Friday, April 24, 2026

Blocks in blue

 I used last Friday and the weekend to cook for the freezer.  I struggle with quilts awaiting to be done, yet I still have to cook meals too.  I have a husband, as skinny as a broomstick, who believes in 3 meals a day (two containing meat if bacon and eggs are not served as breakfast) and snacking in between, with cookies as his favourite.  As is, I already cook chicken and rice for our elderly dogs once a week, I boil veggies for the chickens, and I still have to prepare our normal meals.  At this stage, I refuse to bake cookies.  Hubby shares these with the dogs and chickens, donating my hard-baked attempt to animals.  If he needs cookies, he can buy them himself.

To get back to my story, when I have quilts awaiting, I need to prioritise what to do first.  I hate working on a quilt; having to walk back and forth to check on food, and I would hate my work to reek of onions or garlic once done.  If I get going on a quilt first, meals will end up somewhat shabby, nothing special, just something to serve to make me feel better.  If I choose cooking first, the quilt is loaded late in the day, so I may not make the best motif design choices, so it waits for the next day.

Having frozen veggies, cooked meat or full meals in the freezer makes my decision-making life easier.  Enough about my cooking rituals.

This quilt maker’s daughter-in-law lives abroad and was gifted the blue fabric.  She really could not get herself to like the fabric, but, feeling guilty, decided to make something of it.  When done, her own daughter came to visit and loved it.  It would be perfect for a couch in her house, so Mom got motivated to finish it.

Once done and having it over at my place for a while, she ended up not disliking the fabric all that much anymore, but already gifted it, so her daughter will get the “not so ugly” quilt after all.



Thursday, April 23, 2026

Bargello heart table runner

This was the third of the quilts I dropped off from the ‘out of town’ quilter.  Because of all the different fabric colours in the bargello wave, I knew full custom quilting would not show up much.  I spoke to the maker, and we decided to use a combination of edge-to-edge bargello with simple straight lines in the background.

I had this quilt loaded on the frame during Easter, and so badly wanted to start on Monday, but at 18:30 on Sunday evening, the electricity in large parts of our city went out due to a fault.  Monday, therefore, was hell, sitting around unable to do anything.  By lunch, the electricity was back on, but with my tummy full (eating was most of what I did during this time), I was simply too lazy and unmotivated to start.  The quilt had to stand over until Tuesday.



Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Kaffet Fasset squares

Another quilt with squares to be used as a tablecloth, so no batting in this one, only flannel in the middle.  This is my customer preferring large-scale meandering. After doing all the tedious straight lines in the previous quilt, I welcomed something light and loose.



Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Postage stamp quilt

Somewhere along the line, I forgot to keep my blog updated. This led me to decide not to share quilts on Facebook, but rather to have them written about on my blog.

This quilt came to me via a local quilt teacher who presented a class in a town some 200 kilometres from us.  The teacher would return the next week, and I had to finish the quilt before then.  The quilt maker only requested diagonal lines over the centre of the quilt and left the choice of what to do on the border to me.

The border had massive waves, and the best I could do was quilt it to death so the sides would lie as flat as possible.  The maker seemed satisfied after seeing a photo I sent her.



Thursday, April 09, 2026

ABC quilt alphabet blocks

I haven’t seen one of these in ages, and the worst part is, I can not remember the name of a single block starting with that letter of the alphabet.

Old age is not for sissies. I often use AI just to help refresh my memory.  This one took forever to finish, or so it felt.  My feet, knees, hips and lower back knew I was at the frame most of the day.  Thus, going to bed at 19:30 was nothing strange.  Not because I was all that tired, but I just needed to get my body in a different position.