Calender Blocks

Another BOM by teacher/designer Iessie for this year and I am very proud to actually have finished this in the year I started it. I however must admit that a trip to fellow quilter, Riette de Wet, in Aliwal North along with teacher, Iessie, who explained to me just how organized she was and how much she gets done, helped me to get over my 'quilters block' that I've been suffering from during the festive season.

The reason for the trip was that the 3 of us have very bravely decided to each start working on our very own Baby Jane quilts and we just needed a decent brainstorming session before beginning.

So before making this entry I was so excited to "delete" one project from my list of UFO's but just now realized that I now have to add yet another. Will I ever get to less than 16 UFO's on my list???

Completed: 29 December 2007

Litema quilt

Fellow quilter, Frances van Schalkwyk, approached me to help (being one of 5 quilters) make a quilt based on the mural art by the Basuto (a South African tribe) women to decorate the outside walls of their homes. After looking at photos of different mirror image patterns used by these women, we used EQ6 to design the block pattern (appliqued). A photo of this quilt would be used in a coffee table book showing this dying art called Litema but pronounced Ditema.

After findind the exact orange fabric, Frances and 2 other quilters cut and glued the motifs on the blocks. My first job was then to do the blanket stitching around all the motifs where-after teacher, Iessie Steenberg, had to join the blocks, cut the batting and backing and then the quilt came back to me.

I meandered on all the background blocks avoiding the applique itself and once again back to Iessie for the binding and label.

Queen sized quilt completed in only 3 weeks.

Completed: 7 December 2007

Advanced Sampler

Another BOM project by teacher, Iessie Steenberg, worked on during the last part of 2006 and 2007. This time we made use of the Quilt-as-u-go technique which meant the quilt could be finished shortly after we received the last block pattern.

Surely one of the nicest projects I've worked on thus far.

Completed: 15 November 2007

Mauritian Challenge

Left: Orginal fabric

Right: Completed quilt

In May 2006 all the members of the Quiltmakers got 12 identical floral pictures on a piece of fabric with the challenge to "make a quilt" - no rules, no size and no instructions given. At first I was not supposed to participate but then some members resigned and I got a piece of fabric as well and not being able to think around a rectangle I just couldn't get started.

We were all supposed to have these quilts finished by November 2007 and as time ran out, I decided on something easy and chose log cabin variations to start with and the quilt grew with each completed block until I was able to finish it. Although not very practical with all the 3 D flowers it came out rather nice.

Completed: 24 October 2007

Woven Placemats

When visiting a small town called De Wetsdorp, Riette de Wet from Aliwal North demonstrated this technique of weaving fabrics and I decided to use several colors instead of just 2, making 12 placemats for the home.

Completed: 11 September 2007

All my chickens

One of teacher/designer Iessie Steenberg's older patterns which I bought from her beginning 2005 but making it by myself, without the support of a group working on a BOM, took forever but I eventually finished it on 25 August 2007.

Marline Turner's Mystery

At the very first mini quilt festival held in Bloemfontein and organized by Hennie Hoffmann and team, I attended a mystery quilt class by Marline Turner.

What a grueling day of cutting, measuring and stitching it turned out to be with teacher Marline having very little sympathy for aching backs and we were firmly told that absolutely no moaning will be allowed in her class.

At first I didn't think my fabric or color choice would work on this quilt but back home, I kept going and later, as I worked the blocks together, this quilt, as Riette, one of my quilting friends, would put it, grew on me.

I've also used Marline's netting tip to transfer quilt markings and found it extremely easy to work with.

Completed: 25 May 2007

Simple Secret

On 21 March 2007 we celebrated National Quilt Day and the quilting group in Aliwal North invited our group to join them for the day. Teacher, Iessie Steenberg, designed a 27 inch mystery quilt for us to work on. True to tradition the Aliwal group left no stone unturned to organize this day to perfection and we eagerly started working on our quilts at 9am. When lunch was served around 1pm most of us were finished with the quilt top and could start the actual quilting.

With me however, size does matter and I decided that I wanted my quilt much bigger and returned home to Bloemfontein where I simply kept the basic centre design and just added more borders until I was satisfied.

I didn't have enough fabric for such a big quilt but my main fabric allowed me to improvise and play around with different colours and I am quite satisfied with my end result.

Completed: 18 May 2007

Making my own Medallion

This must be one of the nicest quilts I've ever worked on. Maybe because it was different from the usual sqaure blocks and because teacher/designer, Iessie, allowed us to continue where she ended the pattern and make the quilt as big as we would like it to be, by adding more triangles. Just realized something..... I actually had to do math with this one AND to top it all, this is my very first quilt with 4 equal sides. I can easily make a quilt with not one side even being remotely the same size as the next.

Must admit that I had the help of Marie, our friendly Pfaff store owner, with the stitching of the applique flowers with the horrible metallic thread as this almost prevented me from finishing the quilt. Thanks Marie............ (she did it for FREE!!)

Completed: 27 March 2007

Da Gama Challenge

The Oranje Quilters Guild planned a mini quilt festival in Bloemfontein in April 2007 and launched a Da Gama (traditional fabric printed in South Africa) quilt challenge and under peer pressure I had to participate. Not into competitions I simply went to the shop to check out the fabric with no idea to what the quilt would be like. Saw the Madiba faces printed on one of these fabrics and went home thinking that I would like to work around that. Paged through a couple of books and magazines and noticed the Kaleidoscope block playing tricks on your eyes by forming circles. So there and then I decided that this was what I wanted to do. Went back to buy the fabric and started out.

Not much planning, effort or difficulty level in this one but as my circles unfolded and Madiba looking at me from the fabric, I couldn't help thinking that this must have been what his fight for freedom was all about and after years of patching here and there, he has come full circle in his fight.

Being my first attempt at a challenge, working against time, this too was 'coming full circle' for me with my quilting. Therefor the name of this quilt "Coming full circle."

Completed: 1 March 2007