Playing with my new pen tablet

With hubby off playing golf on a freezing Sunday, I got my newest toy out for some practice.  Now I know I still have a LONG way to go but the more I practise, the easier it must get.  So off I went.  It started out rather rocky but I do think I got better the more I tried.

Then I needed a quilt top to try my hand on and I dug through my panel drawers and found two matching train panels that I could join to form a reasonable sized quilt.  Stitched these together, took a photo and playtime it was.

I am actually so enjoying this as I don’t have any unpicking to do when I make a mistake; I simply erase and start over.

I was also due for a cellular phone upgrade and my son – far more clever than I am – usually chooses a phone for me.  This time however I asked for a phone with a stylus as then I can do the same exercise on my phone when I am not near a PC.  If all goes well the new phone will arrive this week, so rather excited about my new toys.

Quilted duvet cover

I was asked to quilt this duvet cover seeing that the recipient likes the colours but from past experience, I’ve learnt it best to not simply try to stuff the batting in between the top and back but to unpick totally, find a larger replacement backing and cut the batting to fit the top.  So unpicking I had to do.  Then I popped the top and new backing in the washing machine just to get rid of any sizing and to allow me to cut it truly straight on all 4 sides.

Taking a hint from the printing on the top I decided to do Swirls and leaves, a motif I once saw Adria Good do on a top she quilted.  Mine would definitely not be as picture-perfect but I still had time to start practising on paper or the whiteboard. As Angela Walters says “80% of successful quilting is knowing where you are going.”

Did this one rather fast (large all over motifs do go quick) but I am always a little surprised how non-quilters think that a quilt comes off the frame with the binding on.  Luckily up to now, I’ve remembered to ask whether they knew someone who’d do the binding for them and also, up to now, got rather perplexed looks from them.

So I did the binding on this one too.  There was enough backing fabric left to be able to do this.

Eating, shopping and no quilting

DIL invited us for supper on my son’s birthday on the 21^st of August and as with all her cooking, absolutely magnificent even though the brisket took her a full day to cook.

Needless to say, visiting them, we simply cannot escape the little terror that would use any excuse just to be by his grandad. However, grandad had to be at the office at 6 am Saturday morning and left while the little one was still asleep and he was stuck with me.

When he returned home, I treated myself to some long arm videos and practise sessions which can never be underestimated.

Had youngest granddaughter Saturday afternoon and this one is seriously trying to stand alone.  I invited the kids for cake on Sunday but my daughter simply decided she couldn’t wait a day longer and had a slice.

On Monday I invited the kids over for curried lamb (head, stomach and feet – called “afval” in South Africa) but seeing that the curry had a bite, got pizza for the little ones.

I ordered wide printed sheeting from Chamdor.com for quilt backings and the parcel arrived on Tuesday at the office.  I am happy with the quality but should take a closer look at the print on the fabric next time.  I ordered a blueish colour and it turned out to be full of grocery related word.  So we learn.

My son helped me to purchase this tablet pen online and although another learning curve, I’d be able to audition quilt motifs on my PC screen instead of having to print it on paper in a plastic sheet and use a whiteboard marker.  Guess what I’ll be doing the next couple of days?

Kaffe Fasset applique

This quilter always does something different; with this quilt, she not only used Kaffe Fasset to piece the quilt but also did an applique motif with the same fabric.  She requested an all-over leave pattern around the centre applique panel.

Then she asked me to stitch veins inside of the leaves.

Because I go to bed early I only squared the backing and loaded the layers on the frame before bedtime but up at 4 am I was able to do the all-over leave pattern as well as all the veins before hitting the shower at 6 am.

I was hoping to be able to do my normal early- Tuesday- leaving –the- office -routine but it was wishful thinking.  One of the admin staff lives with family who tested positive for COVID and is in self-isolation, so that means I can’t simply go whenever I please.  Imagine me telling a customer “sorry, I need to bring my dogs inside, can’t help you any longer”!

After work, I got to start echoing around the applique but this posed to be a massive problem.  With all the colours I either lost my line or simply did not see the applique motif and stitched right through it.  Heaps of unpicking done on this.

My daughter and the baby came to visit one afternoon, so not much more quilting done further.

I felt the area surrounding the applique needed dense quilting in the hope the applique would stand out somewhat but I am not sure the loft in our local cotton blend batting would allow this.  The only way to find out was to try.  I used a dense meandering (smaller scale) to try and achieve this.

I don’t think the loft of the batting allowed for my plan to fully work but one does see a little fullness in the border areas surrounding the centre applique panel.  My wish was to accomplish this with the centre applique itself. On the back, the centre applique looks almost better in standing out, so maybe it was a combination of the low loft batting and the extremely busy fabric that caused the applique not to pop.

I had my hair cut and coloured yesterday and now I’m good to go for another couple of weeks.

How I join Loomtex batting

Now this is definitely not the ONLY way and not necessarily correct but works for me and a quilter recently asked how I joined these.  With Loomtex (being polyester) one cannot use an iron and joining tape to join these but I am just too stingy to simply throw them out.

So I’ll start by having at least straight edges on my scraps, mark a half-inch line on one part.

Overlap these and join with a wide and long zig-zag stitch until I have a larger batting piece than my 12½ inch square ruler.

Then I lay my ruler over the piece and cut a perfect square.

The small bits to the top and left will be discarded but I can still use what is left on the right and bottom.

I will keep on doing this and then join the blocks again marking my half inch line and making sure my scrim stays to one side.

I keep adding blocks until I have batting 12 inches wider than the width and length of my quilt top.  I also turn my seams in different directions so as not to have all going the same way.

If I have a longer length of batting I will not chop these into squares but simply cut a straight edge to join to the previous.

Soon enough I have patchwork batting and once sandwiched between the top and backing and quilted no-one will ever know or feel the difference.

Some time without quilting

This break was so needed, I had time to clean every nook and cranny in my frame room, went shopping for oldest granddaughter’s birthday gift; bought the new base and mattress for the guest bedroom and helped hubby bring in the new and take out the old, washed all the quilts done for Stitches for Africa and got those to the courier company.

Treated myself to some pampering in doing face scrubs and masks several days, invited friends over for supper, which was delivered fully cooked in my own dishes late the afternoon of the supper.  How much more fun is entertaining when you don’t have to stand in the kitchen all afternoon and the food was divine to say the least.

Thursday I went shopping for new oven dishes but was so disappointed in one of my favourite stores.  I waited about half an hour for help and in the end stalked someone helping another customer.  Then they only had 1 of whatever I wanted, no offer to order more (well-known brand and surely easily available), so I ended up buying different shades of white from different brands.  Back home it was time to clear the cupboards from all the broken/missing/chipped dishes.  Felt great. The gardener will at least have a feel-good Saturday when he takes possession of a bed and dishes. 

Later the afternoon a quilter dropped off a quilt and I spent the rest of the afternoon doing a little marking on the white areas.

We had granddaughter’s birthday party on Friday and grandson decided to come home with us for a sleepover or as he calls it ‘going to grandpa’s school.’

This quilt posed somewhat of a problem with choosing thread colour.  The rule of thumb is that you use the same colour thread top and bottom or at least similar shades BUT with all the white areas in the quilt and having a plain purple sheet as backing I could not see my way open to quilt all the purple areas with white and then have purple thread in the bobbin, this would surely have shown plenty of thread pokies on both sides.  The quilter said I could use all purple but to me would have taken away from the pattern and the piecing as the purple would have shown all over the white.  Quilting should enhance a quilt and not really steal the show.

So I elected to use purple for all the darker spots and when I got to the white I changed both bobbin and top thread to white.  Better have the back looking less perfect than have a top screwed up by selecting the wrong colour thread.

In the end, the white thread on the purple backing didn’t look too bad but I still would have preferred a printed/multi-coloured backing.

Quilt 7 – Stitches for Africa

 

This then is the last of the quilts I received from Stitches for Africa. I think it is made using the Jelly Roll Race pattern but to me, an ideal chance to practise my border/sashing designs.  I counted 35 rows, so if I select 5 motifs I can repeat them 7 times.

For this one, I joined batting again and made a nice dent in my batting stash doing these quilts.  We have a public holiday and hubby made me breakfast as he didn’t yesterday when it was Woman’s Day; he played golf early morning.  He then left to help the younger kids with their fence, so I had the day all to myself.

I started off with a motif that I am fairly familiar with but once done from left to right I came back for a second pass doing a smaller motif inside the first.

The second motif I’ve seen many times but never applied it to any of the quilts I’ve done, so this was new to me and I think rather pretty and easy.

Third up was the paperclip, a motif I learnt when doing an internet class through Bold Notion Quilting, this was so much fun way back then and now.

This motif is called Penguin Curl and I first saw a video on it by Quilted Joy and months ago promised a quilter that I’d do it on her border but I chickened out last minute.  At that stage, I did not feel comfortable trying something new on a customer quilt.  Well, now I can do it.

Another trusted old favourite is the herringbone and I spaced mine out wide for the first pass and came back with a smaller version inside from the right to left

I should have stopped at the fifth motif but there are just so many to choose from that I changed my calculations and opted for 7 motifs repeating these only 5 times.  This was a continuous half heart.

Last up was Onion Peel a motif I tried when doing a dog blanket a while ago.  I don’t think I got it quite right this time but it is done and that’s the way it will stay for all the other repeats.

For the two side borders, I did half-inch wide piano keys as these are fairly successfully done when quilting from top to bottom having to advance the quilt regularly.  The blue water-soluble pen lines will be removed during the first cold water wash.

Done just as hubby arrived back home.

That concludes all the quilts for others that I had in my possession and I think my arthritis hands and shoulder can do with a break.

So I ended off this public holiday in the best possible way.

Quilt 6 – Stitches for Africa

Repeat number 3 using the same pattern in different colours.  After the extremely slow ditch stitching, I needed a fast going quilt.  Loaded this one early this morning, decided on a motif and I planned to try and finish this before hubby returns from his Sunday golfing.  The only distraction can be the parrot who becomes extremely bored having to just sit by me while I quilt but I thought whenever I give my back a break, I’ll take her out for a while.

Mission accomplished…. At 11:20 I switched off my machine and this quilt was done.

Another postage stamp quilt

I had somewhat of a different afternoon on Thursday in that I didn’t just come home, prep salad and put the parrot to bed before I started to quilt.  I went shopping.  We are looking for a new bed for one of the guest bedrooms, I don’t feel it is tediously uncomfortable, but then I don’t sleep there often but my daughter complained the mattress was really bad.  So after many years, I had the shock of my life to see what a brand new bed (without headset) cost nowadays.  Not purchased yet but at least I know what to expect.

Then I went shopping for a wedding gift for friends.  With all the commotion around COVID, they had to put off their wedding plans with invited guests and make it a tiny event.  Bottom-line, they still get married, and that needs celebrating and good memories.

While in the streets I bought raw peanuts to roast at home.  I eat heaps of peanuts (any nut for that matter).  Drizzled my raw nuts with a little olive oil and roasted them, leaving some to slightly burn…. My favourite when I add salt to it.  So now I have a huge dish to take to bed as my bedtime snack.

I cut, joined and stitched the binding to the front of the previous quilt.  Hand stitching the back will be done when I sit by hubby of have some TV time.

As for my computer at the office, it WORKS!  Apparently, the network cable was faulty, so at least not a user error.

This quilt was brought to me on Tuesday but then I still had the previous quilt on the frame and the quilter, a very brave soul, only wants me to stitch around the large blocks as she wants to do the rest by hand.  I admire the persistence of these quilters, little old me is way too impatient.

I squared the backing, oiled and cleaned my machine but then watched TV with hubby and started on the binding of the previous quilt.  Loaded the layers Friday after work just to realise I’ve got the front stuck between the back and batting…. What a struggle!  I thought to only remove the top pole,but with my lack of space, I simply couldn’t move the pole out, so unrolled the batting from its pole to redo the whole process.  Still struggling with this, my daughter sent a message to say their geyser burst and everything in the baby’s room was soaked.  I at least can do cleaning clothes, seeing that after almost 3 years, I still screw up the loading of a quilt, so I went to her to see where and how I can help.

Back home hubby helped to replace the top pole and hopefully now I can start having fun behind the frame again.

I said ‘fun’ forgetting how extremely slow stitching in the ditch is.  Just when I think I’ve hit the sweet spot, the needle would get to seams intersecting or a seam pressed in a different direction and hop out of the ditch.  With previous quilts I’ve made up my mind not to unpick every time I went out of the ditch as then I will never finish any quilt.

Finally done on Saturday evening and my back is screaming at me.  Not much quilting to show on this one but the quilter deserves a shout out for all the time, trouble and love that went into piecing this.

Quilt 5 – Stitches for Africa

I looked forward to this week’s Monday so badly, thinking I’ll go in, finish my month-end and be ready as can be when my NEW computer arrived on Tuesday.  The computer, I currently use, was purchased in 1998 and tediously slow.  While waiting for ANY program to open, I can easily play 2 games on my phone just to wile time.  Got going as I arrived at the office, patiently waiting between steps as I hoped the computer would get to where it needed to be but then NOTHING worked and I simply forced a shutdown.  After restarting it wanted to do a Windows update….. Boy did that take forever.  Finally at 12 noon I could only start working.  With parrot needing to take her afternoon nap just after 1 I barely got anything done before having to leave.

Tuesday the new computer arrived and the speed was amazing.  Sadly I leave even earlier on Tuesdays, so I barely had time to experiment before having to go home.

Leaving the office early on Tuesdays, that is the other wonderful news for this week.  My ‘once-a-week’ cleaners were closed during the lockdown and then restarted after 4 months.  It felt like Christmas walking into a clean house and knowing I don’t have to vacuum, mop, dust or wipe.  I, therefore, come home to let the dogs in as they are kept outside while the cleaners do their thing.

My third set of good news is that I again ordered meals for the week.  Tuesday evening we ate Chicken cheesecake and I added fried battered onion rings and a salad.  I can get used to this life with plenty of good news.

This quilt used the same pattern as quilt number 4 just in more girly colours.  I decided to do a flower motif in the hexagons more for me to practise backtracking as these were similar to stitching feathers.  I was not always successful but with practice, one tends to see what works better for you.  Unlike suggested, I rather have to go slower than faster.

I was up before 4 am on Wednesday, not because of a bad night but I think I was so eager to get to the office and try out the new computer.  The computer guy changed a couple of things and very new to me would be the way daily backups have to be done.  With one simple click, I can now backup all the admin computers in the office from my computer. Previously every computer had to be done individually. It may take up to 10 minutes but during that time I can set out the coffee mugs for when the other staff arrive at the office.

During those early hours, I got 2 more rows quilted so at that stage only 4 more to go. The flowers or rather the slower backtracking took some time.

As much as I looked forward to working on the new computer, it didn’t pan out that way.  I ran into so many ‘new’ issues and again sat idly around not knowing how to sort out the problems.  Computer guy was in a meeting and couldn’t rescue me.  Mysteriously after a couple of hours, the computer could suddenly link to the printer and I had all systems going but I was still so far behind on my work.  It was such a good feeling to be home in the afternoon, finish up this quilt…. At least something that worked in my life and had a feel-good ending to Wednesday.

Grandmother’s flower garden

The quilter dropped this quilt off at the office after I already left on Friday, so hubby brought it home.  Knowing that we’ll have the older grandkids for a sleepover, I opted to rather do the binding of the previous quilt by hand while sitting with them instead of trying to concentrate behind the frame.

Pizza and camp beds on Friday night was a huge (and messy) hit with the little ones.

Breakfast Saturday morning was equally interesting.  Our princess is a huge meat eater unlike her brother which is not too fond of dead animals, so I made bacon and cheese grillers and hubby made porridge but the little terror decided to make his own breakfast which looked like this……

… and he ate it!

Early Saturday morning I cut the batting and got the quilt loaded.  Sadly this quilter feels a quilt is just something that lies around in your house and not gets used.  She therefor got fleece as backing and just wanted me to echo inside and around the flowers.  I, however, wonder how the batting will withstand several washes in the not quilted areas or will it bunch up?

This photo shows a couple of flowers

Which can be seen better on the backing

The grandkids are becoming older now and can keep themselves busy for extensive lengths of time and I actually quilted while they were here.  Logan once came into my frame room once and asked what I was doing and not to complicate the answer, I said “I’m working” and so sweet he replied “o you are working” and left the room.

This morning we had the little one and her parents over and she had some fun with bubbles in the baby pool

I finished the quilt just before they arrived.