The Whirlwind of Classes and Talks

It's no secret that I've been a busy girl as of late.  I'm decent at spacing out my commitments and making sure I don't have too many things pressing at the same time. My calendar usually looks well-balanced and responsible. However, I often forget to leave room for the incidentals and unschedule-able things, like illness, vehicular issues, and Acts of Nephew, among other things good and bad. A particularly crappy inclement spring has seen more barometric changes than the weather network* and left me with less energy and fighting spirit than usual. Renovations have meant my sewing corner has moved, rotated and/or been inaccessible since January - tricky when keeping up with two guilds and two bees! And then, of course, there's been hockey. Glorious hockey. Junior, Olympic, NHL, KHL, AHL, WTH?... I will admit that while I sometimes drop the ball on keeping up in quilting blogland, I never go more than two days without checking in on the hockey blogs. In fact, I was caught at a guild meeting streaming a game during a presentation.  I was LISTENING, of course, to the presenter and looked at all her slides, but I also didn't want to miss any changes in the score.  That being said, if I'm the presenter and you are in the audience, feel free to live-stream sporting events.  Just keep me updated on the score!  (NOTE: this does NOT apply in the scholastic setting - secondary students are required to pay attention in class, even if I'm boring.  Therefore, if you by any strange chance or coincidence are a high school student who has me as their classroom teacher at any time, I will not accept any excuses of "But Ms. M..... !You said on your blog....". So there. You have been warned. Also - how did you find this blog, anyway? Get off the internet, go outside and/or do your homework, please and thank you!)

Speaking of giving talks, classes and presentations...

I had the distinct pleasure of leading a workshop on improv piecing at Saskatoon Quilters' Guild spring retreat at the end of April. I do a lot of improv piecing (crazy piecing, free-piecing, what have you) These were the samples that I made up plus more that I made during/after the workshop:

Most of my job was just to give encouragement and provide a little guidance on making such unusual pieces cohesive. Here is all the beautiful work they did!

I was a proud, proud teacher, (though truly I think an improv workshop leader is really more of a permission giver and 'can't' preventer than instructor.) They all had such different styles; not surprising since they've all been quilting for years. Having never given that workshop before, I was quite pleased with how it went. The gals gave me some great and constructive feedback, too.

At the last meeting of Saskatoon Quilter's Guild, I got to see some of their work continued but wasn't able to snap a pic. I had the privilege that night to give a talk on modern quilting. Of that, I have no photos but since no one fell asleep, I think it went well, too. Put a mic in my hand and I can talk, boy!  Only trouble?  When you're the speaker - you can't stream the hockey game...


*As one of many folk around here with climate migraines, I can say that spring is not a great time of year, especially with the yo-yo of sun/snow/sun/snow/rain/snain/snow/sun/rain we've had this go-round. If these manned missions to Mars advertised a permanently consistent air pressure in all compartments, ships and colonies, migraneurs would risk experiencing every bad thing that's ever happened in a scifi film.... Aliens, schmaliens!