Invitations to quarterly guild meeting

Our provincial guild  consists of roughly 17 smaller groups from all over our province and once every three months all of us get together for our quarterly guild meeting.  In between these, the smaller groups gather as many or few times as they wish at different locations.

Card back (closed)

The smaller groups are divided into pairs and the two selected groups should then work together to host a quarterly meeting.  For the August 2011 meeting the Saturday group   I belong to is one of the host groups and it is then our job to rent the venue, decorate the hall, make the snacks, make gifts to hand at our the door, serve tea and clean up afterwards.  However before that we had to make invitation to give to all the group leaders of each group and this is where I was involved.

Card front (closed)

I saw this neat pattern for a greeting card but trying to be clever I wanted to make it with quilting fabric never thinking that it might not be as easy as it looked.  Luckily our local PFAFF dealer is part of this group too.  So teamwork it was, I gave the fabric and cut the patterns, she sewed all together and did the dreaded satin stitching and then back to me to do the iron-on printing on the inside.

Card back (open)

Card inside

Eliminating all the swear words that went into this process I think it came out really good and seeing that all the

 group leaders received their invitations on Monday, 18 April, I think it is save to post these pictures to my blog.

I’ve been working on so many ‘secret’ projects lately that I couldn’t really do any blog posts until the due dates of these projects.  Apart from about 3 more such secretive projects (that I can recall now) I think I’m done and should be able to get back to regular blog postings.

Deadlines just don’t do it

Friend and quilt buddy Karin and I decided to enter the challenge for our National Quilt Festival .  Not that we think we’re all that good but after 10-years of quilting we figured we earned the right to a decent crit by a panel of judges. We had an artist in our midst (my blonde’s boyfriend) so finding the designs were the easy part.  However then the snail got onto the razor blade; plenty of slime secretion (us talking about our challenges) but little forward movement. 

Suddenly the two of us found ourselves stuck.  We used to quilt day and night, are known for our impulsive all night quilting sessions and we didn’t and couldn’t do a thing the moment the challenge became our priority

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We knew we had to do something about this and SOON too as our quilts should be couriered in about two weeks time, so we retreated to familiarity and planned yet another all night quilt session.  We decided to ‘invite’ the two men for the earlier part of the night to start us off with a decent barbeque before we got stuck through the night.

Here Karin shows how a quilter should await dinner while the men ‘cook’.

Unfortunately while waiting for the food, I first made us lovely cocktails and soon afterwards helped the men finish a good bottle (okay two) of red wine.  Needless to say we got friendlier but more tired and when the men wanted to go to bed at 11pm we seriously doubted our abilities to continue.

Karin took this photo of me and the flat hair...... I had a Brazilian blow wave and for the next 12 weeks I should not have a curl, frizz or kink in my head.  I am not too chuffed with having my head all flat and even Karin’s comment that I’d get used to it, didn’t help much as even with me getting used to it, doesn’t change the fact that it will still be way too flat to my liking. 

At exactly 23:30 the first needle pierced through fabric and we seriously started sewing until 6 am the next morning.  We actually moved forward - hooray!!

I got done with the final quilting of my quilt the next day and now just need to do the binding and final finishes and word from Karin says she too is making good progress but here she can be seen seriously unpicking.

We might just make it!!

My day off

Mid-afternoon but dark outside due to the lovely rain we’re having and I have the day off.  Yip, no quilt classes, with my dinners done ahead until tonight, my laundry kept up to date so that I have about 3 items to iron later,  I have this lovely rainy day to myself.

For a moment early morning I toyed with the idea of staying in bed reading my book, ‘Dark Continent My Black Arse’ (author Sihle Khumalo) but I had more important matters needed to be done.  I purchased a challenge pack to enter a quilt in our National Quilt Festival held in Stellenbosch from 1 to 7 July this year and my entry must be in the possession of the Quilt Registrar by 1 May.

Just when I started typing we suddenly had heavy thunder with lightning and I had to switch off my computer.  According to the local radio station we have several streets flooded, trees toppled and a couple of accidents on our roads – so glad I decided to stay indoors today.

So I’m taking today to work on my challenge but apart from waiting too long before starting – struggled with finding something to go with the theme “Showtime” and the piece of fabric one has to use in your quilt – I seem to add onto the already designed quilt as I go along.

However….. I think I’m done with the top now.  Any more will ruin it and now the actual quilting still lies ahead but at least I am this far.

I don’t want to show my top yet but here is a sneak preview of the back (or then a part of it.)

Two more beginner quilts done

O dear, o dear, I’ve almost abandoned my own little blog and I used to love this dearly.  Our guild has asked me to write a blog for them and as you can guess ‘too much of a good thing, is never really good’.  However should anyone be interested in what I babble on about there, go visit our blog at http://oranjequilters.blogspot.com and see what we do on this side of the world.

Back to this post.  I start beginner courses in February and August every year and last week two of the August beginners brought their completed quilts to show.  I still stay amazed how the same pattern can look so differently when using different fabric.

These ladies are Natasha van Zijl (the wild one) and Wilna Geel (the lady).  Yes obviously they read my blog but we’ve became such good friends in this short time that I feel I can say whatever I want about them.  

Well done ladies, now we await our next meeting and see if Natasha brings the promised box wine (and a bar of soap for old Stinky).

Harsh wake-up call

I just returned from a wonderful boat trip to a Portugese island and after unpacking late yesterday evening, I thought I had all under control.  This morning my cleaners came in and I thought once they leave me with a sparkling clean house I would do the laundry, cook the family a nice meal before teaching a class again this evening.

Luckily I decided to bring my diary outside where I normally sit to wait for the cleaners to finish – not quite dressed for any occasion but decent enough to be outside – and when I turned the diary page to today’s date I got a huge shock realizing that I have a class this morning at 9am!!!!  My cleaners finish at 08:30 and there was just no way that I would finish in time.  Bad, bad way to start a week after such a lovely vacation but I then literally had to hurry the cleaners to finish my bedroom so that I can hop into a shower and get myself sorted for this morning’s class.

Went with a bunch of the most amazing ladies and had so much fun and came home with plenty of fun memories.  Here we were still on our way and posed for this photo at one of the many stops we made.