A rather densely quilted biggie

This was a rather financially tough week.  First, our cat with the auto-immune disease attacking his teeth and jaw, had 3 more teeth removed, a whopping R3,018 and then I had to buy 4 injections for the old Border Collie with arthritis which amounted to another R1,519.00.  Cat got complimentary dental treats from the vet and is now so in love with this I had to order more and these are not cheap at all.  With today being laundry day, the tumble dryer decided it had enough but blessed to be married to a handyman all is fixed now.

I got this quilt on Monday and for the first time I had absolutely no idea where to start or what to do.  With most other quilts, the moment I see it, I have somewhat of a starting point, not that I always stick to it but at least I have an idea.

This one had me floored.  Not only because of all the colours but the variety of blocks, the fact that the triangles of one block are also part of another block and the placement of the different blocks.

I had another quilter over the evening while the quilt was up against the wall and asked her for advice.  Well, so much for the help, she admired the quilt, stared at it lovingly and then turned around and said “I have another appointment, sorry you’re on your own” (Sound familiar Riana??)

The quilter didn’t want simply edge to edge, she loves her quilts properly custom quilted, so I decided to start with just one block, see how it looks and where it took me.  16 hours and 20 minutes later I can call it done.

Acts of kindness – Part 5

This is the last of the ‘acts of kindness’ quilts with slightly bigger houses.  I decided to play a little on this one and used scallops to represent roof tiles and tried to imitate bricks on the walls.

No quilting will happen today, I have to babysit the youngest grandchild while her mom teaches at CUT and apparently the little one is not feeling well.

Acts of kindness – Part 4

 This is a little house quilt similar to the one done in part 3 and because the previous one had an edge to edge meandering, I opted to do the same here.  I don’t want one child to think he/she gets less/more than the other.

Red curtaining and postage stamps

I knew I had a busy week ahead and planned accordingly.  I ordered all our meals (cooked) to be delivered daily and it is such a wonderful feeling, knowing I don’t have to somewhere during the day start preparing and cooking supper.  It anyway works out cheaper than having to purchase all the ingredients, electricity and cleaning afterwards.

Yesterday, I had this lovely upcycled curtaining combined with postage stamp blocks to quilt.  I marked a large motif in the curtaining fabric as they had plenty of stretch in them and then kept it simple by just outlining the motif.  Marking this on all the blocks, however, seemed to take forever.

I meandered all over the postage stamp blocks and called it a day.

Adria Good online course – Motif 7

My heart sank when I saw this motif on the class program.  I’ve never had a good relationship with stars, even on my domestic machine.  I just don’t seem to get the hang of these.  From top to bottom I sometimes get it right but upside down throws me off totally and the trick in free motion quilting is that one should be able to do any motif in every possible direction.  Even after wasting stacks of paper to practice, I didn’t feel comfortable at all going to the machine.

The thread choice for these stars and swirls was a deep purple Isacord colour 2920.

Done but I don’t think I will offer to do stars on any customer quilt soon, on the other hand I won’t be using purple thread on a white background, it may not even look all that bad.

This is the end of this online course and as of today, I will be saving up for the next one.  She already asked what we’d like to see/do in future courses.

Adria Good Online course – Motif 6

The swirl was up next and even though I’ve done plenty of these on quilts I’ve never considered adding loops in between to travel and after practising on paper found that with the loop one can stitch a large area much faster.  I often see tops, thinking swirls would be the perfect fit but then I am scared the quilter might not approve of the time swirls take to cover the whole area.  Popping in a couple of loops will definitely make this a faster edge to edge pattern.

I used a pretty blue Marathon thread.

Later in the video she showed doing swirls without the loops but much wider spread than I did it in the past.  I might just have some space on my practice sheet to add this if I don’t forget.

Hubby and I have our own pensioner snack.  We buy raw peanuts and roast them at home, having deliberately burnt some for that extra roasted peanut taste. We’ve shockingly worked out today we go through one kilogram per week!  We leave the dish in the kitchen and needless to say every time one of us would enter or exit, we’d take a handful.

I’ve also finally baked for my birthday and invited the kids over later this afternoon or evening.  When I wanted to bake for my birthday DIL organized a surprise barbeque for me, the next weekend was my daughter’s birthday, so today I could finally use the ingredients I bought.

From front to back a Savoury tart, caramel crackers and a coffee tart and that will conclude my baking for this year.

Adria Good online free motion course Motif 5

Another flower motif, daisies.  Here we had the option to again combine the daisy with leaves and petals or go for all-over daisies in different sizes.  I opted for the latter as one has to pay attention as to where you’d want to end one daisy in order to be able to move to the next.

What I liked about these daisies is the fact that you can simply stitch over your centre line (forming the inside of the daisy) and it doesn’t look weird.  As the clever people say, an organic look.

For this motif I used a bright yellow Isacord colour 0605 and in hindsight, I would much rather combine these daisies with loops and/or leaves.

I am still suffering from this terrible hayfever fit and runny nose but I got up early, had breakfast and immediately took 2 tablets.  I have so much to do today, I can't afford to be stopped by something as annoying as this.

Adria Good online course – Motif 4

My daughter and I went for a full hot stone body massage this morning, a gift for our birthdays earlier this month, by my son and DIL.  The moment I had to turn on my stomach I had another terrible hay fever attack.  Worst feeling ever, trying to enjoy the massage while hoping the snot won’t drip on the floor.  The poor therapist even gave me an Allergex from her purse and when we got to my daughters’ house, she gave me another tablet and a nasal spray but this was more than an hour ago with no relief yet.

I’ve seen Adria do this flower on many a quilt and what I like about the course is that even though this is a new motif, we get to combine the previous loop and leaves to these flowers.  The practice continues.  She calls this the Cha-cha-cha because of the three bumps around the centre.

When I started on the machine, I got so excited that I went beyond my marked square drawn out for this motif.  The reason for my excitement was not only because I got the flower right but I could also see a vast improvement in my leaves.  I’m getting there!

I used a dark red/plum Marathon thread for this.  I am experimenting with thread I have in my stash but on customer quilts I would most probably only use Isacord or Glide simply because I like the strength of these.  My quilts are thrown in the washing machine and I would not appreciate thread that breaks when the heavy wet quilt is pulled from the machine.

Adria Good online course – Motif 3

I’ve always admired Adria’s leave motifs and although I’ve tried to replicate these I had very little success.  My leaves looked more like hearts than anything else, so let’s see if this video will help me. Here is an example of leaves I tried in October 2020 and you can clearly see, this looks more like hearts than leaves.

She also travels between leaves with either loops or meandering, so with this motif we basically added one new to the previous two motifs.

For this I chose a variegated green machine embroidery thread by Sylko,

I tried to combine the leaves with both loops and meandering but also tried only using leaves as a stand-alone motif if I ever have smaller areas in which not much travelling would be needed.

Flip, I’m cold and when I put the parrot to bed for her afternoon nap, I had a sneezing frenzy like nothing else.  It was so bad the parrot got up from underneath the blanket to check what was wrong with me.  A couple of hours later and even after taking tablets, it hasn’t stopped.  Suspecting an unwelcome cold on its’ way.

Yip, I do realise this motif still needs plenty of practice.

I should add, for future reference to myself, I am not at all impressed with Sylko thread.  It is the same weight as the previous thread I used but kept breaking, so the size of the needle could not be the problem.  However, this is another thread from my stash which might be ages old.

Online free motion course by Adria Good – Motif 2

Moving on to the video for motif 2 proved what I said in my previous post.  You can be able to do a motif from what you’ve seen but perfection comes from hearing the tips the experts have.  I’ve done loops on many previous quilts but they all seemed to turn out more like teardrops instead of round circles.  Here is an example of loops I did on a quilt in 2018.

In this video Adria explained how to do the perfect round shape and after trying this out on paper a couple of times, I moved to the machine.  For these, I chose a very bright lime green poly sheen by Mettler.

I can clearly see I need a lot more practise on this, I’ve focussed so much on getting the loops a perfect round that I often forgot to look where I am supposed to be heading but the basics have been laid and I can now just improve on that.

Now on to the next motif.

Acts of kindness – Part 3

Another quilt finished by the quilt group for the children of one of their members. I enrolled for an online quilt course by Adria Good yesterday and my first homework was to meander.  I asked the quilter if I could do it on this quilt and she agreed.

Online free motion course by Adria Good – Motif 1

I’ve been following this quilter on YouTube and Facebook ever since I got my frame.  She mostly does edge to edge free-motion quilting and makes it look so easy.  She never talks much but showed clips and/or videos of her quilting.

I’ve liked most of her posts and occasionally hinted for a book and she never said ‘yes’ but never ‘no’ either.  I was pleasantly surprised when she soon afterwards said she’s playing with the idea of an online course.  She asked whether we’d prefer zoom live classes or online courses and I voted for online as her day is my night and I don’t stay awake one minute after 8 pm and then I have no concentration skills left anyway.

Then came her announcement that her course would be available somewhere in July.  Wonderful timing even though cash strapped now that I’m on pension I figured we could simply eat less but this course I will do seeing that it is my birthday gift to myself in my birthday month.

I do realize that I didn’t NEED this course. I am already comfortable with most of the motifs BUT between what you see, think you can do and hear what should be remembered is a whole world of knowledge and with my failing memory I need all the reminders I can get.  I recently went shopping while Telene Jeffrey presented a course.  I was not allowed to attend because I don’t belong to our local guild and I mentioned to the shop owner that I would have loved to attend.  She kindly too said that I was way beyond this course and just before she spoke, I heard something Telene said that I’ve heard before but totally forgotten, so I don’t believe in ‘you don’t need that course’.

So here I was finding fabric to use for my practice sheet.  This was fun.  Long, long ago when quilting friend Karin and I used to travel, not only abroad but locally too, we shopped aggressively for fabric.  Even with way too much money for spending, we’d still look for those cheapies leaving us to end up with fabric we have no idea where to use when.  We giggled a while ago about each having roughly 3 meters of beige canvas-like fabric.  Why and what for??

In my search I found this what I guess once used to be pure white, now almost off-white yardage.  Too thin for sheeting, not sure why I decided it was a good buy…. Price maybe?  Well, this would be my sampler for this course.  I figured it I used pretty quilting thread, it would work wonders.

Crap…. After attaching my zipper leaders, I wisely decided to use a permanent marker to divide the fabric into squares and after tediously marking and drawing lines, I realised I did all of that on the backing.  Man, o man, how thoughtless can one human be?  Anyway, now I will have white backing fabric with random black lines across the back.  Darn!!

Filler number one of this course was the ever so loved by all quilters, meandering.  I am rather comfortable with this but can one really ever practise enough?  When my next customer quilt arrived, I asked permission to do meandering on the quilt and she agreed.  The tricky part was that Adria suggested your little bubble should be the size of a US quarter…… now which size would that be in South African currency?  Had to ask a few questions and make a couple of calls.  It turned out to be roughly the size of a 5 Rand coin, I can do that!  This was the customer quilt I did

Then I loaded my practice piece just to realise I didn’t have batting or at least not a large enough piece.  Not a problem though.  I am simply going to lay off-cut pieces next to each other and quilt over all of it without joining beforehand.  This is after all a practice piece.

I basted the whole piece beforehand, firstly to secure the batting pieces and secondly it will allow me to take the piece on and off the frame whenever I get a customer quilt.

I decided on a very colourful variegated thread by Superior threads called Rainbows, the colour is no 813.  I have no idea where and when I purchased this, it was in my thread stash.

My meander test square, roughly 16” x 16” is done and now I can move on with the online video to learn more about the next motif.

Denim and shirt fabric quilt

A brave quilter having decided she’d be willing to make memory quilts for others using fabric worn by their loved ones made this quilt.

As pretty as it looks, it caused major problems with the quilting.  The denim seams were simply too thick to stitch over.  With a long arm machine, one can adjust the height of the foot but when I did, the foot was too high for the shirt fabrics and caused long, skipped stitches.

Travelling with a line of stitching from the shirt fabric over the denim was simply impossible.  When the foot got to the denim it would push everything to the side I am moving to, causing a huge bump.  I had to then start and stop to be able to at least quilt the shirt fabric.

Although not impossible, the choices for quilting such a quilt will always be limited to either quilting the shirt fabric or the denim.  Even if I did the shirts first, then raised the foot for the denim, the bumps would already have been created as these appeared even whenever I got to the end of a shirt block where the seams meet.

At least I’ve given it a try and can now warn the quilter that this might not be the best idea.  Rather stick to one thickness of the fabric.

Acts of kindness – Part 2

The second quilt, generously finished by a quilting group, for one of their group members, who succumbed to cancer, to give to her children.

Slight problem with puffiness in the quilt.  I soon noticed that not all fabric was quilting cotton but some were either curtaining or upholstery fabric.  When the top was placed on a slippery surface such as a table or tile floor it seemed fine but when placed on a carpet and the blocks flattened out, the quilters cotton had plenty of puffiness in them.  They obviously have more give than the thicker curtaining.

Edge to edge all-over quilting it had to be.  This allows me to shift the puffiness to areas where it would be less noticeable and it works every time.

Acts of kindness – Part 1

A local quilter fought cancer for several years and lost the battle last year.  The quilting group she worked with generously decided to finish some of her quilts for her children.  How amazing is that?

The first I got was 2 small heart tops to give to each child.  We decided that the children, who might not know much about quilting and would rather only focus on the top as something their mom made, might not appreciate intensive quilting therefore no use spending hours and lots of money.

These quilts simply meandered around the hearts and initially, we decided not to quilt over the hearts but when I looked at the back, it looked awkward with the dense meandering and then blank spots with no quilting, so I popped in a single heart over the raw edge appliqued hearts.

Again two small quilts loaded on one backing and batting.

Receipt roll quilt – A slight change of heart

After finishing the first row (8 x 12” blocks), I realized I used more background than actual scraps and that defeated the purpose of this quilt.  I then changed things up.

I cut 6” paper squares and covered these with scrap strips and then cut my black (background) the width of the receipt roll and mirrored the first block.  Then I could really see progress in using my scraps. I decided to alternate the blocks with one busy block and one calmer.

This worked the scraps much better and I actually saw the base of one of the scrap tubs.

With some quiet time between customer quilts, hubby opened up my machine for me to clear the dust and fluff on the inside and I was really impressed with myself.  I do clean my machine between every quilt and have seen some machines from other quilters which were terribly filthy, so I did good and with hubby helping me, I didn’t need to pay a technician to open it up and brush the lint out with a soft brush.  Being on pension makes me look at every possible way to save money.

My daughter turns 30 this coming Tuesday and her party, held yesterday. was in the way of a funeral.  This kid has a weird sense of humour, especially during these times.  This was her invitation.

I decided to dress the part but added a little colour seeing that it was still a party.  I even put on a little black hat to complete the look and we took her flowers suited to be put on a coffin.  Her mother-in-law brought along a small wooden box filled with ashes.  All in all, a fun party.

I am halfway with my Receipt roll turned scraps quilt, 4 more rows to go.

Disappearing diamond

Blood it is bitterly cold in central South Africa with our morning temperature at minus 9º C. I finished a quilt for a customer yesterday and sent the photo to her this morning but with the clear instruction that I am not receiving anyone today as I have no intention of getting out of my PJ’s.

At first, I wanted to stay in bed with the electric blanket on but the parrot did not find staying in one room extremely funny and started complaining just as I got settled.  Option 2 was to have her with me in the sewing room while I worked on my Receipt Roll quilt but having to keep the window open to allow the cat to get outside, proved creating a freezer in this room and I turned around faster than I went in.

Cat finished his morning garden duties and when he returned to his bed, I slammed the window shut and switched on the heater, hopefully, I will get a little productive today.  Hubby had to go into the shop to assist the new owners with measurements to order material for a new job.  I don’t complain, he gets paid by them.

For once I am pleased that I don’t have any customer quilts waiting as I have really bad arthritis in my right wrist, making it almost impossible to advance a quilt on the frame.  I need to give this a little rest.

On Monday hubby and DIL organized a barbeque for my birthday and I wasn’t allowed to lift a finger or help with any of the preparations, I do love birthdays like these.  My daughter and I have birthdays one week apart and this was a double celebration.  We each had to pop a balloon and in one was a wonderful voucher from a local spa for a Winter Warmer package including sherry and soup.  In the little silver box preventing the balloons from flying away, was Lindt chocolate balls.

This latest quilt was made up of triangles and when searching for quilting motifs for triangles I was rather disappointed.  Most I have either done before or was simply too time-consuming for the purpose of the quilt.  I then played around with pen and paper and came up with this motif covering large sections at a time and fast-moving.

The quilt finished at 73” x 87” and was the 40^th customer quilt I’ve done this year.  Whoopee!! and a huge thank you to all the quilters trusting me to finish their tops.

Covid 19 memory quilt

This is the third quilt I’ve done in memory of someone who succumbed to Covid and it breaks my heart.  I am not one of those well-known international quilters with quilts piling up and customers having to wait 3 months for a quilt to be finished.  I only have a handful of recurring customers.  Three deaths may not sound like much but for the handful of customers I have, this amount upsets me.

These were someone’s parents, partners or other family members/friends and to let the realisation sink in that you will never see them again is the worst.

This quilter had specific motifs for different sections in mind and her wish was my command.

Regal Rose

I’ve fallen behind in my blog posts and I blame this on being on pension.  Suddenly I have the whole day to do what I used to do in only a couple of hours in the afternoon and somehow, I always neglect to do at least a couple of things daily.

This was the next quilt up and the quilter gave me the freedom to do what I want.  I loved the soft colours and wanted the quilting to be soft too in other words no hard lines.  I then decided on mostly swirls in different settings and sizes and I am satisfied with the outcome.