Exploring the possibilities on my Q’nique 14+ on the Cadence frame – 2

I had all my eggs in one basket with all my children and the 2 grand-babies over of Friday and then princess slept over as usual.  She is such a special one, happy being all by herself as long as she can be with the old folks getting the occasional treat.

Today I have an aching earlobe that drives me up the walls and I couldn’t help smiling remembering my last doctors’ (she, in the meantime left the practise) words.  Whenever it happens again, just pop in so that I can take a look…. Well hell yeah, Sunday afternoon at 3 pm and she would be where now?  Furthermore I can’t even touch my ear, let alone allow a doctor check it out.

I am still going through major learning curves with my attempts to do long arm quilting, lowered the machine to its lowest level and hubby nearly got impaled underneath it during this process.  Then we raised the idler bar so it would glide smoothly over the machine bed.  I cut and prepared another practise piece.  Step by step and extremely slowly I am trying to get myself to feel comfortable behind and while using the machine.  I am unfortunately a very impatient person.  By no means perfect but I guess just as I had to practise to get FM quilting done on a domestic machine, I will have to do it here.

Eye of the Storm – 5

We had no water (at all) in our city for days and often times my being so terribly organised gets to me.  I often feel if I organise less I will have more time to simply socialise and take a day as it comes BUT when crap like a water shortage hits your city, you so appreciate not only being organised yourself but also being married to another organisational freak.

I felt terribly sorry to listen to everyone’s complaints about not being able to shower, cook, do laundry and get the little ones sorted while I was able to pitch up at the office perfectly pampered, cleaned and dressed to the T.

I had a stack of bottled water hidden in every nook and cranny of this house (just for in case, seeing that we do have a water filtration system) and dearest hubby made sure our outside water tanks are kept at a level to get us through a couple of days.  So we survived this ordeal just fine.

As for my quilt I am halfway, hallelujah!  I love this process of adding a block at a time and seeing the progress.

At this stage I spotted even more mistakes.  I think sharing my quilt table with 2 cats, a parrot and a dove caused this.  Once done I’ll compare every block with the pattern and make the necessary corrections.

Exploring the possibilities on my Q’nique 14+ on the Cadence frame – 1

I got my new machine on Monday, 6 November 2017 and it was all set up and I had my first lesson on Monday the 13^th of November. 

Suddenly I turned from a confident FM quilter on a domestic machine to a blob of mush.  Nothing worked, nothing turned out as planned.  Worst of all I gave hubster and my daughter a go on the machine and they seemed to do just fine, not understanding why I panicked or couldn’t do it.  Now as said previously, E2E quilting was not my problem but I am quite convinced I don’t want to ONLY do that always.  What about the beautiful quilting as described in Karen Mc Tavishs’ book “Quilting for Show”?  I wanted to try that.

So setting a whole weekend aside, no inviting family or friends, I did major shopping for (cheap) fabric to start practising.  Sheet, poly-cotton, canvas and polyester batting and my fabric had straight lines on it (at this stage, my biggest obstacle).

I bought myself a fairly good mix of different colour thread to make the look at least interesting, even if screwed up.  Friday was spent washing fabric and at 06:15 Saturday morning I had my first test quilt loaded. I’m quite convinced that I didn’t do it quite right but the 3 layers are up, so I’ll just wait and see.

I had to phone another South African (in Hermanus) owner of this machine/set-up for help and I think I did something wrong with the initial layering but I did well.  Again, the E2E went smoothly but I tried my hand at different modes as well as detailed stitching.  Also did straight line stitching but only successful on shorter lines. I hope once my ruler base arrives I will be able to do better.  Realised I was way too short for the height the machine was set up, so hubster had to lower it which was a mission itself with the weight of the machine on the frame but it is done.  Just some finer details still bothering, so I’d call the dealer again tomorrow.

Eye of the Storm – 4

With hubster out of town on a business trip and I quite satisfied with left-overs from the previous nights’ supper I got quilting.

Completed the next row of blocks (14 blocks done) but something is not quite right, somehow the two lights curving on the far edges seem to be different but what the hell, I’ll just keep it as is and if it really bugs me when the quilt is completed, I might just fix it.

I now have a new activity to focus on, my Q’niqe quilter on the frame and I realise when everybody said that there will be a learning curve, they did not lie.  As comfortable as I felt doing free motion quilting on my domestic machine I now am lost, feeling like a total beginner again.

I have finished my first practise piece and this will be utilised to catch the sand and dust carried in by the cats on my cutting mats.  It will at least serve a purpose.  I don’t have a problem with E2E quilting, I will however still have to practise days and nights doing finer detailed work.

Eye of the Storm – 3

I have house cleaners coming in once a week and hell or high water; I make sure that nothing in my sewing room is out of place or causing them not to be able to clean properly.  So I worked liked crazy to at least get the first row done before they pitch up tomorrow. Only then could I pack away all these strip sets not having to fear that someone would distort their order.

Tuesdays are my favourite day of the week.  I have to lock my dogs in a small courtyard when I leave for work because the cleaners are scared of them but that also mean I can leave the office at around 10 am to rescue our poor pups from captivity.  Nothing is as special as walking into an impeccable clean house.

In the mean while I had my first lesson on my Qnique quilter and I am so impressed with myself apart from the fact that the moment my tutor left and I continued stitching, I couldn’t remember how to roll the quilt up any further….. Darn!  This is however what I’ve accomplished.

Another new toy

We had the grandkids (of the human kind) over last Friday evening.  Granddad is clever in that a swim/splash in the tiny pool counts as a bath after dinner, so cleansed they were and loved it being done.

Then on SaturdayI got word that my latest new toy arrived and we desperately needed to make space for this but first I had to go shopping. Our local quilting guild (I am not affiliated) has a quarterly meeting and I do support one of the vendors from another city.  So I placed my order for Best Press and quickly went to fetch it and while there got some serrated scissors by Apliquick too.

Back home hubby and my son, who just came to fetch the grand kids, moved furniture from one guestroom to another (or totally out of the house) like crazy and I had to start washing all the bedding.  Then ripping the carpet from the floor followed and it was interesting to see the manufactured date on the back of the carpet. 19 July 1983.  This carpet is 8 years older than my daughter and it wore well.

After discovering a huge crack in the sub-floor hubby fixed it and smoothed it with self-levelling screed.  Ha! I sound so intelligent using daily technical terms used in our flooring business.

Then he fitted luxury vinyl tiles in a colour I absolutely adore.  A mix of greys and brown so anything goes.

Time to put my quilt art up the wall.

Finally home but still boxed and the dealer was rather strict and we were told not to even attempt to set it up ourselves, but after convincing him that my hubby is really good, we got the go-ahead.

A week later and I have my new toy assembled in a newly created play-area and I am ready for my first lesson on Monday.

Magnolia Mystery – 3

Some days are diamonds and some just plain hectic.Yesterday was one of those hectic ones.  I knew I had to take MIL to get her monthly prescription, so parrot had to go to the office with hubby but I also bought MIL groceries with some stuff in the refrigerator and these needed to be packed before I left. So we got up and most went according to plan, got back to the office and started my routine which was somewhat disrupted in that hubby planned to leave on a business trip and then the days start slightly more uncontrolled than others but we got going, organized, planned, divided monies due to temporary workers and what not and just as things calmed down slightly, it hit me!.... poor Struis, a rescue dove, was all forgotten in the cupboard where he sleeps at night, alone in the dark without food or water.  There and then packed up, I knew MIL too would soon phone for me to fetch her again, so I called it a day and simply came home to rescue Struis from the cupboard and then got going with my quilting. (I didn’t have to cook dinner seeing that hubby was out of town!)

Even though I had way too much wine when I started this part of the mystery I managed to finish it.  I now have 32 full flower units, 4 left facing partial flower units and 4 right facing partial flower units.  This keeps me guessing.

Eye of the Storm – 2

I continued with this baby and it kept me rather busy.

At this stage I had no clue to where I was supposed to be going but figured I am not that good a cook but if I followed a recipe to the T, it usually works, so I might as well do it with a quilt pattern.  This was not even half way through cross cutting my strip sets.

I often read about quilters referring to their time in the sewing room as “mindless stitching” but heck for this quilt I had to have my wits about me all the time….. nothing mindless about this one and the cat did not help much. This is only block 1 of 42 with this one only packed, not even sewn.

How much wine is too much?

I got the next (number unknown…. I’ve worked really hard, it is hot, I am dead tired and sip wine to keep hydrated) clue to my mystery (name now eludes me…. wine the problem too?) and I started sewing what should be a flower block.   I got no less than 7 of these (not sure why I can remember this number though)

Now would you believe me, I unpicked all 7, re-stitched, scolded myself, vowed to not drink wine when quilting before it hit me…… simply swap or turn the bloomin sections you fool.  It should look like this.

So this post is directed to “dear me”…… this is what should be done when you had too much wine.  Maybe I should just continue tomorrow.

Owl – 4

With my painted bird done I tackled the Owl, another one of those projects that may never disappear from one of my design walls if I didn’t put serious effort into finishing it.  Chicken’s parent came to pick her up and it was absolutely wonderful knowing I could walk anywhere in my house without stepping into something unwanted.

I had a pretty busy day yesterday with me joining a friend for a back and neck massage which turned out rather mediocre.  A new beauty salon opened and we suspect we were used as guinea pigs for students but then it was so cheap, we should not complain.

Then another friend was in town after a trip to New Zealand and she popped in and gave me a lovely gift of fabric.  Nice to have friends thinking of you when they travel.

This is how far I got with my owl.