Scrappy squares

Yesterday was yet another laid back relaxing day for hubby and me.  He did some work in the garage while I cleaned and oiled my machines before continuing with my scrappy receipt roll blocks.

A quilter dropped off her quilt which was made up of all scrappy blocks with the most vibrant colours.  Being an artist, she didn’t go for the traditional matching or blending thread but chose a deep fuchsia for her top thread.  I liked her being that daring and when done, with all the other colours in the fabric, it did not stand out terribly.

I sent her a message to say it was finished a couple of hours later and she was so excited, she immediately came over to fetch it.

Today I have to return quilts via courier to their owner and I intend to do everything needed to be done in that part of town as I am becoming all the lazier to make trips daily.

Fleeced backed disappearing 9 patch

I am so glad I got this quilt to do.  It only had fleece as a backing with no batting and I always warn quilters that fleece stretches on the frame irrespective of how careful I try to be.  This is a good example to show what it looks like once the quilt is taken off the frame and the fleece relaxes.

On this quilt, I took a chance and did not even put on my side clamps which could have led to puckers in the backing but the fleece was so thin and stretchy, no matter how careful I tried to be it looked wrinkled when done.  My husband however loved the look. 

I treated myself to a nice hair cut and colour this morning and with no quilts awaiting I am also hoping to give my inflamed wrist somewhat of a break.

Second take on this mystery quilt

 We had the kids and grandchildren over yesterday for lunch and it is amazing how an otherwise quiet house can suddenly sound as if all hell broke loose.  I wondered if we saw each other enough as everyone wants to talk simultaneously and non-stop.  At least my kids still come around, for that I am grateful.

I did custom quilting on the exact same pattern a while ago but this quilter simply requested edge to edge quilting and I actually appreciated it.  Finding different quilt motifs for the same pattern can be somewhat of a challenge when already having done one.  I think I will tend to do the same as on the first.

Hexagons

As promised, I worked on this while hubby played golf on Friday and for some reason the quilter did not like this quilt and plans to use this in a guest bungalow and only requested edge to edge all over quilting.

I liked this and would have loved to do a stencil pattern in the large diamonds but not my quilt, not my choice.

It is my son’s birthday today and my daughter-in-law hinted badly for curried tripe but because I know she likes doing her own celebrations I decided to invite them on Sunday afternoon which obviously meant having to do something different for my vegetarian daughter.

I tried my hand at Jackfruit and I was pleasantly surprised about the texture resembling chicken.  I spoke to a vegetarian cook and he said the fruit takes on the flavour of the spices you add, fish, chicken or meat but sadly I have to say NOTHING takes on the flavour of decently cooked tripe.  At least I have something for her to eat.

This is a close-up look of the quilting

The completed quilt measured 85 x 94

The backing shows the 3’s and E’s motif off the best

Bears Claw/Paw quilt

I am not sure whether there is a correct name for this block as Google gives both as acceptable but this was my latest finish and a rather big one of 87,5” x 106,5”.

The quilter requested custom quilting but sadly the quilting does not show up on such densely printed fabric.

This week was quiet even with hubby home every day and on Tuesday I had a wonderful outing to supper with a friend and a group of her friends.  Today hubby plays golf, I already have my next quilt loaded and should have it done later today.

Heidi, our one dog, loved her dad being at home all day and spent all her time with him on the couch.

Cha- cha -cha with leaves

 This is another motif from my online course.  I am not sure whether I previously mentioned the reasoning behind this course.  I did mostly custom quilting focusing on small areas but as quilters came to me, I soon realised that not everyone likes dense custom quilting.  This course taught me different edge to edge motifs and I can play with the scale according to the quilters’ likes.

This one is called Cha- cha- cha and I combined it with leaves.

Edge to edge loops

I am still attempting to get as much practice in from the online course I did by doing edge to edge quilting with some of these motifs.  Yesterday I did the meandering and next up was the loops.

I did get somewhat carried away when I got to the border but I think the circles fit with the loops and the meandering was any way the first motif of this course.

Cat runner

Nope not something meant for cats to run on but a runner with cat pictures on.  I just did edge to edge meandering.

With the cat theme, it turned out to be my week of pets.  Found the dental snacks the vet so kindly gave the cat after his operation a while ago but at a price.  Luckily they are only allowed 12 little pellets a day, so hoping it will last a while.

Then we decided to do the kind thing and put the old Border Collie, who is now taking morphine in tablet form just to get around, to sleep.  Arranged with the vet to come to our house on Friday, to upset him the least and guess what, the vet never pitched, so the dearest doggie is still with us.

Furthermore, our 21-year old African Grey laid her first egg yesterday.  I am not sure who was shocked the most.

Second nativity panel

We went to bed last night noticing the old Border Collie did not want to come to the bedroom.  Now he has been having difficulty walking for quite some time and we also saw that he wet himself on the dog bed.  We left him there for the night and this morning there was no change apart from the fact that he wet himself several times more.

So we had to make a decision, phoned our daughter (an animal lover to the extremes) and told her to come and say goodbye and unbelievably he stood up just 5 minutes before she arrived, went to the garden and walked around a bit.  Not sure how much pain he endured doing this but he was up and going. The big decision, therefore, had been postponed. 

I sprayed him with dry shampoo for dogs and brushed him to prevent him from smelling like urine, he is such a proud old man.  I will try and massage him with the infrared massager later if he'd allow me.

This is the second nativity panel I did for this year; no wonder Christmas seems to be approaching faster.  I always have fun with panels, they test your skills and abilities from one colour to the next and yes, I do like using different thread colours.

Build your own portfolio – Part 1

This was actually the name of the Adria Good long arm course I did.  Sharing a couple of motifs, giving us time to practice on paper before heading to the machine, we eventually had to cut these motifs up into squares, bind and then put it together on a shower curtain hook as an example of edge to edge motifs.  I did all except for completing the sample book. I then decided to do another set of samples, this time, focussing to get it good enough for this book.

The funny (heart-breaking??) part is that a couple of days ago a friend warned she might be visiting and will need a place to sleep at.  With this in mind, I shook out the guest bedroom bed just to notice how terribly wrinkled the 100% cotton percale flat sheet was apart from being much too big for the standard double bed and I decided to toss it.

By that time, I already finished my first practice piece and thought I’d use this sheet for the book.  With Sunday on my own I went to the guest bedroom, opened the cupboard, got a sheet, squared it neatly and marked my squares, got batting sized and went to my sewing room to find a suitable backing.  Dear o dear, what would stare back at me in this cupboard?  The percale sheet I took off last week.  Needless to say, I chopped up the wrong (and a good) sheet.

As if that was not depressing enough the older kids informed us Saturday, my son tested positive for Covid with mom, dad and the 4-year-old being properly ill and the 9-year-old being asymptomatic.  They will now self-quarantine and I honestly don’t think the oldest granddaughter will mind even if she shows no symptoms.  Not having to go to school, is her idea of the best fun ever.  I offered to go shopping for them but I’ve forgotten the youngster now does everything online and have it delivered.

A doctors’ friend came around to inject the Border Collie and although he is a paediatric cardiologist for humans, gave me the bad news that he doesn’t think it is arthritis or lack of cartilage but rather a spinal injury or infection with no cure or at least not worth it for a 14-year-old dog.  We still have injections for 3 more weeks and I guess then we have to make some kind of decision.

More awful news, to me at least, is that I had to let go of my weekly cleaners.  They will finish up August as their last month.  This is all still part of our attempts to make our pension last a little longer.  We just have to give up some of the luxuries in life.  From September, my routine will change from getting up to start quilting, to clean the house first before anything else.  Not something I look forward to.

I received another nativity panel on Monday but the quilter is in no hurry as this will be as a Christmas gift, so I decided to finish the bindings on my squares for my portfolio and do the back of the binding by hand while the cleaners were busy inside the house.

Outside I watched Devilsdorp on Showmax while doing the binding and did not finish after the cleaners left, I then came inside, watched Follow Me (also on Showmax) until I got all the binding done.  Now I officially have my first portfolio of edge-to-edge motifs.  I have even washed these so quilters can see what a bed quilt would look like after being washed.  These are however sheeting and not good quality cotton fabric.