The Stash Buster Challenge 2020 – Part 3 & done

Now this quilt was at this stage in the same lockdown level as our country.  Some things were good but others still not done.  Our politicians are absolutely braindead when making decisions regarding the lockdown and I couldn’t agree more with this saying I found on Facebook.

Luckily we are back at the office and from the offset things seem to be picking up faster than we initially anticipated, so we’re almost good.  I have been without my glass top hob for more than a week and after eating left-over barbeque for 3 days in a row, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had frozen soup and further opted to have food delivered to our house.  Friday evening we had amazing lamb rib with veggies and Jalapeno poppers as a starter, it was GOOD.

After quilting (for others) 3 quilts in one week and a day, I was content to simply having a break, no piecing, and no quilting, just time for me, me and me.

I finished the binding and added the label. This is my 8^th quilt for this year.

Farm panel

This was supposed to be quilt number 2 received on Youth Day (16 June) but with the backing being too small it was pushed back somewhat.  When I finally got started I foresaw a big problem with putting the top on the frame.  It became very clear that the quilter made use of the slap and stitch method when adding sashing and borders and did not measure the blocks accurately beforehand.

This caused the blocks to make bulges and ripples and unfortunately quilting it on a long-arm will not solve this problem.  The drawback for any longarmer is that one cannot do what you initially intended to but have to find motifs or ways to manage the bulging.

I decide to load the side with the most ripples first in the hope that stitching that part down, it might not cause all the problems later on.  Then I also basted a wide curvy line across the entire quilt also hoping this will contain the fabric bulges in a specific section and not push all down to the bottom and be a bigger headache at the end.

I am by no means criticizing the quilter, I’m quite convinced we all did this at some stage until we realized the blocks are puffy or someone pointed it out to us.  My blog posts are my timeline of things done, accomplished and ways I attempted to handle problems but if I, in the process, I can teach someone a little something, so be it.

The basting beforehand seemed to help a lot but I still had to push and pull the fabric on top in order not to have major puffiness in some areas.

As they say, all is well that ends well and I think it didn’t come out too bad.

The third quilt received on Youth Day

I haven’t quilted the second quilt yet as the backing was too small to be clamped on my frame, so while waiting for new backing, I popped the third quilt on the frame.

This one had Minky backing and although it creates a stunning effect on the back, I am not a huge fan as it stretches like crazy and with the top not having that much movement (or stretch) can create a weird bubble-like effect on the front.  So apart from my rails, leaders and side clamps, I also make use of pins just to keep things going well.

What surprised me is how many brand new quilters I meet lately and the fact that they make use of a longarmer to quilt their quilts.  When I started quilting I haven’t even heard the word and believed to be a good quilter, you need to suffer through the whole process of piecing and layering and struggling with your domestic machine to eventually (months later) have a completed quilt.

I don’t complain if people trust me enough to finish their quilts but cannot help wondering how many amazing free-motion quilters are out there that may never find out just how good they are simply because they never tried or persevered.  I often look at quilts on my beds and realise they were done on my domestic machine and I’m (without boasting) in awe about what I was able to do on my normal little machine.

This quilt was made with 12” blocks and these are somewhat too big for my throat space and I had to make use of the saying by longarmers to ‘divide and conquer’.  This basically means you divide a block into smaller sections but still give all blocks a similar look.

Asked the quilter to give me 3 weeks’ time to finish and I am really impressed that I got this done  within 4 days.

Singer machine panel

Tuesday, 16 June was a public holiday in South Africa, as if we needed to stay home one more day after a 2-month lockdown period!  Anyway, the youth have the right to a special day, so we stayed home, once more.  It, however, turned out a fruitful day for me as no less than 3 quilts were dropped off by me.  Now I treat these in the order that I received them, so the first up was a lovely Singer panel and from what I understood the couple collect old Singer sewing machines, so I guess this is meant to go up the wall.

I decided to ruler stitch around the rectangles and then echo the machine picture.

To make these pictures stand out I had to quilt down the surrounding areas and for this, I used a variation of quilt motifs.

When I wanted to send the client a picture, I decided to stage the quilt with an old singer I have at home.

But for those not into collecting things, this is the result

4

Beginner quilt

This beginner quilter entrusted me to do the quilting on this.  She apparently watched YouTube videos on how to do it herself but then decided to take the easy way out.  She made the quilt for her daughters’ hostel bed and I guess the daughter will be proud of her mom.

The quilt measure 48” x 81” and although not too big, I had another quilt on the frame and I finished that before I started with this one on Thursday.

Now done, the quilter will come to fetch it later today.

Lockdown relief

At the beginning of this month, our lockdown level was lifted from level 5 to 4 but whereas at the beginning of lockdown levels; it stated the building trade only to resume in level 2, we could suddenly start operating in full during level 4, which was good.  I am not sure our little business could have lasted one month longer without any income.  So life is, apart from masks and sanitizing constantly, fairly back to a normal routine AND the ban on selling wine was lifted as well, so now I can relax with a lovely glass of wine after work.

So being the first weekend after a full week of work I reckoned I could treat myself to my favourite and only hobby.  Now for this special treat, I have my bread buttered on both sides.  I have a quilt on the frame.

                       

And…. I have a new quilt in the queue on which I can practise some design ideas before loading it.

Still having to do normal weekend chores I start something in the house but then take 15-minute breaks in which I can quilt or play with designs.  Thus getting plenty done without making it feels like all work and no play.