Fish blocks

Once in a while, one needs a quilt like this.  Simple ‘I spy’ fish blocks with large sashing and cornerstones to separate these and being for a 4-year-old boy, with the quilter not having any special requirements, one can just let your hair down and have fun.

That is exactly what I had when doing this quilt.

Quilts with words

I had an interesting request from a quilter in that she wanted to visit her daughter in Mauritius but also take a quilt along.  Nothing too special but then she wanted words quilted all over the quilt as well as flowers.  Now I don’t have a computerised system and everything I do is freehand with the help of rulers and at first, I said “no”.  I, however, had a day or so to think about it and decided if I never accept challenges, I would never know whether I am capable of doing it, so I called back and said: “yes I’ll do it.”

She pieced the blocks in less than a day and then brought it along with 57 words I could choose from to me.  I could neatly space 31 of those. The scary part is that I got the quilt (75, 5” x 68”) on the evening of the 25^th of June and she leaves for Mauritius on the 4^th of July and still needs to bind the quilt.  So I had not much time for experimenting or fooling around.  Pedal to the metal as they say.

I finished the quilting on 27 June (two days, with having to do my day job in between…. Pat on the back to myself) and I do hope her daughter will enjoy searching for the words.

The quilt top

The back… can you flip the word and read ‘marathon’?

Postage stamp customer quilt

My customer quilt arrived and it was even better looking in real life than the pictures she sent me prior to finishing.  With her sending me pictures I had time to audition motifs that would not take away from the overall quilt but would be good enough to hold the layers together and have a neat visual appeal on the back.

First, though I had some of my Mothers’ Day voucher left and I made an appointment for a pedicure.  What bliss and yes, I fell asleep and snored!

The customer contemplates cutting the outer border once her mom’s bed is measured, so instead of going for definite designs that might be cut in half; I decided to do a simple meandering on the border.

Then the large blocks were outlined with stitch in the ditch, keeping the sashing clean and straight.

To fill the large 12” blocks I chose one of Dorie Hruska’s designs from her book ‘Making Connections’ to cover the block from top to bottom, taking away some of the strain of doing ruler work with the outlining.

About at this stage on every quilt, I’ve ever made I have these extremely mixed emotions.  On the one hand, I’d like to finish it and let the quilter know that it’s done and on the other, I don’t want this process to end.  I only get a comfortable rhythm midway through quilting and then it seems as if it abruptly ends.

I, however, guess I can’t simply keep the quilt on the frame forever.  This is the finished front

And this the back

Celebrate Panel – 2

With Monday having been the last day of our long weekend, I managed to get all the main aspects of this panel quilted before the customer quilt was due to arrive.  It felt good and I just had to get rid of the basting stitches and the blue marker.

Got up early this morning before work to unpick and sprits with water and there and then decided I’ll never baste a quilt using meandering ever again.  It simply took forever to remove!  All’s well that ends well and I got most of the pen marking and the basting out.  Now I can pop this quilt back on the frame to do the finer filling whenever I have the time or not have a customer quilt to do.

First though an amazing facial with the voucher my kids bought for Mothers’ Day and then start focussing on the customer quilt.

My customer missed our appointment time and I couldn’t wait because of my facial appointment.  Luckily I have not yet taken my panel of the frame and could therefore get started with the fillers.

This is my first attempt on dense free motion fillers and I think I like it….. a lot!

A non-traditional fathers’ day

The boys (son & -in law) took hubby out to a fathers’ day treat on Saturday at a nearby farm.  They went clay pigeon and target shooting and stayed for a venison steak afterwards.  Hubby had a whale of a time and appreciated this gesture.

On Sunday however, we all got together at DIL’s house but not for the traditional cooked meal.  The kids wanted to swop beds and these needed disassembling and reassembling.  So a group effort by the men took place and we decided to merely order pizza.  Our little man was just as eager to help.

After having my favourite interior decorator at our house to advise on some changes after replacing the passage carpet, hubby got started immediately.  The little guest toilet in the lower passage had the least changes to be made and everything basically just had to come off or out with white paint on the ceiling.  So the process has started.

6

Celebrate Panel – 1

Remember the new panel I purchased from Honest Fabric in May this year?  I wrote about it in THIS blog post.

From receiving it until now, plenty of other activities happened but it gave me ample time to stare at it and get some plan of the quilting I’d like to do.

Step 1 was to wash the top adding Retayne to the water to secure the colours won’t bleed. Once this and the ironing were done, I started marking the top.  Now this was the very first time I marked a quilt top before loading it to the frame and even though I decided on not too intense patterns, it still took a chunk of my time.  I also made sure I left plenty of space for random free-motion quilting without having to use rulers.

Luck was on my side when I started looking for backing and found the exact size Percale in my cupboard.  I planned to quilt using white thread, so the white Percale as backing would be perfect.  I’ve also ordered ballpoint needles especially suited for Percale, Batiks and Polyester and this would then pan out perfectly.

My needles along with lots of other fun goodies arrived and just as I had everything in order, a quilter that booked a space for June, months’ ahead of time, informed me that she’d come by next week for her quilt to be quilted.

Luckily I have two sets of zipper leaders which gave me the opportunity to load my Celebrate panel and fully baste it thus when the customer quilt arrives, I can simply zip it off the frame and replace it with it with her quilt. I use the weirdest and wicked thread colours for basting as I need to easily see these when taking them out.  On this quilt, it was a vibrant orange on top and chocolate brown in the bobbin. Huge meandering with long stitches secured the layers.

The basting went fast and with more of the weekend ahead I could get started.  Did the feathers first and for those scared of doing feathers, do watch THIS video by The Threadworks Factory.  Patricia really explains this so well.

This was followed by some straight line designs in the blocks.

Today we celebrate Fathers’ Day with the kids and the men still plan to disassemble and reassemble kids beds as a swop between the kids happens.  I think I should just sit there quietly, sipping my wine and overseeing the activities.

A Handy Dandy Scrap quilt completed

Now would you ever guess, a quilt riddled with fee motion design errors and it still turned out this good?

And this is the back…. I think absolutely perfect enough, or as quilting friend, Sonja Snyman, once said “if I could do it better, I would” (Thanks for the vote of confidence Sonja!)

Now for those who followed my blog, you’ll know…. The piecing was not bad but definitely not perfect. Measuring… just fine.  Free motion design elements…. A horrendous affair.  I didn’t keep track of my sizes/ patterns/ designs… a royal nightmare!!  Do the Royals have nightmares, I wonder??

Anyway looking at the bigger picture, thinking of the purpose… a colourful quilt, covering a bed, serving a purpose, what do we complain about?  This reminded me of this recent post by Becky Petersen found HERE.

So if it is not good in the end, it is not the end…. Guess what?  This is good and the end!

Finally my Handy Dandy scrap quilt is on the frame

I know I said I won’t be quilting much with the ICC and Roland Garros on TV but SA plays like crap in the ICC and with all the rain delays in Paris, what is a girl to do.

Plenty of first time tries for me on this quilt.

I thought I’d give printing a motif and then tracing it with the laser light a try.  This had a horrendous end result as you can see from the picture BUT I am not unpicking this.  Hopefully, once the whole quilt is done, no-one will even notice.

Another thing I am trying is to do all 4 borders in one sweep basically not having to turn the quilt on the frame once the top and bottom border is done, to do the side borders.  Now I do realise that this will only work in some cases but it is worth giving it a try on one of my own quilts.

Hubby offered up one of his smaller drills to me.  With this on a soft vinyl surface, I drilled small holes into the pattern – basically making my own stencil.

With the holes in the paper and taping it to the quilt I could use the blue water-soluble pen to mark on the fabric.

Then I followed the dots using Linda Hrcka’s BFF curved ruler and although I guess it can still improve this looks much better than my attempt with the laser light.

I was kindly reminded that my memory is no good anymore as when I got midway into the quilt, not having taken photos as I progressed nor made decent notes, I stitched the one pattern on the border twice the size that it should have been…… kay sera sera…..