A little bit of this and that

I’ve made modifications to my backing leaders after watching THIS You Tube video by Lorena.  For one I don’t have to find the center of my backings anymore and I wouldn’t need to use pins too.  I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet but if it works for her I’m sure it would for me.

I had ruler stands made for my long-arm rulers and it almost looks organised but I guess I will need a little more of these to make life easier.

The needle shaft on my machine got hurt and had to be replaced and after the replacement my machine refused to switch on again.  Boy, the problems I’ve had with this machine, just never seem to end.  I now threw my toys out of the cot and made a list of everything that has been bugging me, even after several ‘fixes’ and I expect this to be sorted finally.

The problem just is with 4 quilts waiting to be quilted I am now (yet again) stranded without a machine and I don’t have a clue for how long.

At least, not being able to quilt will make me cook, so for the next couple of days hubby will dine in style.

I’ve finished the top of my Simplify quilt and with the design wall empty I could actually start another project but at this stage I am just so frustrated not having my long-arm I just don’t feel like quilting.  Being bored however got to me and I played around with free motion quilting on my trusty PFAFF 2056 domestic.  You just have to love the tension on a PFAFF.  I’ve never FM quilted on this specific machine and with no supreme slider, no gloves and no spray basting I popped a test piece under the needle and it just went like a hot knife through butter.  If only I can have this feeling on my long arm although tension on my long arm has not really been one of my issues.

I also pieced large 15” squares of my fugly pink fabric in my stash to use as a backing for the donated quilt top mentioned in my previous post.

Binge watched The Messengers and moved onto watching Reverie and while my son got me a new laptop I thought I’d be watching this in bed at night alas be it TV or series on the computer, once my body hit the sack, I am as out as I can be.  So not much success with that.

Donated quilt top

Some time ago fellow quilter, Sonja, gave me a partially made top and said I should finish it for grand princess.  Kind of a daunting task taking over someone else’s project and pretending to know what you do!

This was what I initially got.  A bag filled with parts of this project.

I figured the best way to get going would be to at least iron everything out just to have a clearer view of what happened prior to me taking over and this looked much better

I also ironed the already finished part of the top to put that up against the design wall along with the magazine picture of the quilt.

I didn’t have the pattern but from previously cut blocks could measure for size and after very little cutting was needed I got to finish the top which turned out beautiful.

Thanks Sonja, I am sure granddaughter would be impressed.

Hopefully the last of winter

Winter has been playing games with us; being rather mild since April and then turning vicious on Women’s’ Day, to turn back to almost bearable just to give us a final reminder this past weekend.  I don’t recall ever finding it as hard to get out of bed as this Saturday.

We’ve been rather active with grand princess turning 6 on Tuesday and us having a family barbeque at their house…. Way too much to eat but that seems to be the norm when I plan a diet.

On Saturday she had a ‘high tea’ with some of her friends and it being as cold as it was we had to dress for the occasion, ladies were to be “mams” and the men had to have suits on. Well I’ve been the good grandma and got dressed in a neat dress, stocking and all while hubby cheated wearing a bow tie with his denims, shirt and jacket.

Big man would not allow us to go home without him and princess joined us later.  Between the two of them we were kept rather busy.

After their parents fetched them on Saturday afternoon I got to start joining the rows of my Simplify quilt and it is turning much bigger than I anticipated and after stitching together the first row, I ran to my frame to see if it would fit.  Imagine me, having a long arm and asking someone else to quilt it!

Progressive Detail quilting – 7

So all good things came to an end.  I had to work on Friday, after having Thursday as a public holiday, off but it still felt like a long weekend being all alone and I really enjoyed myself, doing what I want whenever I wanted to.

I even watched 2 series, Freakish and Siren, both scary but with my big dogs I felt safe and it is not as we have mermaids or chemical plants around us.

On Friday I had a meaty and savoury platter delivered to my house which lasted me the weekend.  I love this way of “cooking” (having food delivered to your house).

Hubby returned early Sunday afternoon and the big kids and grand babies later the afternoon and today it was back to reality.  I did however finish the final top in this online iquilt course by Judi Madsen but this one is riddled by mistakes, you’ll unfortunately have to do the course to notice them!

Progressive Detail quilting – 6

We are celebrating National Woman's Day in sunny South Africa and with hubby gone on a golfing trip and my big kids (with grand babies) also taking a break near the coast,I have me, as a woman,  all to myself.  PJ's will be the order of the day.

Okay, week 3 of diet but week 2 fell flat, so technically only week 2 now.  Day 1 is the hardest, so I chopped a tomato, onion with a little salt, pepper, sugar and brown vinegar and whenever the urge to eat arise, I would have a spoonful of that.  It gets me to dinner (no breakfast or lunch, only water, coffee and wine)….. need to buy a cucumber to add to the mix. I am however still 1 kg lighter than what I was when I started the diet.  So hopefully eventually I would lose some weight before summer.

My second top of this course was just as tedious an ordeal to mark beforehand….. I hated every step of the way.  Worst part being, me having watched the whole video of what to quilt where but by the time I got to the next section I couldn’t remember what the heck I did in the first section.  As Angela Walters (or some other famous free motion quilter) once noted you need to take photos as you go along to remember this crap.  With my bad memory I need photos and graph paper sketches which takes up so much time it feels I am losing valuable quilting time.

I haven’t learnt a new technique or motif but with this course you can see how to have different layouts and markings on the same quilt.

Another failed diet

Ughh, I positively started to diet some 2 weeks ago.  This winter was demanding and I ate to make to myself feel better or whatever other excuse would sound better.  Week one went great, not a single sin, not a single peanut reached my mouth and wonder above wonders I lost 2 kilograms!  Then we moved on to week two and the cookie crumbled, no in fact it disintegrated.

With grand princess in hospital on my birthday, celebrations had to wait for another day which turned out to be the Monday of week 2.  The restaurant we went to serves peanuts as a snack to kill time and I lost the battle.  I would certainly change my religion when it comes to peanuts!  Okay so day 1 week 2 screwed but my friends gave me glass ice buckets to get me to get rid of the plastic one I’ve been using ever since I needed an ice bucket.  Now I can have my ice served in style.

Then friend Karin phoned an invited us for supper on Wednesday….. way too much food and somehow the four of us always loses the plot when together, with too much eating and drinking but heck, we end up happy at the end of the day.  This is us having fun.

Before going home Karin gave me my birthday gift from her and replaced my bruised 12½” square ruler as at this stage all my blocks have neatly rounded corners from chipping away at my ruler with the rotary cutter. This was accompanied by everything I liked as can be seen on my photo.

Then my son and the grand babies came over for supper on Thursday seeing that DIL needed quiet time to do an online test and what did this mom do?  Cook as for the army with something of everyone’s favorite which I obviously ate a little of everything.

Friday off to shopping and dinner with my daughter and Saturday cake and tea for another birthday celebration.  Hopefully I’ll get my diet back on track this week although I already have another dinner date on Wednesday.