room with Jake. The second sock was started on Saturday night as I watched the old  Alfred Hitchcock movie,Rebecca, with Kent. The pattern, Loksins! can be found here. I made a couple of small changes. I started with an extra repeat of the garter pattern. The heel is stitched out K1, S1 and then purl back instead of just stockinet stitch and grafted the toe instead of gathering. It’s a really pretty pattern and I look forward to making it again.

 What do you do to relax?