Eye of the Storm – 7 – Finished

I don’t mean to boast but I am sure pleased with most everything in this quilt, from it turning out rather perfectly straight and my attempt to quilt this 100” x 97” as my first large quilt on the frame. This will be a gift to my sister as she always eagerly goes fabric shopping for me when I ask her.  Sure she will enjoy.

This pattern can be purchased over HERE

Eye of the Storm – 6

My quilt top is done and I am so impressed, not only with the pattern but with myself for getting it right.  I had to do corrections on 3 blocks, one had a strip in the wrong width and the other two had the wrong colours in certain spots but once I’ve finished the 42 blocks, checking them was a breeze for I knew the colours by heart then.

Once I popped the top over a bed I realised that I will easily make this exact same pattern again.  Obviously in a different colour but I am sure I will still enjoy the process.

Now I am waiting for my ordered fabric to add borders and get this little bugger quilted.

This pattern can be purchased over HERE.

Eye of the Storm – 5

We had no water (at all) in our city for days and often times my being so terribly organised gets to me.  I often feel if I organise less I will have more time to simply socialise and take a day as it comes BUT when crap like a water shortage hits your city, you so appreciate not only being organised yourself but also being married to another organisational freak.

I felt terribly sorry to listen to everyone’s complaints about not being able to shower, cook, do laundry and get the little ones sorted while I was able to pitch up at the office perfectly pampered, cleaned and dressed to the T.

I had a stack of bottled water hidden in every nook and cranny of this house (just for in case, seeing that we do have a water filtration system) and dearest hubby made sure our outside water tanks are kept at a level to get us through a couple of days.  So we survived this ordeal just fine.

As for my quilt I am halfway, hallelujah!  I love this process of adding a block at a time and seeing the progress.

At this stage I spotted even more mistakes.  I think sharing my quilt table with 2 cats, a parrot and a dove caused this.  Once done I’ll compare every block with the pattern and make the necessary corrections.

Eye of the Storm – 4

With hubster out of town on a business trip and I quite satisfied with left-overs from the previous nights’ supper I got quilting.

Completed the next row of blocks (14 blocks done) but something is not quite right, somehow the two lights curving on the far edges seem to be different but what the hell, I’ll just keep it as is and if it really bugs me when the quilt is completed, I might just fix it.

I now have a new activity to focus on, my Q’niqe quilter on the frame and I realise when everybody said that there will be a learning curve, they did not lie.  As comfortable as I felt doing free motion quilting on my domestic machine I now am lost, feeling like a total beginner again.

I have finished my first practise piece and this will be utilised to catch the sand and dust carried in by the cats on my cutting mats.  It will at least serve a purpose.  I don’t have a problem with E2E quilting, I will however still have to practise days and nights doing finer detailed work.

Eye of the Storm – 3

I have house cleaners coming in once a week and hell or high water; I make sure that nothing in my sewing room is out of place or causing them not to be able to clean properly.  So I worked liked crazy to at least get the first row done before they pitch up tomorrow. Only then could I pack away all these strip sets not having to fear that someone would distort their order.

Tuesdays are my favourite day of the week.  I have to lock my dogs in a small courtyard when I leave for work because the cleaners are scared of them but that also mean I can leave the office at around 10 am to rescue our poor pups from captivity.  Nothing is as special as walking into an impeccable clean house.

In the mean while I had my first lesson on my Qnique quilter and I am so impressed with myself apart from the fact that the moment my tutor left and I continued stitching, I couldn’t remember how to roll the quilt up any further….. Darn!  This is however what I’ve accomplished.

Eye of the Storm – 2

I continued with this baby and it kept me rather busy.

At this stage I had no clue to where I was supposed to be going but figured I am not that good a cook but if I followed a recipe to the T, it usually works, so I might as well do it with a quilt pattern.  This was not even half way through cross cutting my strip sets.

I often read about quilters referring to their time in the sewing room as “mindless stitching” but heck for this quilt I had to have my wits about me all the time….. nothing mindless about this one and the cat did not help much. This is only block 1 of 42 with this one only packed, not even sewn.

Eye of the Storm – 1

I bought myself a PDF Bargello pattern called Eye of the Storm (and for October 2017 most patterns on THIS SITE are less 50%) and once I decided on my colour and found all the fabric needed, I could start cutting 2½” strips from all 6 colours. The quilt on the pattern was in purple but being from central South Africa, with very little rain, our storms are usually just masses of dust, so I chose browns.

The next step was to lay out my strips according to colour and sew these together, praying the whole time that one of the cats wouldn’t jump on my strips and distort the order.

I tried glue basting and it worked fantastic.  Once I’ve laid out a series of strips, I glue basted and heat set these and could go to the machine in one session and simply string piece the seams.  I am not too sure I would use it for ordinary blocks but for Bargello’s it is a definite must! Glue basting also helped when I woke up at 4 am and without waking up granddaughter, whose room is opposite of my sewing room, with the noise of the machine I could start getting strip sets ready.

Only on page 3 of the instructions and this is already the amount that I’ve sewn.  These are not necessarily all single strip sets, some are sets of 5 (all pinned together).