All stacked up – 7 – Completed

As said, in my previous post, very little quilting happened last week.  Brother-in-law from Namibia arrived on Tuesday to see mother-in-law, staying in the same city as us, as she’s been a little under the weather lately.  As life goes, when he arrived, she showed no signs of the ailments she complained about which we kept him informed off, so he might just be thinking that we were lying to him.  Legal excuse or not, it was good having him over for a visit and he returned home this afternoon.

I had an amazing weekend while the men were either playing golf or shopping for Mother’s Day to watch free Angela Walters’ videos on Craftsy and learnt a lot by just listening to her instructions and seeing her stitch designs out.

Unfortunately my sewing machine had to be sent to Johannesburg for a check-up as I’ve experienced some problems with it, so even longer without being able to quilt anything.

It is also one of a very few times where I’ve completed a project without already having a new “must do” or “must have” quilt in mind.  O yes, I have enough fabric and patterns but just nothing that really screams “make me first!”

My friend Celdri, the one who brought me fabric from New Zealand, recently went to the USA and I was fortunate enough to get yet another gift pack. I am such a lucky girl.

For Mother’s Day we went out to lunch on Sunday with the whole family and Big Man truly enjoyed his rib.  This little face says it all.

I had the binding of my All Stacked Up quilt sewn to the front of the quilt and while visiting with brother-in-law I finished the back by hand.  Even though I used every possible scrap I had with very little planning of the colours, I think this didn’t come out too bad.

All stacked up – 6

No, no, no….. Seriously???  I joined batting for my quilt (with it being Easter weekend no quilt shop would be open) so I made what I had work and then pieced a backing for my quilt and as I took it off the design wall yet again, to mark the side I’d like to load on the frame, by golly I saw another mistake and it even showed up on the photo I posted in my previous post.  Shikes!

And for a close-up, here it is.

So a little more unpicking for me.  I am becoming a pro.

All stacked up – 5

The kids came to fetch the little ones on Saturday as they had an adventure day planned, so I could get quilting again but heck how many times can one person make the exact same mistake?  Me obviously several times!

As I was stitching the blocks into rows I noticed this:

The purple and white triangle should have been switched.  No less than 3 blocks, one already set in a row, had to be unpicked and turned within its square.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, even more mishaps appeared, right in front of my eyes.  How I ever missed these when piecing or even putting the blocks up on the design wall, heaven only knows.

I then decided enough is enough and called it a night at 19:50 but in my own defence I’ve been on the internet while trying to piece and got distracted by so many other things seen and heard on You Tube.  I should not do this but my ADD does not allow me to concentrate on one thing for too long.

Got up at 03:40 this morning and decided it will get done and before the rest of South Africa was even aware of daylight, I had the completed top up back on the design wall.  Now should anyone spot yet another mistake, I really don’t need to know about it.

I just love the feeling when I get a top done, to be able to clean my sewing table, oil my machine, replace the needle, knowing I’m ready for the next new project.

Now to get batting and backing and finally finish this one off.

All stacked up – 4

I attended a hilarious but very motivational Woman’s Day talk along with fellow quilter, Wilna, DIL and one of her friends this morning and had a way too big slice of chocolate cake, which now just made me lazy.

I got home and finished the last lesson of the current EQ course I did and can report that I have 5 rows of my All stacked up quilt sewn together and I am really proud as I had heaps of interruptions and little quilting time.

Just before I stitched the last of the 5 rows together, I noticed a wee bit of a mistake and for a moment there I pondered whether I should not just leave it as is and afterwards claim that it was the Amish way of deliberately making a mistake.  Knowing myself though, I thought I better fix this as should I make another mistake; my Amish story will sound somewhat far-fetched!

On the cleaning front I can also proudly say that I am still keeping my sewing room in impeccable condition, tidying it up before heading to bed at night.

All stacked up – 3

We had the big kids over for supper on Friday and granddaughter slept over.  Our pets enjoy the family activity being in one room where they can be present too.

After granddaughter left on Saturday we were invited by Karin and her hubby for snacks, drinks and watching rugby on TV and they even gave us “take-aways” so that I didn’t have to cook on Sunday while the men played golf. 

I am doing an Electric Quilt course via internet presented by Kari Schell and boy, is this interesting?  After having had EQ for years I realised I actually knew nothing.  After work I sit at this computer waiting for my new lesson to arrive via e-mail and then I do my homework, so work on the actual sewing side has been really SLOW…..

I however made a little progress and started from the centre and sewn the two centre rows together, the layout still confuses me terribly and I frequently call hubby to see if what I do is according to the quilt layout I printed with EQ. Two down and 14 more rows to go but long before that I still need to finish a whole lot of blocks!

All stacked up – 2

I went sale shopping with my youngest yesterday and found a pants and gown at really good prices but for my undies I had to pay full price.  My daughter however, being of a smaller size than the average person, had a ball with all the items on sale. I did not dress in appropriate shoes for a shopping spree and back home my feet were killing me, so I didn’t do much apart from taking these photos.

Unfortunately my design wall is in the passage right opposite my sewing room.  Unfortunately for the simple reason that I can’t get enough distance being inside the sewing room to take a photo of the full width of the design wall, so I had to take this photo from an angle.  I have finished one whole row from left to right and can now join these and take out the pins.

I can also not just use flannel to adhere the blocks to as our 3 huge dogs loves playing in the passage and with the wind caused by them running up and down, my blocks simply comes flying down.  So pins I will have to use.  With having a row sewn together I need fewer pins though.

All stacked up - 1

I downloaded this free pattern over HERE 

It was designed by Linda and Carl Sullivan. You can find their website over HERE 

I immediately knew this would qualify as a quilt to bust my scraps even though the designers used Kaffe Fasset fabric (Collective Spring 2017) and I didn’t have too many scraps of these as I tend to rather use them for fussy cutting BUT (and there is somehow always a ‘but’ with my quilting) I wanted it bigger…. much bigger.

Now with most patterns simply enlarging the blocks or making more blocks will do the job but this one baffled me especially with the layout but I eventually got the hang of it.

This is the very beginning of my current project but now I have to get ready for a 60^th birthday party tonight.