No quilting week

After having to visit a physiotherapist two weeks in a row with a stern warning to give my shoulder, back, neck, wrists and thumbs a decent rest, I had a whole week of no quilting.  I even resisted the urge to put a practice sample on the frame on which to play with new, different, combinations or deviations of designs.

However, when we bought this house in April 2022, it had 2 additional flats, to rent out, on the same property.  This made sense to us, as we saw it as an additional monthly income.  Now the bachelor flat will not be available for the foreseeing future as we still use this to store all the ‘stuff’ we do not have space for.  The two-bedroom flat was, with our take-over, rented by a couple and we decided to allow them to stay.

This turned out bad but thanks to our other neighbours who laid a complaint of theft against the man, we kindly had to ask them to leave as the other neighbours did not like a criminal in their midst.  I luckily had other people interested even before the commotion of the theft started, so I told them when the flat would be ready.

This left us exactly 10 days to finally be able to walk through the flat as owners and prepare it for the new occupants. A surprise about the condition of the flat……………. That is putting it softly, it was a hot mess.

I felt so sorry for poor hubby, as he meant to fix one thing, another would fall off or break and one task led to another doing it in 10 days were almost impossible, but the new occupants moved in yesterday, so hopefully, his life would be a little easier going forward.

A couple of before and after photos.

Carpets with what looks like oil stains, replaced with new ones

The filter inside of the extractor fan above the stove with what seems to be years of oil spills caught in this

Cracked glass and glass with stickers on, replaced with new

On/Off switch above the stove, surely you have to see this daily?

The condition of the stove plates after claiming it was cleaned by the previous occupants

Well now that all of this (and much more) is done, we can concentrate on our own house again.

Floral burst

I forgot to ask the quilter whether she had a name for this quilt, so I decided to name it myself.  Most of the fabric had flowers printed on it and she chose a floral edge-to-edge as well.

This is the last quilt I have done (for an extended period anyway) with fleece as backing.  It works much harder than ordinary fabric and one must roll back and forth constantly to make sure the fleece does not stretch too much compared to the top.  This caused me to suffer from overworked thumb muscles and did not help much for my already weak shoulder. I had a frozen shoulder in 2017 and it never really returned to normal afterwards.

The physiotherapist suggested two weeks of total rest, but I think I might just go crazy if I cannot quilt for two weeks long.

I just noticed that this was my 53^rd quilt for this year, so more than a quilt for every week of the year.  No wonder my body is starting to act up.

This is however the latest completion.

Chevrons in subtle greys

How lucky was I to have this quilt to work on this week?  I told the quilter that I did not really have time, money, or space to make more quilts but seeing this one made me seriously reconsider my decision.

I took some time to finish this one up as my shoulder and thumbs are acting up terribly and sometimes, I could hardly advance a quilt on the frame, but it got done and here is the fleece back.

A little close-up of some of the fabrics used.

Finally, the stunning finish.

Teal runner

This week seemed calmer, with hubby back in the garden still trying to figure out the irrigation pipes.

Friend Karin attended a sew-away hosted by our local Pfaff dealer and as tradition has it between the two of us, we have breakfast on our way there.  I was her driver and although just 11 minutes out of town, we still did the breakfast.

Now, apart from having no sense of direction, I do not know the difference between cars.  To me, they all look the same…. Slightly rectangular with 4 wheels.  Whenever I parked anywhere, I try to remember the spot and once back out of the shop of wherever I was, I would look for my registration.  Big was my surprise when I got out of Karin’s accommodation to see this.

For a moment there, I was rather confused.

Next up on the frame was a teal runner with only an edge-to-edge motif and this went fast.

Gotta dance panel

Last week went by in the blink of an eye and I never got to post on my blog.  Our youngest grandchild had a dental procedure scheduled for Tuesday and Monday morning her parents phoned, worried as they thought she had a fever and did not want to take her to school, risking her getting sicker and having to postpone the theatre booking.  We were asked to take care of her.  Once she got to us and realised she was not going to school, there was no sign of any fever!

Apart from being extremely grumpy due to hunger, the procedure went well, and she was up and about later the same day.

The next day she tried her hand (or body??) at pole dancing and this little one was a real show off.

Hubby started fixing the guest bedroom some time ago and as with all the renovations we have done thus far, it turned out far more work than initially anticipated.

However, now that it is done, it looks so good.  He chipped out the tiles, replaced them with a carpet, fixed the cupboards, painted everything, and also fixed the ceiling fan, as this too, as with most everything in this house, did not work properly.

I received the little panel in between all of this and the hilarious part about it: the quilter started this 14 years ago for her granddaughter but will now be gifted to a needy child.