Two baby quilts in green and grey

Earlier in the week I received two baby quilts.  Knowing that it is financial year-end for us which entails stock-taking, furthermore, we’ve sold the business and the new owners wanted to take over on 1 March.  Things had to happen suddenly and fast and I warned the quilter that I might take some time before starting.

One may think, once you sell a business it is just a matter of handing the keys over and moving out.  There are still many more things to finish. I managed to move most of my office out to the house on Saturday.  I am sure it will take time and plenty of re-organizing before my setup will run smoothly but for now, I am out of the old and starting a new little adventure.

I decided to take Sunday off and with hubby playing golf, I had time for my hobby and got going with these two quilts.

The quilter and I decided on all-over motifs for both and it went fairly quickly especially seeing that I didn’t even have to change thread color when starting the second quilt.

Now I feel ready for the new week as I still have to go to the office on Monday to delete my accounting program and bring it over to my home computer.

As for The 28-day diet, I am still going strong but cheat in regards to the wine, I just can’t go without it.  On day 11 (weigh day) I’ve lost 1.8 kg and my co-worker a whopping 3,65 kg.  I am seriously planning to hold out for the whole 28 days.

The kids and little ones will be coming over later, so plenty of family time ahead.

Kaffe Fasset quilt

Quilting buddy, Karin and her hubby came over yesterday evening as she wanted to bring me a quilt to do for her.  Needless to say, after we both had grandchildren, we simply don’t see each other as much as we used to.  Whenever one would try and organize a date, the other would be on babysitting duty, so when they got here on Friday, we made the most of it and had an evening of fun and catching up.

I am not a huge fan of Kaffe Fasset fabric and don’t think I will ever go out and purchase or start collecting these.  Furthermore, when quilting it, the thread almost disappears on some of the colors, and one has to concentrate really hard not to go over your previous stitching lines.

Be it as it may, this quilt really caught my eye, and even though I had to focus while quilting it, I love the total look.

Tonight, we’re having the youngest grandbaby for a sleep-over as mom works nightshift.  Up to make bottles during the night for me.

The 28-day diet

 This is something rather popular in South Africa and one of my co-workers, in desperate need to diet, talked about this for a while.  Not really having to lose plenty of weight, I decided to support her and we seriously began this on 15 February.  I have to admit I found buying all the ingredients needed to follow rather expensive but as my husband said, if you subtract that from what you normally pay for what you eat, it might just surprise you.  So off shopping, I went on Valentine’s Day… my special Valentine’s Day treat was that hubby went shopping with me instead of playing golf… how romantic.

Spent the rest of my Sunday measuring quantities, cooking soup, and prepping meals for hubby who definitely does not need any diet.  Can’t have the skinny man eat steamed fruit now, can I?

Apparently the first 4 days are the worst as it is total detox days and I guess for me the hardest was to quit any wine drinking and substitute this with water.  Weighing should be done on day 1 before you start and then only on Day 4 again.  I even downloaded an app on my phone called “Monitor your weight” to see if there would be any improvement.

Day 1 was hell.  I had 3 meals compared to my normal one per day but the last time I can remember being this hungry was when I broke my jaw and even then, I could sip some wine to drown my sorrows, now no wine at all.

The steamed dried fruit for breakfast was a hit, at least for the parrot.  I have to agree, not what I usually have but not bad at all.

Lunch on day 2 was fish with either one vegetable or salad and I opted for a salad and to make the meal more appealing I poured my lemon water into a wine glass.

Suppers were the worst, having to sit by hubby while he’d eat our usual food and I had to eat whatever was on the menu for that day.  Here he had rice, prawns, and tuna salad while I had to do with 2 boiled eggs in tomato and onion sauce.

And then day 4 arrived, the second day to weigh.... what an utter disappointment!  I have only lost 200 grams!  Is all the planning, buying, eating really worth it?  I will wait to hear from my co-worker to see if she didn’t maybe lose more weight.

Anyway time for my cereal, no sugar, and low-fat milk to start the day.

 

 

Fairy panel

I got to finish this fairy panel over the weekend and it is an interesting story behind the quilt.  I spoke to the quilter over the phone a couple of months ago and she assured me that she is confident in quilting her own quilts using meandering in different sizes.  I really don’t have a problem with that seeing that I myself did my own quilting for 17 years and the reason she phoned was to ask why I needed extra backing fabric as she helped a family member who uses me to finish her quilts.  After explaining, she understood and we never spoke again.

Last week I got a quilt from her via the family member with the only instruction to do as I see good.  I’ll admit, I was somewhat nervous knowing that she is capable and confident in her own quilting and now leave the job up to me but then I can only do the best I can, so I got going.

I enjoyed doing this and sent photos of the completed quilt to the family member but has not heard from the family member or the quilter again.  Thus, I have no idea whether I’ve met the criteria, did extremely well, or failed miserably.

I guess new situations, problems, and challenges will arise the more I quilt for others and I just have to learn to deal with it as it comes my way.

Snake print fabric

 I know most grandmothers go out of their way to please the grandkids and this grandma surely did not disappoint.  She made every grandchild a quilt according to their interests and when talking to one, he told her how interested he was in snakes and even planned to become a snake handler when growing up.

Yip, grandma made a plan and ordered fabric with snakes on and I am not sure what surprised me most, the fact that she got the fabric so quickly or the speed in which she finished the quilt after getting the fabric.

This one turned out to be an easy job.  The quilter told me exactly which motif (seen on previous quilts I’ve done for her) I had to put in which space.  So I didn’t have to think about a single thing….. just did as I was told.