Orange Peels

Before work yesterday a quilter arrived at my office and asked if I could quilt for her.  She too sent me a picture of the quilt beforehand to allow me to toy with different ideas.  However, when she dropped the top off, she required the quilting not to be dense.  Sadly I am a custom quilter; I thrive on dense quilting and don’t believe for one moment that quilting makes a quilt stiff.  It is either the batting (polyester) or applique paper but opted to do my best.

So after playing with new ideas and having to quilt at least every 4 inches (as per polyester batting requirements), I decided to go with orange peels.  Hopefully, it will not be too busy for the customer.

Fractured Squares – Blocks B finished

After work on Friday, I quickly cut a practice piece with backing and batting for the long arm.  During the week I spend a lot of time on YouTube, blogs and Pinterest in search of new ideas for quilting motifs and I always find a least one thing I’d like to try out.  So once I get this loaded I can practise what I’ve seen.

My daughter, who took the baby to a show for babies nearby, stopped in to breastfeed the little one and once they left, I got going on my B blocks.  With all the pieces already cut, this went fast.

I only had 1 round left to do when the cricket against Australia started and I just had to stop.  Didn’t want to miss a thing!  My daughter and the baby returned to sleep over to give her husband somewhat of a break in which he could watch a movie from beginning to end, spend time with the dogs and do all those little chores he so badly wanted to do.

Up early on Saturday, I finished the B blocks and now I can start joining these.

Remember the good deed I planned for this year?  I’d fill continental pillowcases with all my scrap batting and fabric and donate these to animal shelters.  My first one has been filled and donated.

Drag along quilt

One of my regular customers brought me this colourful little top to complete as a drag along quilt for a toddler.  Now this one was fun to do as I could simply do free motion quilting, no need or purpose for intense ruler work or marking of complicated motifs.  It went quite fast.

With this one done I can get going with my B blocks from the Fractured Squares quilt.

Fractured Squares – Blocks A done

I got up early yesterday morning to continue with my A blocks but didn’t quite finish when I had to go to work.  Back home, I made supper, put the parrot to bed for her afternoon nap, did some shopping and then decided to finish at least all my A blocks as I expected a customer quilt later.  I think I am satisfied but now this will have to wait until the customer quilt is done.

The customer quilt arrived just before 6 pm but she was kind enough to send me a photo with her booking, so I already had time to think about a plan of action, so after work today, it is all systems go.

Fractured Squares – The start

I’ve wanted to make this quilt for a very long time.  Apart from the fact that it is a free pattern by Becky Tillman Petersen, It is a wonderful scrap buster and I have heaps of those.

One weekend, while too tired to focus on decent free motion quilting on the frame, I decided to cut all my pieces, hoping I counted properly-being that tired.

With hubby playing golf this morning, me having finished all my shopping I started piecing knowing that I might be kept rather busy with customer quilts this coming week as they have already phoned to book.  My rescue sparrow acted as a supervisor as I worked.

I also picked a total of 64 chillies from a little tree outside and decided to make my own chilli sauce, still in the experimental stage but edible.

Not quite finished with the one set of blocks when hubby returned and then it was time to put the parrot to bed, feed the sparrow and wait for the big kids to join us for cricket on TV.

And what a terrible disappointment the cricket was!

Quilt for Gammie

Hubby and I went for a lovely romantic Valentine’s dinner with wine pairing at a local restaurant which was much needed now that the kids are out of the house and busy with their own kiddos.

The food was absolutely amazing and when given the choice between 2 deserts, we took both, hubby knowing that I don’t have a sweet tooth, enjoyed both. However, this did not happen before I finished a quilt

A regular client made a quilt for her little dog, a total water and fishing fanatic…. The dog that is!  She however brought along a high loft polyester batting that I haven’t used before BUT a couple of days before, our South African Q’nique what’s app group discussed this, so I told her it would be a gamble but I’d give it a try.

Now on face value the quilt looks fine and it shows a lot of texture but it caused several problems.  Because of the small size (30½ x 35½”), I couldn’t fully load the batting or top which left these to float on the backing.  The puffy batting caused the fabric to bunch up and I constantly had to keep it smooth by holding fingers either sides of the needle.

I also put on my open toe foot as I wanted full visibility when I wrote the name of the dog in the centre and the foot got stuck in the batting whenever I got to the side.

The last problem is that this batting had no right or wrong side and luckily I warned the quilter that the batting might ‘bleed’ through the fabric, which it did but it is not too obvious.

I am glad I got the opportunity to test this but I would definitely not recommend or even use this again.

Charity Play

Some people may call it charity ‘work’ but for these both hubby and I applied our hobbies which is all but work for us, we love doing it.

We have a local organization that goes into our townships (or squatter camps as they are better known) to assist animals in need.  These include vaccinations, sterilisations, treatment against skin conditions, ticks, fleas and also handing out collars, kennels, food and blankets to name just a few of the things they do.

Hubby with his love for woodwork decided to make them a couple of kennels and I think he did pretty amazing.  These are all treated, plastic inside the roof and vinyl on the floors.

I then decided to equip one kennel with a quilt.  This is not the best fabric or colour but for a doggie never having had any shelter, surely good enough.

This quilt also served as a practice round for a customer quilt for her dog.  I also, after receiving the top, decided to put doggie’s name in the centre and then fill the rest with cloud-like motifs.

Royal Squares – Completed

I got this quilt loaded last Friday, knowing we had to babysit late Saturday afternoon, so I didn’t want to get too involved to a point where I didn’t want to stop.  So I fooled around on one border only doing simple echoed circles.

After babysitting and getting to bed way too late for 2 nights in a row, I wasn’t up to much the Sunday, so I opted to watch tennis and started cutting for my next scrappy quilt instead. If my counting wasn’t crappy (as it usually is) this should make a fairly big quilt.

My son rescued an adult Hadida with both legs entangled in lint/rope and brought it to us to keep overnight.  We took it to the vet the next morning and they managed to cut the rope but the rope cut so deep into the flesh that we’re not sure any blood supply went to the lower leg.  However, as the rope was removed, a small part started bleeding which meant this could attach again.  The vet bandaged the leg and gave us a couple of days to keep it as quiet as possible to see what would happen.  Sadly it didn’t make it and died the Wednesday night.

This quilt only had 2 blocks and in these, I chose to do ribbon candy in the cream and a continuous line motif in the coloured squares.

With this one finished I can honestly say I made a mentionable dent in my scrap drawers but still have plenty left to work with.

This quilt measures 90" x 90".