Daisy print on point squares

Now what a coincidence, the quilter who brought her quilt to me on Wednesday, selected daisies to be quilted on her quilt as and edge to edge and then I received this quilt with actual daisies printed on the fabric.  Luckily this quilter settled for the cha-cha-cha design combined with loops.

We went to my son-in-law’s birthday barbeque yesterday evening but I got this finished before the time.  He only has his birthday today but they are going away for the weekend and we were all invited yesterday.

Now I guess I can continue to focus on part 2 of Adria Goods' course.

Another disappearing 9-patch

I do believe this is the fourth of this kind I’ve quilted and only one was custom work, the rest edge to edge. Whatever the case, it is always interesting to see different people’s take on the same pattern.  I do like this one.

Part 2 of Build your own portfolio by Adria Good

I enrolled for this on Saturday. 18 September, got my parrot chewed sheet loaded and while hubby went to play golf on Sunday morning, I had the laundry folded and ironing done before 6 am.  Then I just had to replace the bedding in the guest rooms after having the grandkids over last weekend.  With all my chores done, breakfast and getting dressed, I parked myself behind the computer to start this course.

First up was to print the PDF files on every motif and place these in a flip file to allow me to trace over these with a whiteboard marker as practice on paper while watching the instructional video before heading to the machine.

I had several attempts at the Ribbon design and finally settled for this one to become part of my portfolio

Monday started with cleaning house first and then I went on to the second motif called Bubbles.  This came rather natural to me as we’ve done the loops in part 1 of this course and I have tried my hand at bubbles on several quilts.

Then the Courier Guy stopped and delivered a quilt from out of town and when this is finished it will be shipped to a granddaughter all the way in Australia.  Here and then my course was interrupted as I prefer to do customer quilts as soon as possible.

Now, this was an interesting quilt made up of only sashing’s, a border and one large double batted applique flower.  What to do where?  I decided on different motifs for the different fabric colours as I got clear instructions from the quilter to “jazz it up”.  I ended up with 14 different motifs and I should do something like this for myself.  I often forget about a motif totally until I change bedding and see what I’ve done on a previous (older) quilt.

I still have 2 more customers quilts before I can continue with my course.  I do love these!

Woodland Critters

Working on this quilt I couldn’t help thinking about the pet sadness I recently had in my little circle.  After we had to put our Border Collie to sleep on 10 August which was a Tuesday, my Sis phoned the Sunday to inform me, they had to do the same with their Great Dane and then this week Tuesday a friend arrived just after having put her 16-year-old cat to sleep and on Friday another quilter friend phoned to say she was at the vet, preparing to do the kind thing.  Not easy on anyone and I honestly hope 4 is now enough.

I’ve received a nice treat from a quilt customer when complaining about how bad my hands are taking all the detergents after starting to do the cleaning myself and when she came to fetch her quilt, she gave me the most divine hand and nail cream.  I do love my Aqueous cream but some brands are so fatty and I love to start quilting after the cleaning has been done but need some lotion on my dry hands and this gift is the best.  Nothing like an unexpected surprise.

I got this quilt late Friday, got it loaded and planned to start early morning.  However, after breakfast, getting dressed and hubby walking the dogs, we parked ourselves behind the TV (as pensioners should) and watched our recorded final episode of Survivor South Africa.   I only got to this much later.

There were these tiny dragonflies on the backing and I did free-motion loops and leaves but popped in the occasional dragonfly.

Good news for this morning is that I enrolled in my next course by Adria Good and is ready to get started.  Hubby will be playing golf tomorrow morning, so good time to concentrate on what I should be doing.

Blocks in blue

Suddenly it is winter again over in South Africa and I am not impressed.  Along with the cold we have annoying winds and I was so impressed with my clean house, all done by myself, and then yesterday dropped white fabric in the passage and as I picked it up, it was full of brown sandy dust.  Depressing to say the least.  I’ve been washing floors in my dreams last night.  When I got up this morning, while still dark, I decided to clean the floors again, not that it will help much as the wind has not yet subsided.

I received this blocks-in-blue quilt yesterday morning with a request for edge-to-edge quilting and was able to finish it the same day.  Not having to cook suppers, these are still delivered, fully cooked, to our door, helps a lot.

Another dress up doll back

Remember the back I quilted for the client making fabric dress up dolls with the extra thick batting?  As suspected, it was just too thick, in fact, the client didn’t even give it a try.  She said she took one look at it and decided not to even attempt.

New fabric, new batting and I redid it which I think will be much better.  This time too, she used a stiff but thinner batting and although not quilt batting, I believe the stiffer backing will work well to dress these little dolls.

Again, polyester fabric with a little more slip and slide to it than cotton but it still worked well.

Green with pink roses quilt

Phew! We survived the weekend taking care of the two older grandkids and having the youngest and her mother over for the whole of Saturday.  The older ones are becoming less demanding and I really cannot complain about them.  The oldest daughter though has an appetite one cannot explain to anyone, I told her parents I will be demanding alimony if they ever leave her with us again.  Grandson suddenly decided I am the one and I had to sleep by him at night with him being Sonic and me, Amy.  I have no idea who either is.

In between we tried to watch a little rugby, cricket and I even woke up before midnight to see the tennis women’s final.  I was not interested in the men’s final as I truly believed Djokovic would win and this man is way too arrogant to my liking.  A pleasant surprise when I woke up on Sunday to see Medvedev actually won.

With the kids gone I loaded the quilt received on Friday and the edge to edge was a quick finish.

I had to clean two sections of the house this morning as the youngest grandbaby will be coming over tomorrow as she has an ear infection.

Quilting through extra thick upholstery batting

These two polyester sheets with very thick polyester batting got to me late yesterday afternoon.  This is for the lady that makes fabric dress-up dolls and use my quilted backgrounds to secure her doll bodies on.

This time however she sent ultra-thick batting, more suitable for upholstery, I would imagine.

It was terrible trying to quilt through it as it had so much loft which caused the fabric to move in the direction I would be sewing and I had to keep one hand on the fabric all the time to try to smooth the fabric and keep it from making puckers.

I still worry about her having to do the applique, she uses satin stitch, and how this would work under her domestic machine.  I however, asked her not to use this again if she wants me to quilt it.

A rather productive day

Got up my usual early, had breakfast and got dressed and just after 7 am started my first week of cleaning house, without my weekly cleaners.  I divided the house into 4 sections, a section every day for 4 days, with 3 days of rest from any housekeeping, should anything, however, occurs that I can’t do the section on a specific day, I still have a couple of days to spare.

Today I did more than just the basic cleaning in that I washed the carpet as well as the windows in the area specified and this luckily only needs doing once a term, so I’m good until January.

When a quilter came over to drop her two baby quilts at 10 am, I was ready to go.  The first was a little pinkish heart quilt for a baby girl and she requested edge to edge quilting to be done on both.

Afterwards I took the parrot for her afternoon nap and thought ‘what the heck' if she gets to nap after doing nothing, I deserve it too and took a wonderful nap with her.

Got up to finish the blue baby quilt brick style and had supper, already cooked, delivered to us.

All in all, a rather satisfying day.

Teal runner

The youngest grandbaby stayed over for the night as her mom worked the night shift but she is not fooled by us giving her a bottle as a replacement for moms’ breasts. I enjoy it when my daughter walks in here after work and this little one literally attacks her for some tie-tie.

Second table runner in a row and these smaller projects are quick but just as I start enjoying myself, it is done.  I don’t like the latter part.

House table runner

I already moved mountains this morning and not necessarily by choice.  Our August winds seem to get confused and only arrived now, leaving everything dusty.  By 6 am I had the garden furniture clean, not that I expect it to stay that way but I at least know my conscience is clear.

Then one of our dogs vomited in the passage so I had to give the carpet a good vinegar and baking soda treatment but now it is clean for a while.  Whilst doing that I had the washing machine going and then went down on my knees in the frame room to clean every nook and cranny.  Just a little ironing needs to be done later and my house duties are done.

As said, houses galore in my valley and I suspect this runner might end up in the same room as the previous wall hanging, so I kept the quilting somewhat similar.

This is how this little runner turned out.

6 Houses quilt

Hubby went to help my son-in-law to build stairs for the grandbaby’s slide on Thursday, so I had all day to myself.  What better way to spend it than to quilt?

I’ve had quite a few quilts with houses lately but more couldn’t hurt me a bit.  Always time to improve my skills and this saw the light.

A rather big batik

I received this on Sunday but couldn’t load it right away due to family fun.  On the frame by Monday and I got going but then organized a Ladies’ night for Tuesday and had a little prep to do.  It turned out rather nice with just us ladies getting together talking about everyday life.

I had to stoke a fire while we were chatting and I think I inhaled too much smoke for the next morning I felt terrible but then I also had a bottle of wine by myself and went to bed much later than usual.  I must be getting really old if I can’t even handle one late night in my own house!

An afternoon nap on Wednesday helped to make me feel somewhat better and I worked on this quilt with new motivation.

Finished it yesterday and can now be returned to the owner.