Just fooling around

With my Q’nique in sewing hospital and me not really having anything I want to work on or start at this stage, I set up my trusty Pfaff Grand Quilter for free-motion quilting again.

Remember the wax crayon art my granddaughter did in THIS post?  

I decided to turn these into something useful after quilting it.  Two of the pieces were used as the front and back of a bag and the appreciation on that little face was enough of a thank-you.

The third piece I made into a scatter cushion that she can use in her doll house or where-ever she felt like.

We had her over for the weekend but at 5 years old this one is such a pleasure.  We simply set up several activity stations in the house and we don’t even know that we have an extra person.  She can build Lego, paint, play with dough, watch TV, play on her phone, colour in, and help me cook or her Oupa outside with whatever he does.

Even with her here I got to binge watch The Crossing and just as with The Handmaid’s Tale I cannot wait for the second seasons.

After she left Sunday afternoon I treated myself to making some stuffed Jalapeno poppers.  I eat a chili or Jalapeno every single day of my life as I truly believe this keeps me from getting the common cold, sniffles, snot nose or irritating cough my co-workers constantly suffers from.  Up to now I’ve settled for pickled chilies or Jalapeno’s and these mostly come from my own garden and I also pickle them myself.  However in winter I need something with more to the bone so I made my very first batch….. Fiery hot but oh so good!

All stacked up – 7 – Completed

As said, in my previous post, very little quilting happened last week.  Brother-in-law from Namibia arrived on Tuesday to see mother-in-law, staying in the same city as us, as she’s been a little under the weather lately.  As life goes, when he arrived, she showed no signs of the ailments she complained about which we kept him informed off, so he might just be thinking that we were lying to him.  Legal excuse or not, it was good having him over for a visit and he returned home this afternoon.

I had an amazing weekend while the men were either playing golf or shopping for Mother’s Day to watch free Angela Walters’ videos on Craftsy and learnt a lot by just listening to her instructions and seeing her stitch designs out.

Unfortunately my sewing machine had to be sent to Johannesburg for a check-up as I’ve experienced some problems with it, so even longer without being able to quilt anything.

It is also one of a very few times where I’ve completed a project without already having a new “must do” or “must have” quilt in mind.  O yes, I have enough fabric and patterns but just nothing that really screams “make me first!”

My friend Celdri, the one who brought me fabric from New Zealand, recently went to the USA and I was fortunate enough to get yet another gift pack. I am such a lucky girl.

For Mother’s Day we went out to lunch on Sunday with the whole family and Big Man truly enjoyed his rib.  This little face says it all.

I had the binding of my All Stacked Up quilt sewn to the front of the quilt and while visiting with brother-in-law I finished the back by hand.  Even though I used every possible scrap I had with very little planning of the colours, I think this didn’t come out too bad.

Miscellaneous

I haven’t done much quilting this week and I won’t do much next week.  Brother in law is coming for a quick visit all the way from Namibia and I think we won’t even have enough time talking, let alone me disappear for quilting.

The good news though is I found Potato Vodka at a reasonable price in darkest Africa and in our local city for R 200 a bottle.  My next option (but I do believe one pays more for the fancy bottle) would be R 469 and the first find would definitely work out cheaper than Best Press.  I paid R 135 for my last Best Press purchase of 500 ml.  For quilters moonshine I need a quarter cup Potato Vodka with 2 cups of water, the equivalent of a Best Press bottle, and from 750 ml Vodka I can mix 12 of these bottles.  So it is back to Quilters Moonshine for pressing my quilts.

I found a rather interesting video on You Tube with the name “What to quilt on your quilt?”  by Quilt Expressions over HERE.

Interesting enough there are only 5 shapes needed to be able to quilt and custom quilting can become overrated on a very busy or colorful quilt as I could clearly see on my All stacked up quilt.  The quilt in itself has so many colors drawing the eye that the quilting almost gets lost.  This is a video worth watching before spending hours trying to put as many as possible shapes and or patterns on a quilt or asking a long-arm quilter to spend hours doing tedious and costly work.

If I can now just find and finish a binding for this one, I will at least have some handwork to do while brother in law visits.

Multi-tasking over a long weekend

We had a long weekend in South Africa with Friday and Tuesday being public holidays and hubby closing the office on Monday… so an extra-long weekend for us.

I did a little of everything and getting dressed every morning was not necessarily part of this.

My All Stacked Up was loaded onto the frame and I intermittently worked on that and it is nice to see the progress and obviously advancing the quilt, knowing you’ve finished yet another chunk.

I’ve been watching You Tube videos by Dorie Hruska from Forever Quilting to start to learn to quilt continuously without so many thread breakages with having to start and stop frequently and I actually got it right on this quilt with very few stops.

I made a label for my On Point quilt and continued piecing my Labyrinth Walk quilt for daughter-in-law.

We took care of the younger kids’ ringneck parrot, while they went on a biking trip, and this little lady can be rather demanding.

I am raising a baby dove that I found almost frozen outside our office on the 18^th and this one too needs plenty of attention and regular feeding.

The grandkids came for a sleepover and I did some wax crayon art on fabric (ala Kelly Cline) with granddaughter while Oupa had to entertain Big Man.

We also took the grandkids to the annual Bloem Show which turned out a full day event and seeing that DIL and I had a Vodka ice coffee early morning, the day and entertaining the little ones seemed even longer.

I binged watched The Handmaid’s Tale, gave my cutting boards a spa treatment, made new leader cloths for my frame, washed my hair brushes and combs (something I’m really lazy to do) and in the end I at least have DIL’s Labyrinth Walk, still as a flimsy, to show.

It almost felt like Christmas break but now I am ready to get back to the office and my routine.  My ADD needs the structure!