I’m delighted / frankly relieved that my new book Simply Screen Printing has arrived and I’m busy shipping out orders. Thank you to everyone who has ordered online! And although it is a drop in the ocean, £1 from every book sold before the end of March is going to The Trussell Trust, supporting food banks and fighting food poverty. The book will have its physical ‘launch’ this Thursday at the Scottish Quilting Show as the SECC, Glasgow. I will be busy demonstrating some of the screen printing techniques featured in the book.

Why relieved …… well ……. I had organised the heck out of everything with son Joe due to take delivery of the books on Thursday 23rd. I’d printed out orders, ordered book mailers, etc, etc. All before setting off for my annual retreat in the Lake District last Sunday. Good company, good food, stunning surroundings and time to stitch, read and to treat myself to an afternoon nap. I spent time quilting the books cover star, a piece of fabric printed using a string mask on the fabric (see above). As always the retreat worked its magic and all the stress of recent weeks melted away.

A pallet of books arrived at 8.30am on Thursday. Joe rang me with the good news. I asked him to open a few boxes to check that everything was OK. He said he didn’t know what to look for. I said to do it anyway and check for things like pages falling out, uncut pages etc. Ten minutes later he rang me. He had spotted an obvious error …. they weren’t my books! All that stress that had melted away made an unwelcome return ….. my language was a little ripe! Several phone calls later the printer rang me to say that they had located my books and they were on a truck on the way to Fleet in Hampshire (about 200 miles from sunny Manchester) but would be re-routed and would arrive on Friday morning. Which they did. But, boy, I could have done without the drama!

That said I think they look brill and I am rather proud of myself. Not that I think I’ll start work on the next book just yet!