Pink and Grey big blocks

The younger kids bought a new house and the little one has a double bed in her new room so I decided to make her a more girlish quilt for the big bed in soft pinks, grey and white.

Because I wanted a fast finish I decided on big 12” blocks alternating them with four patches and it went fairly quick. I also decided on a large overall flower motif for the quilting

With us being in the building trade, we close business for 3 weeks over December and this time is mostly spent with our family getting together more frequently which also entails traditional meals (associated with my childhood) and needless to say, we snack way too much.

So I guess this will conclude my quilting for 2019 and checking my notes I’ve completed 14 quilts for this year.

This one measures 96” x 83”, so taking a welcome break to start the New Year fresh.

Scrappy Circles

I received a quilt to do even though this quilter does most of her own free motion on her domestic machine.  She then told me she prefers plain and would have opted for meandering the background and SID on the circles.

My question to her was why she’d pay someone to do something she can do herself?  I suggested making just subtle changes in the design which would have a similar effect as what she planned.

For the background I used loops which to me is the same as meandering – just another shape, it also fills the back. I repeated these loops on the wide outer border as well.

For the inner circle, I used a continuous line also just popping in the occasional circle to keep to the design.  I only used stitch in the ditch (although I didn’t really have a ditch to work with) around the outer circle.

For the inner border, I used a soft swirl just changing direction as I moved along a side.

Completed top

And as usual, the motifs can be seen better on the plain backing fabric

Kelly – A whole cloth quilt – Completed

Not a whole lot of quilting happened as we were blessed by our third grandchild, a little girl and we chose to spend our days visiting our daughter and the little one at the hospital.  Isn’t she sweet!

When I did quilt, however, I screwed it up majorly!  I forgot some lines when I traced the design, quilted the tiniest pearls in what should have been open spaces and then had to unpick.  Now, if you’ve never unpicked pebbles, stitched in manual mode in a figure 8, feel blessed…. To unpick these are hell itself.  Here I’ve marked where leaves should have been and I simply pebbled my way all over the space…… CRAP!!

Unpicked for what seems like forever but as hubby said this would bother me, even if no-one else noticed and then got moving to the next section. Now I’ve read about quilters using rulers with any foot but after having a slight incident costing a little more than I expected, I’ve never used my rulers without a ruler foot until now and I realised, it is not a race, go slow and still get it done without constantly changing feet.  Then I also tried my hand at stippling…. Man was this fun.  If anyone of my customers chooses to do the outlines (and not skip lines) I’ll gladly do the stippling and I am so grateful for Telene Jeffrey from Lady Jane Quilting for putting her patterns out there for us to experiment on and improve our skills.

Then first granddaughter ended up in hospital again and even though she entertains herself on her phone one doesn’t quite feel like leaving her all by herself.  So more hospital visits were needed.

Somewhere in between all of this, I finished the quilt and even posted a photo on Facebook but then brother-in-law came to visit from Namibia or rather on his way from Malawi to Namibia and we had to get the family together as we don’t get to see him too often.

It was only when I changed bedding this morning and put the quilt on my bed that I realised I’ve never finished the post about this one on my blog.  My first full bed size whole cloth.

Kelly – A whole cloth quilt – Part 1

While at the South African National Quilt Festival, I purchased two printed whole cloth patterns designed by Telene Jeffrey from LadyJane Quilting.  These can easily be downloaded as PDF patterns from her online shop but then the enlarging is left up to you.  I preferred to purchase the already printed to size patterns.

Step one was to use my light table and trace the design with a white chalk pencil onto the fabric.  Not really my idea of fun and it actually took a couple of weeks to get this done.

Knowing that this will take a while to stitch out, I initially decided to baste the whole quilt with straight lines 4” apart but I feared my chalk markings might disappear when advancing on the roll. I then decided to keep with the basting lines on all the background areas but stitch the outer lines of the main motif as I got to it.

With all the background basting done and the main motif stitched, I could zip the quilt off the frame to accommodate a customer quilt.

When I got a break in customer quilts I put the quilt back on the frame and then had to decide on a motif for the background and after toying with several ideas I decided on a simple medium-dense meandering as I didn’t want the background to take away from the centre motif.  Now this was nice to do, no rulers, no thinking just calmly going from one side to the other.

I finally got done with meandering all the background around the main motif but while having another quilter over and looking at the quilt, we noticed I’ve skipped some of my lines.  Luckily, I’ll be able to stitch these in as I start with the filler.

I changed to a smaller open toe foot for the fillers as hopefully, it will remind me to go extremely tiny when stitching.  I’ve never done a dense filling, so this will be a new experience.

I’ve decided on dense pebbling (which I only found out yesterday is called pearls) instead of stippling for the filler and this will surely take forever and a day.  So with this post, already full of pictures, I’m hoping to return with the completed quilt in….. a couple of months??

A quilt made by a quilters’ mom

When one of the quilters I did a quilt for, came to fetch it I noticed she had a bag in her hand and just after folding the finished quilt, she handed me another quilt made by her mom. I thought it was lovely and luckily she was not in a hurry as I then have just started with another quilt on the frame.

I am surprised at how busy I am kept since having a long arm machine.  It will only be 2 years in November and I’ve never advertised that I quilt for others but somehow our city is not that big and word of mouth travels fast.

Fun things first and friend Karin, I and our spouses attended a Botiver wine tasting evening.  It may be nothing to most but to me, rather special.  When I ordered my Q’nique (November 2017) I wanted to know as much as I could about the machine and did searches on almost every platform I could find.  

So turned out that I saw another South African lady on Facebook that owns the same.  Immediately befriended her saying I need all the help I could get.  Now one thing leads to another, phone calls, What’s App messages and heaps of e-mails and by now, apart from struggles we may encounter with a quilt or machine, we’ve become friends talking about everything else too.

BUT… we’ve never actually met.  She lives on a farm some 10 hours’ drive from us, so not really something we’d do in an afternoon or even a weekend.  Now one of the wines showcased on this evening was produced on their farm and I got to meet her husband!  Even though it was not my friend, at least I am getting a little closer.  Maybe someday.

Back to quilting.  This was a rather small quilt compared to what I normally do, so it went rather fast.

Angel Baby Quilt

I saw this darling little quilt on one of the quilting Facebook groups I followed but it took me a while to actually order the pattern. 

Obviously marking the background took what felt like forever and a day but finally I had the marked top on the frame, ready to quilt.

Quilted the first row of feathers and removed the blue pen markings to see the effect and it looked good.

Finished this in a weekend but in hindsight, this quilt should have been made using fabric that wrinkles less than cotton.  If I ever muster up enough courage to do another, I will keep that in mind.

This photo was taken from the designers' website and with the fabric they used it looks so much better.

Another Mystery

This is the third quilt of this kind, done as a mystery by one of our local quilt groups that I had to do.

Fortunately, they were all done in different colours otherwise I might not have made it. It was brought to me on Monday 24 September and with it being a public holiday the Tuesday with us spending time with the kids, I didn’t get a fast start. I basically only squared the backing and got the quilt loaded before I had to continue my working week and with it almost being the end of the month, my days at the office are long and busy.  I get home rather tired from number crunching and not always in the mood to quilt.

As usual, I printed a picture, auditioned some motifs, even laid my clear plastic over the quilt to get the impression of the actual look/size and got going.

First border and one row down, I realized this is not working.  I didn’t like what I saw, didn’t think I’d like the final outcome and there and then decided to set up a date with Jack the ripper which lasted a couple of days.  Fingers aching from trying to pull and get hold of all the thread I had a couple of fewer fun days and worst of all, I simply could find anything else design-wise that was pleasing.  

Figured out that switching off is the first step, unpick and relax, get month-end done, pour some wine afterwards, take a fresh look at the printed picture and try again. The unpicking was gruelling taking 3 afternoons and all of my Saturday in 15-minute increments.  My fingers felt like they belonged to someone else.

Finally, on Sunday morning I could start quilting with the previous quilting needle marks still visible in the quilt but these should disappear in the wash. I must admit that I’ve never been this unenthusiastic about doing a quilt, not because of the quilt; I think the whole process of unpicking just got to me.

I took Monday off from quilting, invited the big kids for supper and just relaxed with the family.  We had a lovely pork roast and my fingers/hands needed a break.

I resumed quilting in all earnest on Tuesday and just when friend Karin and her hubby arrived for supper on Wednesday evening I could roll this one off the frame.

A somewhat blue Monday

Ah, life loves playing tricks on me but hell yeah, I go with the flow.  After having finished 2 customer quilts in a weekend, I spent most of my Sunday changing seasonal clothes.  Winters’ got stuck in a guestroom and summers’ moved to the main bedroom cupboard.  

Then I woke up on Monday and during the night, hell froze over and it was extremely cold, back to the guest bedroom I went, digging for clothes. Still shivering I got into my car (with those annoying little alarms should you reverse into something behind you) pressed the remote for the garage door to open, annoying alarms went quiet, garage door motor stopped and off I went, ready for one day at work, before having a public holiday amidst an almost month-end and slash-bang life went on strike.  I heard this awful noise and realised the top of my car ran into the garage door that didn’t go up all the way. 

Now, these are really old and I don’t blame them for not always wanting to go all the way.  So there I was, phoned hubby to tell him to choose “I smashed the car or destroyed the garage door”…. For a moment there I honestly believed he’d tell me not to bother to come into the office…. Wishful thinking, he came, he sorted and told me to get to the office while he finished off.

So he took the day off from work to fit new doors.  About time, I reckon, but he just had to wait for me to be the culprit???  We bought this house in 1994 and by then I do believe the previous owner/builders stayed here for 11 years, so what the heck, we were due for new doors.

So now, even though poorer and not very glamorous, we have spanking new garage doors.

Well it’s a new day, a public holiday, son-in-law’s birthday that we will combine with celebrating ‘braai’ (barbeque) day later. I’ve received my new customer quilt, took a photo to allow my creative juices to start working, and squared the backing.  I just need to get dressed to await another quilter picking up her quilt today.

Recycled denim quilt

Now this was a first for me, working on denim, which I guess should not be a problem BUT the customer brought rather thick denim for the backing too.

Getting to the corners of a block was a nightmare as the machine foot simply could not go over all the layers.  Fortunately, I warned the quilter that I may not get this right but she said it is intended as a picnic blanket and she’d be fine with the outcome.

Now I have one day off before the next quilter brings her quilt.  So time to clean my frame room to start fresh.

Plenty of pink

I received a quilt from a customer intended for her tomboy daughter, so I read between the lines and decided not to do anything floral or feathery.  The first step was to print a picture of the quilt and start playing with my sharpie.

With the idea formed I did the first row of blocks and already then I can see if this would be good or not.

Even though ruler work takes a lot of time, this went surprisingly fast but I think the fact that I could find a fluent thread path helped in that it omitted regular starts and stops.  This is the back.

This is the front.

Table runner

This was the quilt I attempted with my machine acting up in every possible way.  I had to accept defeat and zip it off the frame to allow for the machine to be sent to Johannesburg for service.  What upset me most is that it HAS been for a service locally and that this is where my problems started.

All’s well that ends well and the technician in Johannesburg is to be praised for his ability to fix my machine super-fast.  It was wonderful to be able to stitch knowing the tension is perfect, the stitch lengths are good and I can simply focus on my designs.

I decided to quilt one motif in all the light background squares and alternate motifs in the two different coloured brown squares. I changed the thread in the brown squares to a brown on top and kept the cream in the bobbin.

The runner is not big (78½” x 23½”) and what should have taken me no longer than 2 afternoons, now took longer than a week.

                                                                                  The back

The front

Milestone blanket

As the saying goes, it never rains, it pours!  After loving my time at the South African National Quilt Festival my machine went to our local dealer to have the bobbin winder fixed and he suggested a service too, seeing that I almost have my machine for 2 years.

Machine returned, bobbin winder seemed to work okay again but that is about where my pleasures ended.

My DIL and her sis bought a milestone blanket for my pregnant daughters’ stork party.  They were rather disappointed when it got here and turned out to be nothing more than a printed polyester sheet.  So mother-in-law had to solve the problem.  Used a white percale (I hate this stuff) backing and wool batting and marked my grids, definitely not something I would ever do on a bed quilt, way too tedious.

I then decided to simply outline some of the printed pictures and keep it as simple as possible.  Surely the focus should be on the baby and the month the photo was taken in and not on the background quilting.

We also decided to stitch the baby’s name in the pale pink banner.  Easy to unpick and change should another girl happens!

This however all happened midst a myriad of problems with my machine, skipped stitches, horrible tension and leaving me beyond frustrated.  Some stitching was so bad; I redid it with my domestic sewing machine.  This needed to be done, so I pushed ahead.

Now sadly for my daughter but good timing to me, she ended up in the hospital with something causing painful swelling of the glands around the neck and facial area. Some days it seems as if doctors simply play guessing games.  One specialist said it was The Epstein-Barr virus with the second specialist differing from the first, thinking it was tick bite fever, so eventually, they got an internist to do more test and he diagnosed a spider bite. She had several bite marks on her head.  I guess spider got entangled in her hair and fought his way out. With her in hospital however, I could work and relax not fearing she might pop in any moment.

After this, I started another customer quilt but my machine problems continued and my local tech is not doing it for me, it’s his way or no way, even though other methods/ thread/ tension has worked perfectly for me in the past, he simply does not listen to any other than his own reason.  So off machine went to Johannesburg once more, seeing that all his methods didn’t work either. 

Ranting over, I think the girls were satisfied with the way I turned their flimsy into a blanket and we’ve had the Stork party yesterday, so I can now show this.

The 2019 South African National Quit Festival – Shopping and fun

I arrived at Johannesburg airport on Sunday morning at 11 am which left us with some time to have a light brunch and a glass of wine before hitting the road to the festival.  As said, previously, my family doesn’t think much of the distances they have to travel but to me, it felt like we drove to another city before getting to the venue.

My sis and her hubby did not appreciate or enjoy the vendors as much as I did and chose to sit in a quiet spot and guard my shopping.

Whenever I travel by plane, I find shopping extremely hard.  I have to constantly keep the allowed suitcase weight in mind, then it boils down to availability in my local town and lastly price.  When I cannot find something easily or locally, I don’t mind paying more but then again one doesn’t simply want to shop till you drop at the first vendor and then find the same, cheaper at another. 

Remembering where I saw what was just as arduous but BIL had much better memory and sense of direction and help with this on day 1.

Wide backing was an absolute must-have for me and nowadays one gets the most beautiful backing and I even caught myself matching backing colours as if I wanted to make a quilt…. Which is not too farfetched as I got beautiful fabric.

After being satisfied that I’ve seen what every vendor had on offer, we drove back home to get ready for a Teppanyaki reservation my sis made for the evening. While the two of us travelled to the Maldives we had Teppanyaki and it made a lasting impression on my sis but sadly trying to relive that one experience will never be possible.

My sis took me to a different restaurant for breakfast every morning and I don’t even want to think about the weight gained from this.  Luckily all good things come to an end and I will hopefully get back into my normal eating routine fast.

Apart from the wide backings I mostly focussed on stuff I will be able to use on the long arm.  I can order these fairly comfortably but saving on the courier charges cannot be discarded.  I also got two whole cloth patterns designed by Telene Jeffrey (Lady Jane quilting) and will hopefully someday muster up enough courage to actually stitch these out. I also could not resist buying a bottle of plum wine at the Japanese restaurant where we had the Tippenyaki and it is one of those things that you’d like the whole world to taste but on the other hand, not want anyone else, but you, to finish it.

Up early this morning, life goes on, after all, I had to do my laundry.  My sis’ Great Dane turned baby Chihuahua while I visited and thought nothing of it to try to sit on my lap or at least share a couch with me.  So dog hair and drool were on most of my clothes.