Universal Beauty

I planned this quilt around the universe panel and started it when Karin and I took a weekend out to their cabin over HERE.

When I first saw this panel at our local PFAFF dealer I knew I had to make my son a quilt using this.  However soon forgotten the panel ended up in a drawer until 4 of us discovered we had the same fabric and decided to make something of it as explained in THIS post.

Back from the cabin I refused to pack the fabric away as my son's birthday is in August and I really wanted to finish it in time.  So I would work a little on it every single day.  Well, glad to report that it got done in time.

I don't often get too many things exactly right but it so turned out that this birthday quilt for my first born was finished on the day that his wife gave birth to their first born - theirs only being a little girl.

For anyone wondering why on earth I would give my adult son a universe panel quilt, I think if I tell you that he named his little girl, Lleia - after princess Leia in Star Wars it would all make sense.

Here proud dad is holding his daughter after her first bath.

Simple Yet Elegant BOM

Finally the BOM I did through The Quilt Pattern Magazine is done.  I enlarged my blocks to 16" when completed as I wanted a decent queen sized quilt.

All the blocks were hand appliqued and I did machine echo quilting and a little thread sketching to finish it.  Apart from the fabric for the background and sashings, I used scraps from my stash.

Completed:  6 August 2012

Forgotten Flatley

I made this little 30" wall hanging somewhere in between organizing parties in July.  One has to do something to maintain your sanity amidst all the chaos of organizing functions.  I saw the completing date on the label says:  21 July 2012 - so the day after the blonde turned 21 and I can imagine myself having the binding ready for hand sewing on a day when I just needed to relax.

I love doing a little hand work as it lets me unwind and relax totally.  I however totally forgot to post this to blogger.  When I bought the fabric from our local PFAFF dealer she remarked that the colors in my main fabric looked flat.  Flat or not I like the way it turned out, so the name comes from her idea of flat colors.

The value of having your machine serviced.

In my post HERE I complained about the problems I encountered while echo quilting a large quilt and much to my dismay read a blog post in which directional quilting was discussed even suggesting that machines aren't supposed to free motion in every direction.  Not what I wanted to hear and when I took my machine for a service my major complaint was that it won't sew if I pulled the fabric towards me.  My dear PFAFF dealer did not blink an eye upon hearing this, so I decided not to tell her about the blog I read.

With my machine back after the service I was simply too scared to continue the echo quilting and did other projects first but one can only postpone this long and eventually I fetched the quilt from the spare bedroom and started again.  Well hooray for my PFAFF Grand Quilter, it worked!!!  In every directions for any length of time and I soon finished the quilting on my Simple Yet Elegant quilt.  In fact I had so much fun having my machine back that long after I was done with the binding I continued thread sketching most of the applique shapes to give these a little dimension.  Okay, maybe they don't look all that different but I just didn't want to stop.

A new toy

One of the new toys I bought while at the International Quilt Convention in Johannesburg was this lovely magnifying lamp.

It not only serves as an additional light while sewing or quilting but with the wide base clutched between my legs on a chair and the wonderful magnifier I could immediately see an improvement in my hand stitching.  Still not sure I would hand quilt a whole quilt but I am perfecting my hand applique with this.