Sally Holman will be coming to Bridlington

Another addition to our forthcoming patchwork and quilting programme
 -Sally Holman will be with us on 14th/15th & 16th April 2014.

Monday 14th April - Creating a Scene
Tuesday 15th April - Crazy and Embellished Patchwork
Wednesday 16th April - Feathered Friends

Here is some of Sally's work -

Email me for the full details of the workshop and retreat.

Fiona@royalhotelbrid.co.uk

So here is the very exciting news....

We shall soon be adding a very special service for The Royal Bridlington's guests and locals. We have just ordered a Longarm Quilting machine!

Like many other quilters, I love piecing and making the quilt tops and I have a huge pile of UFOs waiting to be quilted.

In the States Longarm quilting machines are much more common and most quilt shops have at least one and many home quilters too offer a quilting service on their machine.

After much deliberation, many spreadsheets & lots of reorganising of space, we have decided to take the plunge.

We have chosen the Innova 26 inch machine with autopilot, 11 ft table and a few more bells and whistles too.



This will enable quilts up to around 122 inches to be either quilted by selecting an all over design on the computer, or by using a traditional paper pantograph designs or free motion custom quilting.

The machine is custom made in Texas, USA and we have to import it from there. It should be arriving sometime in October.

I shall be keeping the blog up to date with the Longarm 'journey'.

No Such Thing as a Normal Day but........

In the hospitality industry there is no such thing as a normal day, everyday is different. But in the main, here is what I generally get up to.

The day starts for me with breakfast prep. Whilst Tim is preparing the hot food, I prepare the fruit tray and get the drinks and toaster prepared.

Staff arrive around 8am and prepare restaurant and in the kitchen there are eggs, smoked salmon, kippers & porridge to prep by the kitchen assistant.

umm fresh, hot croissant

Then its service time from 8-15 to 9.15. This morning there was a full house - just 38 breakfasts though as some rooms were under occupancy.  If we are totally full - a bum in every bed, we can sleep 53.

During service, Tim is normally doing the hot food, the kitchen assistant the eggs & porridge and I do toast & drinks, phone and reception & wash up.

Straight after breakfast service I change hats to receptionist and assist the departing guests and the kitchen assistance takes over wash up.

Housekeeping staff arrive in at 9.30 and make a start with the rooms and after breakfast service kitchen staff are cleaning down and preparing food for dinner and restaurant staff are clearing down & resetting.

Now if all goes to plan we try and grab something to eat, on a good day this might be around 10.30, but on a bad day it can be after 1pm before we get chance to eat. Thats the thing - you just never know what is going to happen.

Next its laundry and room checks, repairs, shopping and of course answering the phone & door bell. Hopefully we manage to get all the rooms turned round and ready before 2pm and the arriving guests.

Today, although we have several rooms departing, I managed to get a bit of sewing done.  If I don't get to sew at least every few days-  I get grumpy! I have been machine embroidering dancers for the next batch of shoes bags.

This is what they will eventually end up like

Tim, is out this afternoon playing golf at Hainsworth Park.  You will be able to see what he got up to later on his golf blog - http://blog.yorkshirecoastgolf.co.uk/

Time for more food before Tim sets off, then I'm left home alone playing receptionist & bar person & duty manger and dealing with all the arriving guests.

When all the guests have arrived, I prepare bills for the next days departing guests, registration forms for tomorrows arrivals and the A & D list (arrivals and departures) for housekeeping so they know which rooms need to be serviced.

Bar to cover till guests go to bed then its time to finish off and lock up, ready for it all start again in the morning. Its been a busy shift, the phone has been constant and lots of people coming to the door looking for a room for the night.

Ready for a cuppa and looking forward to closing up and heading off to bed.

Thank you Janome

Barbara from the Sewing Centre in Bridlington mentioned our Charity Quiltathon to Janome.

Look What they have donated.

Two boxes of embroidery threads

Six pairs of scissors

Thank you so much Janome UK for your generosity and thank you  to Barbara and John at The Sewing Centre, Bridlington.

We need to raise some funds for wadding and fabric so 

If anyone would like a pair of scissors, they are 9 inch and they normally retail at around £15, happy to take £10 to add to our funds.

The embroidery threads normally retail at £70 for 27 bobbins at 200m each. There are 24 in the box.  Again make me an offer to add to our funds.

Happy for items to be collected or can keep till I see you or post (extra cost).

A rare treat during main season - a short walk out

Its such a nice day today, and the staff finished fairly early, so we decided to have a walk out and about.

Bridlington Harbour

Beach Huts on the Fabulous South Beach

South Beach Prom

and the donkeys were out

and we just had to stop for an ice cream at Richies!

Morning stroll round the Garden

Full house last night, so a very busy breakfast this morning. Boy it was hot in the kitchen!

After dealing with the departing guests I decided to have a stroll round the garden and it struck me that we don't normally take many pics of the garden, so here are a few. Shame we really don't get time to look after it properly or enjoy it ourselves, but our guests certain enjoy it out there - its a real suntrap.

View down the garden towards our Scooter Docking cabin / golf club store & maybe soon to be ............watch this space - LOL

Agapanthus just bursting into flower

Clematis corner

Entrance to The Royal Lodge

& the latest problem......

The plants, tree and ivy from the other side are causing our wall to topple over. However our neighbours at The Royal British Legion Alderson House will not take any responsibility for the damage their uncontrolled plants have caused.
The rebuild cost is likely to be around £1200. Stalemate at the moment.

Festival of Quilts = Part Two

After an exhausting first day at The Festival of Quilts I met up with Susan Briscoe & Glyn for a drink in the pub before retiring back to The Village Hotel. We were joined by several other quilters including Lis Harwood, Jan Allston, Janice Gunner & Maggie Relph. It was lovely to have a nice sit down and rest my very sore feet! All too soon it was closing time and time to head off back to the hotel.

Decided to try the hotel restaurant and had a really nice meal of garlic flat bread & a delicious sirloin steak with chunky homemade chips. Umm all washed down well with a glass of wine.

After a good nights sleep, and a tasty breakfast the feet were ready for round two! Back to the NEC.

My plan today was to finish viewing quilts, try out all the different long arm machines whilst I had the opportunity and complete my shopping list.

I took so many photos on the first day that I filled by SD card!

So here are a few more of the quilts

Recognised this one too - another Alison Bramley

 

This is another one I knew too - its a Philippa Naylor. Phillipa lives locally and I have attended several of her workshops before. She dyes all the fabric herself too.

Close up of the blocks

And... The Winning Quilt

I did manage to try out all the long arm machines too and quilt frame adaptions. 

The Quilt frame adaption from New English Quilter was great, but I feel that the quilting area is too much of a restriction for me, although the idea was fantastic and works really well with the Juki machine.

The new Juki long arm was lovely and was fun to use, but the construction of the frame and smoothness was no where near as good as the Innova.

I didn't like the visual appearance of the Gammill - it just look far too scary and serious. I spent quite a while on the Cotton Patch stand with their longarm machines and although they work well, the manoeverability felt very heavy and I'm sure after a while will result in very tired arms, but the back up and service is local - Birmingham so thats a huge plus. 

I went back to Innova and Ferret confirmed that she will be stocking spare parts for the UK and providing some support. Sorted! Now to convince Tim we need one and to make some space - lol!

Here is my car - decided that if I was going to pay £10 per day to park it then it may as well earn its keep - lol!