What Next?

So here I am, the disappointment of a less than successful Open Studio and a cancelled class now just a distant memory as I start to plan for what's next. In the immediate future that's an easy question to answer as next week I will be at The Festival of Quilts where I'm teaching a couple of Quick and Easy workshops... a machine embroidered nature inspired needle case in just an hour! Still a few places left on both Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th the last time I looked. And if you don't have tickets for the show yet you can get them from the website www.festivalofquilts.co.uk or by calling 0844 581 1289 and if you quote the code WT26 you can get a 15% discount.

Of course in order to get the needle case made and finished in the short time allocated I have to provide ready to go kits with designs already drawn out onto calico...

and all other materials provided and cut to size.

It took a lot longer than I thought it would, a lot longer... just saying!

And then I thought I should try a few samples of my new designs to see how they looked and how long they took for me to make. I discovered I can make one from a pre-prepared kit in about 30 minutes so I think that notwithstanding any disasters involving machine malfunction or operator errors we should get the projects finished, allowing time for some teaching etc... I hope!

After that I have a couple of one day classes in August but then things get a bit quiet and once again I'm left wondering about long term career prospects. I love what I do but unfortunately there is also a need to earn some money. This seems to be a cyclical thing that I need to go through every so often and as often happens I find I return to my other love, which is cooking. (It was that that led to me baking cakes for two years!)

I made a batch of pecan and cranberry granola (you can find the recipe in this post) along with an apricot and blackberry compote. The idea was to have some healthy breakfasts at the weekend but I ended up making pancakes too. They were good!

There were also some honeycomb brownies for a hen-do. I used a Nigella Lawson recipe for the brownies which is always my go to recipes when I make brownies as I know it works reliably with my oven. Instead of walnuts or other additions I added crushed Crunchie bars. I didn't make my own honeycomb... I'm not feeling quite that enthusiastic about cooking! They were also good!

And finally I took along some savoury puffs to another gathering of friends last night... ready rolled puff pastry (No, I didn't make my own pastry either), spread with goats cheese, wild garlic pesto (from the freezer - I did make my own, recipe here) and chopped sun dried tomato. Roll it up like a Swiss roll, cut it into slices and bake on a silicon mat on a baking sheet for 15 minutes at 220 deg C (200 fan)

I'm not sure I have quite got the cooking out of my system yet. For some reason I have a desire to make some Danish pastries so watch this space. But as for future career ideas I'm still not any further forward with ideas. Although the exciting news I hinted at last week does look like it's going to happen, so as soon as I have details and the go ahead I promise you'll hear it here first!