Finalizing the free motion project

With having a public holiday in sunny South Africa DH was at home.  Now from the day we got married I realized this guy was a workaholic and knew it was up to me to entertain myself, which I did.  So having him at home all day long is ...... uh... different (opposed to annoying).  But he got himself 2 helpers and tackled the garden before the holidays however the day was still different in that I simply refuse to cook on public holidays.  One has to put your foot down occasionally.

So I got up, tidied the houses and even did the laundry and ironing before disappearing into my sewing room to finish up the free motion project.  Not much left to do and satin stitching around the thought bubble's edges went faster than doing the same around the smaller pattern pieces and the variegated thread looked so pretty!

Popped all the pieces into the washing machine to get rid of any blue markers and spray adhesive and served myself a cold cider to celebrate.  There are few better feelings than tidying your sewing room and putting away fabric and thread after finishing a project.

While waiting for the pattern pieces to dry and obviously with having had a cider during the daytime, I took a 'public-holiday-daytime' nap which was wonderful at the time.  Let's rather not discuss not being able to sleep that evening.

Then I used what was left of the day to assemble the whole lot to get my wall hanging as a unit. Mostly done by hand but by matching the tread to the thread color of the satin stitching and with the back thread being buried in the batting, I didn't have to worry about small or neat stitching.

This concludes my wall hanging - named Bright Idea - but I can see how others might want to add more 'bling' to their wall hanging and I think I'll leave this as a personal choice.

Now to type up the notes for teaching...............ugh!

Completed:  16 December 2011

Step 4 of the free motion project

Done with the unpicking I could start fresh and being this close to finishing this I have to admit that I abandoned the house and cleaning for a day.  Cut your nose to spite your face as it has to be done at another time.  Why don't housewives get vacation?

This went rather fast (or then still most of a day but faster than the dense stitching I did on the other colors) and I loved every moment of it.

Visited our local PFAFF dealer during the morning and noticed the most lovely metallic Marathon thread on her table.  Just arrived, not even unpacked and I had to have one!!

My photo is unfortunately not that good but hopefully when clicking on it to enlarge it, you'll be able to see the silver pebbles filling the empty spaced between the feathers.

As much as I wanted to finish this there and then I simply had to stop and get some housework done.  Ah well, at least I have something to look forward to tomorrow!

Step 3 of the free motion workshop

Templates cut, I could start packing the shapes to get a nice color variation in every piece.

With this done I used a wide and dense satin stitch to keep the pieces together and with satin stitch not being one of my favorites it felt like this step took forever but looking at the end results worthwhile.

Then I moved on to the center thought bubble, marking my feather placements after the shadow was stitched in place.

I started with Marathon variegated thread color 5005 and got as far as this when my friend from Cape Town phoned.  I was quite happy with the thread and color.

While talking to her however, with my thread box open on the table, I spotted these Metler variegated spools and decided that I liked this more.  The color of the Metler thread is 9981.

So then I had to unpick my previous stitching.  Not that I terribly minded. Our 2 new kittens chased a bug and ran over my quilting several times causing me to have a few nasty stitches.

Here they look ever so calm while sleeping but believe me they can be a handful.  After Catsidy died I literally cried myself into 2 new kittens.  So allow me to introduce Ash and Sasky, with Ash being the tinier one but a week older than Sasky.

Okay, off to bed to sit and do some unpicking.

Second step in my free motion workshop

Another Saturday with DH playing golf gave me time to finish step 2.  I obviously didn't do all of this in one Saturday but had hours of fun densely free motion quilting my colors.  Just loved working on the shaded fabrics as they made much more of a statement than the plain colors did.

With this done I could cut the templates needed to start assembling the different pieces.

I took care of Karin's parrot, Nordic, for the weekend and she actively helped me do my planning.

Coming along nicely at this stage.

Creating for a free-motion workshop

I don’t recall ever offering to help anyone or advertising that I will teach free-motion quilting but somehow it just happened.  I think the fact that I love this part of the quilting process the most must have played a role and now I am in it for better or for worse.  Luckily mostly for better as most of the students eventually see this is after all not brain surgery and just a matter of practice, practice and more practice.

With 2011 not even done and dusted I was again asked when my first workshop in 2012 would be.  So I knew I had to do something but what?  Not having a single artistic bone in my body I had to find something new, fresh and my own to serve as useful end result and also give a beginner enough exercise.  I am so over making and joining squares or dividing a large piece of fabric into squares.  Surely there must be something more pleasing to the eye?

Then one sleepless night while channel hopping on TV I saw this quick flash on Cartoon Network and I think it represented an explosion.   As with anything animated it was funky, alive and extremely colorful and I there and then knew….. THAT would be the next free-motion workshop or then something similar.

I couldn’t start working on it right away as I was busy with the projects for our goody bags for the 2013 National Festival and didn’t want to stop midway during my monthly target, so I had to let it slide. Done with one months’ target and with hubby playing golf early one Saturday morning I could give it a try.  Now obviously by then I only remembered a thought bubble, stars and plenty of curly shapes but for once my bad memory had an advantage as now I am not copying anyone else’s idea.  It was just much cheaper to first create with paper to see what it would look like and if, in fact, it could work.  So I did just that.

Now at this stage I was so chuffed with my art attempt that I stopped just there and actually felt that I accomplished something or then at least made a start.