A steady week

We had a lovely fathers’ day celebration last Sunday at a local diner called Mozambik and the food was really amazing.  This year only two dads in our family and I can’t help wondering if there would be more next year? Here Oupa is being kept occupied by our Big Man.

Our princess didn’t want us to leave so after lunch both little ones came to visit and it so turned out that Princess stayed the night, didn’t go to school the next day and came to the office with me.  She was as quiet as a mouse and had her breakfast at the office. Her mom came to fetch her after work on Monday.

With winter in South Africa it is obviously hunting season too and even though hubby doesn’t hunt himself we do love our venison and “biltong” (jerked beef) and he bought two Springbucks.  Time to prepare these.

I spent most of the rest of the week FM quilting Sonja’s quilt, a true test on feathers for me as this was what Sonja requested.  Unfortunately the cotton batting is low loft and until being washed one doesn’t really see the effect of the quilting. This is the back of the quilt.

The little ones were over this weekend, so no more quilting got done.

A quick catch up

I befriended a quilter when I joined their Saturday group a few years ago.  When I decided not to be part of the guild anymore, I left the group too but quilter Breggie and I kept in touch, not frequently but via Facebook and the odd bumping into each other somewhere.  So one evening I noticed her statement on FB and commented on it and then things happened quickly.  I wanted to hear more and she said “one day over a glass of wine” and so it was.  Invited her for supper the next evening and expected another quilter, Sonja to drop off her quilt to have it free motioned. So there and then we had an amazing catching- up- get -together session.  Sonja had to leave early as her better half cooked for them (how lucky can a girl get?).

We never quilted a thing but it was good to just sit, chat and relax with like-minded people.  My pasta didn’t turn out bad either although I am not sure what Breggie’s verdict on this would be.

I purchased a new pattern to work on and I just love the instant gratification of a PDF download.  I am not too sure whether I fell in love with the quilt or whether I purchased it simply because I realized I could make it without having to purchase any fabric.  My design wall finally has some movement on it again.

Sonja’s quilt is loaded on the frame, so I have something to keep me busy for a while.

Challenging my Q’nique

When I purchased my machine I was warned, not only by the dealer but by other international users of this machine, that it dislikes certain thread and will preferably work with Isacord or Glide.  Now I bought Isacord and Glide but the whole time I wondered how one dead thing (machine) can decide it dislikes another dead thing (thread).

So one day with a little time on my hands I loaded a practise piece of fabric popped some variegated Marathon thread on the machine and got going.  My, oh my, what a beautiful result I got.

My fabric was roughly 1 meter by 1.5 meter and after seeing the initial results I simply kept going.  Trying out every possible motif I know or have seen somewhere.  I had perfect tension all over, no thread breakage and used 3 different threads types in the bobbin.

Simply could not just get rid of this practise piece, so I turned it into a dust cover for one of my domestic machines.  Not being a seamstress, the finishing sucks but I am sure it will serve its’ purpose.

Blue baby quilt

Unfortunately I haven’t done anything of my own but I was fortunate enough to quilt a perfectly pieced baby quilt for a fellow quilter.  She was worried about the dense amount of seams but she did a great job especially when ironing all the seams in one direction.  I don’t even think my machine realised it was a pieced top.  This is what the quilt looked like when she was almost done. Note the many seams in the light areas, all thin strips.

This is how the front turned out after quilting

And the back, which is actually a blueish colour but the lighting was not good when the photo was taken.

Labyrinth Walk – 2

So much have happened but very little on the quilting front.  I got my machine back from sewing hospital after just one week which I found astounding seeing that the repairs did not take place in the city where I live. So dropped off locally, couriered to another city, fixed and tested machine, couriered back to me…. All in ONE week.

I had my Labyrinth done and loaded it onto the frame just to realize I feel like the 1976 song by Mary Mac Green “Torn between two lovers” except that I had more than two lovers.  I was busy binge watching “The Missing” and when done with Series 1 only found out Series 2 was also available, Roland Garos started and I didn’t want to miss a beat and then granddaughter was admitted to hospital and me having to help look after Big Man seeing that he was not allowed in the hospital room with his older sister.

I was dead tired with very little to show for it.  Big Man is extremely active and one dare not turn your back for a second, I know as when I did, he found dog poo on the grass and decided “this is something I haven’t played with before, let’s check it out”…… ugh!!

Granddaughter was allowed to come home on Saturday however we are none the wiser as to what caused her fever.  They’ve tested basically everything and even took scans of her head, the diagnosis ranged from ear infection, encephalitis, severe post nasal drip and what not but we still don’t know what really made her sick.

We had both little ones over to sleep by us yesterday to give mom and dad an evening off, they’ve been sharing hospital duty and we thought they deserved it.  When the little ones left late morning, I quilted some and then took the most amazing afternoon nap and even with that plans to head to bed early tonight.

I finished the quilting and can now just do the binding but that will have to wait for another more energetic day.