In December of 2003 I was lucky enough to be selected to appear on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson. One of their regularly scheduled guests had cancelled and I had been selected to present my technique for making quilts out of hand dyed fulled wool. I had less than a month to prepare before I flew out to beautiful downtown Burbank, CA for the filming. I had never appeared on TV before and it felt remarkably like when I learned how to dive off the high board at the pool.

Let me start by saying the support crew at Weller Grossman Productions (they produce the segments then sell them to HGTV) were absolutely superb. They are a very calming, professional bunch of people who take newbie jitters in stride (even when they come across one of their guests laughing her head off in the hallway upon seeing her name on a dressing room door). Prior to the actual filming they send you pages of helpful tips and they are right there on hand to make suggestions but always telling you they want you to be comfortable during the filming. There are well over a dozen support crew members you never see, working away in the background and on the equipment, helping to produce the segments you enjoy.

The film studio surprised me: it is a huge, cavernous building with the set taking up most of one whole wall. There's dressing rooms, a lunch room, a rehearsal area, offices, a makeup room, you name it. To the back of the filming area is the audio studio and an area for a few friends or family to watch you stumble through your first filming.

Okay, let's get down to the nitty gritty: what you really want to know is about Alex: is she as nice as she appears on screen? Does she really look like that? The answers are yes and no. Yes, she really is as nice as she appears on screen. Especially when you consider she films 40 segments in two weeks, 4 a day, for a workday of at least 12 hours. On the day I was filming she had 1 experienced guest then 3 newbies in a row and she kept her cool. She is VERY good at what she does, she doesn't read from cue cards and she keeps you calm and on track. She was perfectly willing to pose for pictures between takes and she dresses to coordinate with what you are wearing. She certainly has more patience than I do.

Simply Quilts Episode Filming continued, please click here.