Modified 9-patch – The start

Phew! I’ve watched all 5 series of Lockdown during the first week of our National Lockdown just to serve as a friendly reminder that things could have been worse but I must admit after this, I don’t want to see a movie/series for quite some time.

I decided to partake in the quilt-along hosted by Sandra DeLand from the FB group Jelly Roll Quilts as I have 2 very colourful jelly rolls that I’ve been dying to use. By the time the group started, I was still busy with my Fractured Squares quilts and just copied the notes to get to it later.

The quilt (a picture Sandra saw) was originally referred to as 2 patch + 4 patch but she has, with the first instructions, decided to call it Modified 9 patch.

I knew I needed at least one jelly roll and background fabric but the size would determine the amount.  Off to EQ to put blocks on the background and count how many would be need for a proper bed quilt and it turned out, no less than 225 blocks…… this could have taken forever but with the National lockdown and more time on hand, I might just do well.

I had to cut strips from my stash for the background which in my case is black.

I decide to cut 8½” slices from my yardage to use this in my Accuquilt 2½” strip die with only a little waste.

First cuts of the background yardage @ 8½” intervals

Then ran through the Accuquilt to get 3 WOF strips per cut.

After what felt like an eternity I had my 225 background strips cut.

Now the very colourful jelly roll squares have to be cut and pieced but first time to get breakfast ready seeing that we now suddenly eat 3 meals a day, let alone snacking in between.

Fractured Squares – Done

Well, the National lockdown in South Africa at least served one purpose for me…. to finish two of these for my oldest granddaughters’ bunk beds.

One quilt measures 56” x 92” and I am glad I finally got around to it.

A little close-up of the quilting done.

I also made more face masks and will keep these to distribute at the office once the lockdown Is done which will not necessarily mean the virus is destroyed or people’s immune systems will be stronger.

Then it was time to do some major cleaning around the house which included scrubbing my cutting mats thoroughly.  After these 21 days, I suppose my house will be impeccable and I will be a fat alcoholic with all the eating and drinking going on to curb boredom.

Covid 19 hits home

As a rule, I am not much of a groupie person nor do I get involved in any rat race be it wealth or any other way of expressing yourself to simply belong somewhere.  So when the coronavirus hit, I decided to stay safe without becoming paranoid.  However sometimes life simply forces you to start thinking about these things differently.

Even before Covid 19, the law required all our workers to wear dust masks whenever sanding down floors to prevent them from inhaling the dust/cement and when Covid 19 hit home, masks or any kind could simply not be found anywhere or if found at an absolutely ridiculous price.

So here my life kind of took a turn from quilting to making masks and I cannot really say that I enjoy making these but it does get easier, the more you make and yesterday when hubby took 2 for MIL as the old age home required these too, he met up with a business owner who offered to pay me to make these for him to sell.

At the old age home they too requested I make masks for all of them.  However, for now, I have to make at least two for every staff member which would amount to roughly 46 if I counted correctly.

Saturday morning I had grandbaby over and this lively sole is way too adorable to be ignored to make masks, so I had downtime from sewing.

Now these masks won’t protect you from the Coronavirus but it sure will help to prevent germs from spreading which will cause your immune system to become weaker and especially for us, in South Africa, with winter around the corner, I do think we should all just try to be somewhat safer.

There are heaps of videos and tutorials on the internet on how to make these, I worked through a couple and then chose the one that would be cost-effective and fast seeing that I can’t sit and sew masks all day long.

Here’s a little info on home-made masks.

I am done for now with 52 completed.

Fractured Squares – A slight change of plans

My oldest granddaughter has two bunk beds and the idea of making the same quilt twice is not appealing to me but when I finished all the blocks on this quilt and put it up against the design wall, I realised this is large enough to be turned into two quilts. 

So I added a wide border to the sides but then got interrupted by a customer quilt and nothing else happened with this one.  Finally done with the borders I got to quilt the first one but had to take this off the frame to accommodate another customer quilt.  While on the guest bed I felt it needed a little more quilting but this is what it looked like when taken off the frame after the first session of quilting.

It has been a busy weekend with the older grandkids spending Friday evening with us while mom and dad went to learn how to make sushi.

The baby granddaughter came over on Saturday morning and when she left I started cooking for friends who came over yesterday evening.

So today, after grocery shopping, I’ll find my stance behind the frame and see how far I can get with at least one of the two quilts.

I spy quilt

This week I received a little I-spy quilt to free-motion and I loved the fact that the quilter brought a proper cotton backing although some blocks were made from polyester fabric which caused a little puffing in some squares. The quilt was however made by a scholar and I think it went more about finding interesting pictures than the type of material used.

I used a light grey thread to quilt overall, doing ribbon candy around every block.  For the centre of the blocks, I simply outlined the picture in every block.

For the border, I changed to a red thread as the grey stood out too much and did all-over loops.  This was also the first time a quilter requested I do the binding but I am not sure I’d like to do it again.  I would rather use all my time doing FMQ.

The overall quilt measured 50” x 60”