Sampler Blocks

This is the second quilt couriered all the way from Malgas and with my terrible sense of direction, even after searching it on Google maps, I still don’t have the foggiest idea which side of town I should go out, should I wish to get there.

The quilter suggested I only do something special in the borders but do an all-over filler in the sampler blocks and having finished my All-over-feather Bootcamp via the internet, what better excuse than to try this out.

Block

Corners

Borders

Completed

Pinwheel

This is the first of 3 quilts couriered to me which took almost a week to arrive here, I was rather nervous.

Although the quilter sent me photos beforehand, I prefer the quilt itself to arrive before planning anything.  I’ve found that a picture does not give the correct scale when trying to design something from a photo alone.  When the quilts arrived, I decided not to choose one but took the top one from the box first which turned out to be a pinwheel quilt.

We however had a barbeque by friends on Friday evening and I had terrible heartburn and didn’t get to eat that much and by all means, it was a moderate evening, no major drinking or any shooters but I woke up on Saturday with a depleting tummy bug which left me not good for anything on Saturday and this lasted until 5 am Sunday morning, only then I started feeling human again.  Then my sisters’ daughter came over to say ‘hi’ as they came through for a wedding.  Later the oldest kids came to fetch fishing gear for a trip they plan this coming weekend and late afternoon the little ones came over for a quick visit.

I got the quilt loaded somewhere between all of this and did a little every time I were up to it.

Started feeling better by late Sunday but by midnight the bug was back in full force, so my Monday started out somewhat wobbly.

Luckily this quilt got done.

Painted lady panel

 I’ve not been all that busy quilting but somehow things just got out of hand, plenty of tiny nitty-gritty that needs to be done, takes up time, and due to unforeseen circumstances just don’t get done.

I got this panel yesterday morning somewhere while waiting for quilts to be couriered to me… still not here, so I decided to start on this little one.

After unpicking early hours of this morning (tension mistakes, no problems as this was my fault and none of the machine), I fixed the mistake and the quilter could fetch it.

Feather Curl

 Adria Good one day showed a quilt while busy quilting it and as I closely looked at it, I thought to myself that it was a basic spiral with petals shaped in the form of some feather plumes.  Now Adria stands out for her wide range of free motion flowers she does as edge-to-edge motifs.  However, be not mistaken, she can quilt many other motifs but to me, she is the ‘flower girl’ of edge-to-edge free motion work.

Now I can do a fairly decent swirl as well as plumes and thought I’d give it a try.  With hubby still out of town for business, I got a sandwich loaded onto the frame but life happens while you’re making other plans and the youngsters phoned me early morning for baby-sitting.  The little one is on her third day with a terrible phlegmy cough.  Dad stayed home on day 1, mom took off work on day 2, and day 3 turned out to be mine.  Still not over the worst but we had a good day.  One just again realizes why you have kids when you are much younger, I just don’t have the stamina to do this full-time anymore. In the end, she stayed with me for 2 days, still not feeling better but at least ate the second day.

A new potential quilt customer phoned just as the little one awoke from her early morning nap and I had to ask to phone back.  Not good business practice but sometimes one has to do what needs to be done first.  My daughter managed to get off work after half a day and came to fetch the little one, while mom, herself, did not feel all that well either.

Phoned the quilter back and it turned out to be a rather lengthy conversation as with every conversation a quilter has when they get to meet another quilter.  This quilter is not local so she will courier her quilts to me and I’ll have to do the same once done.  After reading about lost quilts in the US I am somewhat nervous about this as South Africans do not even remotely have the service those in the US are used to and expect.  So, hoping for the best.

When Adria showed her finished quilt, she mentioned she saw a pantograph and decided to give this a go as a freehand motif and I’ve often looked at pantographs thinking some would be possible freehand but never dared being that brave.  This is therefore attempt number one even though nudged by someone else.

The major difference between a pantograph and freehand is that you do not follow a line with a laser light when working freehand thus neither your swirl nor plumes will all have exactly the same size but to me, that lends even more to give the quilt texture.

Tonight, we’re having the two oldest grandkids for a sleepover as their mom is out of town and we’re giving my son an evening off but this morning I’m having a quilter over and we’re simply planning to cut blocks for our next quilts (she does hers, I do mine) but adult conversation would be wonderful for a change.

Fans all-over design

When I enrolled for the all-over feathers Bootcamp starting on 21 April, I got the instruction to get a practise quilt sandwich ready, which I, as a diligent student 😊, did almost immediately. 

Then, Tuesday happened where I was kicked out of the house while the cleaners did their thing and would you believe it, I saw another tutorial video on a motif the quilter named fans. Now I’ve seen these quilted before, just couldn’t quite get the hang of it by only seeing pictures and there it popped up in a video, step-by-step with valuable little informative sentences in between and close-up views of the quilting and I thought, bugger this, I can make another practise sandwich, I have to try this out. 

This looks similar to the Baptist fan motif but done freehand, no stencil, ruler or pantograph needed and the best of all only a tiny bit on back-tracking. Those who know me also know that I prefer full custom quilting however, I do realize this is somewhat pricy for most quilters and not always practical especially if a quilt is made for a kid who’d be dragging it along or heavily coloured fabric or prints. In these cases, the texture is more important than motifs. So, my aim for now, whenever I don’t have customer quilts, is to build my repertoire of edge-to-edge free motion quilting. I’ve therefore started a new page to my blog specifically with these designs.

Postage fabric quilt

 This is the third quilt I had to do using the same fabric, I do believe sold as kits.  This one however is for a teenage boy, so no frills, flowers, and feathers on this one.

Still loving every moment of being a pensioner but life is getting ever so busy.  With so much free time on hand, I now again have the time to spend endless hours educating myself with YouTube videos on free motion quilting and I learn a heck of a lot.

Been playing with the idea of signing up (correction I have already signed up) for a Bootcamp of 4 days on all-over feathers.  The only problem I can foresee is that just then, I will receive a new quilt/s to do.  What do you leave and what do you do?

This postage fabric stamp was massive and I hope this grandson will appreciate all his grandma’s hard work.

To be Sashiko stitched

After the dense and intense quilting on the wholecloth you cannot imagine how relieved I was when the next quilter asked me to simply baste her quilt as she plans to decorate this with appliqued circles and then do Sashiko stitches by hand.

I really needed such a fast no-brainer.

Faux wholecloth

I hope all had a wonderful Easter weekend, remembering what it is all about but still found time to treat the little ones to some extra chocolates seeing that these, shaped in the form of chickens and bunnies, only comes around once a year and is a good excuse for both grandparents and grandkids to go overboard just a little bit.

The younger kids took their little one to Cape Town and its surroundings and obviously to the beach.  She loved the sand but the water was apparently cold and somewhat scary.

The older kids came over on Friday for a cheese and cracker platter and then we had their little ones on Saturday morning for the Easter egg hunt.

I however had an Easter weekend project to work on too and if you don’t have the creative abilities of a Telene Jeffrey to design a wholecloth are way too lazy to trace a design onto a background but if the quilter wants a wholechoth, you have to improvise.  I asked the quilter to then simply sew plain squares of fabric together for me to use as guides.  Then we selected a design to fit into every block and somehow these always seem to make secondary designs and voila ‘Bob’s your uncle’.  It came out great and if you only looked at the back or weren’t told that these were pieced blocks you’d never know.