Baby quilt with triangles

From a huge king size quilt last week to this tiny baby quilt this week.  The piecing of these triangles was done masterfully with not a seam out of place and every corner connecting perfectly.

I had to get some physiotherapy and acupuncture before starting this one and my hopes for immediate relief did not happen, so with a heat pack on my shoulders and having plasters on my back and shoulders, I got going with this.

Constant quilting sadly causes a stiff neck and shoulders and when I slept wrong one evening it all turned worse and I just had to get help. I’ve had acupuncture before and it gave almost instant relief, this time however there were 2 spots where the physiotherapist simply could not release the muscles and I might have to go for a follow-up.  For now, I am just grateful I finished this little quilt and will do the exercises given until it is time for the next quilt.

The largest quilt ever on my frame

This is the quilt from Kimberley, I’ve been referring to and when the quilter gave me the size, we both realized that it was too big for my frame.  She offered to unpick one border but me, with my big mouth, said let me give it a go and I did.

The first problem I encountered was that with the ruler base on, the machine could not reach the edges of the quilt, so I had to remove that, meaning ‘no ruler work at all’.  Then I didn’t have enough space to the sides to add the side clamps which keeps the backing taught and prevents pleats and puckers.

So off I went, quilting with one hand while the other kept the backing taught, it was NO fun at all.  I however needed to put circles in the centre of the star-shaped blocks and after doing most of the free-motion quilting, I unzipped the quilt, put the ruler base back on and quilted perfect circles with a template.  Luckily these were not at the edges.

This quilt just had so many different areas and it was back and forth rolling all the time, changing modes and changing thread colours but I did it and vowed to NEVER again quilt another too big for my frame.

Pictures in no particular order.  This added up to 17 hours and 46 minutes of quilting.

Backing

Borders

 Brown steps

Cream steps

Curvy lines

Completed

Scrappy Chevron quilt

While having a quilting friend over one Saturday morning, I dug through my remnants to find pieces big enough to cut 10” squares for this quilt.  The tutorial can be found over HERE.

Ironing the remnants (mostly stuck into drawers and not neatly folded) took longer than the actual cutting but my friend abandoned her cutting project to iron for me which made my work much less.

After the older grandkids left the Sunday morning, I got cutting the background fabric and also got to do a little sewing to see what it would look like.  This is really a fast project.  Asked advice for whether to go organized with this or totally scrappy and the verdict was scrappy.

The organized version would have looked like this:

Wednesday, 5 May was the first time in a month that I could work on this again.  I managed to do almost 3 rows and a funny thing was that the quilter who helped me iron, phoned just on this day to find out how I am doing with this quilt.

I finally finished the top on Sunday, 9 May, measuring 84” x 84”

Then the tedious marking had to be done.  Here I marked instead of just using rulers.  I recently watched a video and I am sure it was by Judi Madsen but I may have this wrong (watch way too many quilt videos) who says that she doesn’t simply rely on her rulers but mark her quilts thoroughly.  This helps one not forget areas that you wanted to quilt or even what you wanted to quilt in an area.

I finally got it loaded on the frame on Tuesday, 11 May and then playtime started.

Sunday, 16 May I released it from the frame to check the back for any mishaps and then cut the binding.

I planned to do the binding Sunday afternoon while watching tennis and it started out good but then the older kids had load shedding and didn’t want to sit in a dark house for 2 hours, so they came over.

I got up early Monday morning and finished the binding and then had to pop it in cold water in the machine to get rid of all the blue line-markings.

I almost forgot to finish this post!  With he quilt on the washing line to dry, I started cooking supper and while doing that the Kimberley quilt was delivered.  I knew I had to finish cooking first otherwise it wouldn’t get done.  Tried 2 new recipes, one being chicken with orange peel and juice and cabbage with apple chunks.  This was served with quinoa and roasted butternut and only then could I pay attention to the new quilt.

Had another quilter over early evening for a glass of wine and only then realised the quilt was still hanging outside.  It is now done but the one thing that saddens me when using 80/20 batting is that once washed, the quilt seems to lose that lofty look.  Here is some detail of the quilting. I here chose to only use white thread as it would take me forever to try and match the thread colour to all those coloured pieces.

And this is the completed quilt.

Almost a week without customer quilting

It felt empty, really empty but just because I love doing it, does not mean all quilters have the time or means to make quilts just so I can be happy.

I was however, informed that a quilter from Kimberley will be sending a quilt somewhere after this weekend and she sent me a photo so I had some idea of what I’d like to do in certain areas.  I then loaded a test sandwich, marked this in 6” rows and started playing.

Way back in January 2018 I made my sister a bargello quilt and used concentric circles as an edge-to-edge filler.  This was the quilt.

When I asked the quilter how wide her inner border was, she measured and told me it was a 6” border and I decided to do these circles on this border too seeing that the prints on the fabric had somewhat of a circular design.

The first section of my test sandwich was therefore practising this again.

I treated myself to a new book as I can’t remember when I actually read anything apart from quilt blogs and watched tennis (Madrid open) as often as I could.

Saw this one day on Adria Goods’ FB page and decided to try my hand at it.  Now, this is where something Angela Walters so often says rings true.  Angela would say if you stitch out a design and are not happy with it, keep going.  Once you look back and see the whole picture, you’ll change your mind.  This was exactly what happened with stitching this out.  Whilst doing it, I thought that it looks nothing like that of Adria Good but just kept going.  It still doesn’t look anything like hers but looking back on the design now, definitely something I will do in future without feeling inferior.

Revisited an old Angela Walters video on elongated swirls and gave this a try too.

I just had to pop in a section of the all-over feathers I did in the 4-day boot camp by Susan Smith

Then another edge-to-edge filler by Susan that she calls Oakish leaves.  Again, mine doesn’t look anything like hers but still something I would do again…… my style.

Angela Walters recently showed the woodgrain filler but somehow these reminded me more of flames than woodgrain, I, therefore, opted to go for the Leah Day version of woodgrain with less pointy ends.

In the last section of my sandwich, I did my own design that I named Pringle pointer, I used to use this plenty of times when I still quilted on my domestic but I could immediately see that I haven’t done this in a while.

We had the younger kids over for Mother’s Day as the older kids had to take the oldest granddaughter for her check-up at the specialist on Friday and stayed the weekend.

I finished a top I started a while ago but more about this one once quilted.

I then had to do a dreadful thing…… wash my K-way jacket.  Sadly, I only have one and I honestly believe that no other jacket is as warm and mine has been terribly dirty.  I put it off for long enough as with being on pension, this jacket and hubbies’ old slippers with silicone inners have become my uniform every single day. SIL says I can fit another human in these!

Now off to make myself comfortable to watch the men’s final tennis game.

Disappearing four patch quilt

 I started Monday with no customer quilts awaiting which gave me much needed time to plan a decent menu for hubby for the week and I already started prepping my meals from 04:30. Just after 8 am I had 3 fully planned (some parts fully cooked) suppers for this week and I could go to the couriers to return the Malgas quilts.

Still on my way to the couriers I got a call for a quilt to be delivered late afternoon and I was so proud of myself for having finished a menu for the week and cooked ahead as once I park myself behind that frame, everything else simply fades away.

I got the quilt loaded and the laundry done before the cleaners arrived this morning, so once they left, I only had to do ironing and wash the pets’ bedding.  The supper was sorted and I could get to the quilt without feeling guilty.

The quilter requested an all-over pattern and I opted for the half swirl and hook pattern.  There are different deviations of this motif but seeing that this was the one I practiced on paper for the last week, I decided to do this one on the quilt.

Having another quilter over late afternoon but for drinking some wine, no quilts involved (I think).  I do spend my days on pension in good company!

Red and green quilt

I guess I could have called it a Christmas quilt but I saw no Christmas pictures printed on the fabric so I’ll stick to the colors.

The last of the quilts all the way from Malgas and I do hope the recipient will be satisfied.  I think she was extremely brave sending her quilts that far to be quilted by someone unknown but by now, we might as well be friends.  We’ve exchanged so many messages and calls regarding the quilting to be done, so no stranger, no more.

I must admit I changed my mind so many times regarding the quilting on this, had one idea while the quilt laid under a sheet of design plastic.  As I ironed out the wrinkles (due to being packed for the courier) I got another brainwave and by the time I’ve finished marking the quilt, I just couldn’t remember what I finally decided to do.  So, I think what I actually did was neither any of the first ideas.

Anyway, the heaps of pebbles in the outer border pretty soon added to the time spent on this quilt and when I neared 10 hours, I thought I’d give her a fair warning.  Feeling that she was not really all that comfortable with the amount, I opted to change my plan for the inner green border to something less dense and faster on the timer.

Now my turn to courier it back, praying that it will safely reach her again.