Woodland Critters

Working on this quilt I couldn’t help thinking about the pet sadness I recently had in my little circle.  After we had to put our Border Collie to sleep on 10 August which was a Tuesday, my Sis phoned the Sunday to inform me, they had to do the same with their Great Dane and then this week Tuesday a friend arrived just after having put her 16-year-old cat to sleep and on Friday another quilter friend phoned to say she was at the vet, preparing to do the kind thing.  Not easy on anyone and I honestly hope 4 is now enough.

I’ve received a nice treat from a quilt customer when complaining about how bad my hands are taking all the detergents after starting to do the cleaning myself and when she came to fetch her quilt, she gave me the most divine hand and nail cream.  I do love my Aqueous cream but some brands are so fatty and I love to start quilting after the cleaning has been done but need some lotion on my dry hands and this gift is the best.  Nothing like an unexpected surprise.

I got this quilt late Friday, got it loaded and planned to start early morning.  However, after breakfast, getting dressed and hubby walking the dogs, we parked ourselves behind the TV (as pensioners should) and watched our recorded final episode of Survivor South Africa.   I only got to this much later.

There were these tiny dragonflies on the backing and I did free-motion loops and leaves but popped in the occasional dragonfly.

Good news for this morning is that I enrolled in my next course by Adria Good and is ready to get started.  Hubby will be playing golf tomorrow morning, so good time to concentrate on what I should be doing.

Blocks in blue

Suddenly it is winter again over in South Africa and I am not impressed.  Along with the cold we have annoying winds and I was so impressed with my clean house, all done by myself, and then yesterday dropped white fabric in the passage and as I picked it up, it was full of brown sandy dust.  Depressing to say the least.  I’ve been washing floors in my dreams last night.  When I got up this morning, while still dark, I decided to clean the floors again, not that it will help much as the wind has not yet subsided.

I received this blocks-in-blue quilt yesterday morning with a request for edge-to-edge quilting and was able to finish it the same day.  Not having to cook suppers, these are still delivered, fully cooked, to our door, helps a lot.

Another dress up doll back

Remember the back I quilted for the client making fabric dress up dolls with the extra thick batting?  As suspected, it was just too thick, in fact, the client didn’t even give it a try.  She said she took one look at it and decided not to even attempt.

New fabric, new batting and I redid it which I think will be much better.  This time too, she used a stiff but thinner batting and although not quilt batting, I believe the stiffer backing will work well to dress these little dolls.

Again, polyester fabric with a little more slip and slide to it than cotton but it still worked well.

Green with pink roses quilt

Phew! We survived the weekend taking care of the two older grandkids and having the youngest and her mother over for the whole of Saturday.  The older ones are becoming less demanding and I really cannot complain about them.  The oldest daughter though has an appetite one cannot explain to anyone, I told her parents I will be demanding alimony if they ever leave her with us again.  Grandson suddenly decided I am the one and I had to sleep by him at night with him being Sonic and me, Amy.  I have no idea who either is.

In between we tried to watch a little rugby, cricket and I even woke up before midnight to see the tennis women’s final.  I was not interested in the men’s final as I truly believed Djokovic would win and this man is way too arrogant to my liking.  A pleasant surprise when I woke up on Sunday to see Medvedev actually won.

With the kids gone I loaded the quilt received on Friday and the edge to edge was a quick finish.

I had to clean two sections of the house this morning as the youngest grandbaby will be coming over tomorrow as she has an ear infection.

Quilting through extra thick upholstery batting

These two polyester sheets with very thick polyester batting got to me late yesterday afternoon.  This is for the lady that makes fabric dress-up dolls and use my quilted backgrounds to secure her doll bodies on.

This time however she sent ultra-thick batting, more suitable for upholstery, I would imagine.

It was terrible trying to quilt through it as it had so much loft which caused the fabric to move in the direction I would be sewing and I had to keep one hand on the fabric all the time to try to smooth the fabric and keep it from making puckers.

I still worry about her having to do the applique, she uses satin stitch, and how this would work under her domestic machine.  I however, asked her not to use this again if she wants me to quilt it.