Mauritian Challenge

Left: Orginal fabric

Right: Completed quilt

In May 2006 all the members of the Quiltmakers got 12 identical floral pictures on a piece of fabric with the challenge to "make a quilt" - no rules, no size and no instructions given. At first I was not supposed to participate but then some members resigned and I got a piece of fabric as well and not being able to think around a rectangle I just couldn't get started.

We were all supposed to have these quilts finished by November 2007 and as time ran out, I decided on something easy and chose log cabin variations to start with and the quilt grew with each completed block until I was able to finish it. Although not very practical with all the 3 D flowers it came out rather nice.

Completed: 24 October 2007

Woven Placemats

When visiting a small town called De Wetsdorp, Riette de Wet from Aliwal North demonstrated this technique of weaving fabrics and I decided to use several colors instead of just 2, making 12 placemats for the home.

Completed: 11 September 2007

All my chickens

One of teacher/designer Iessie Steenberg's older patterns which I bought from her beginning 2005 but making it by myself, without the support of a group working on a BOM, took forever but I eventually finished it on 25 August 2007.

Marline Turner's Mystery

At the very first mini quilt festival held in Bloemfontein and organized by Hennie Hoffmann and team, I attended a mystery quilt class by Marline Turner.

What a grueling day of cutting, measuring and stitching it turned out to be with teacher Marline having very little sympathy for aching backs and we were firmly told that absolutely no moaning will be allowed in her class.

At first I didn't think my fabric or color choice would work on this quilt but back home, I kept going and later, as I worked the blocks together, this quilt, as Riette, one of my quilting friends, would put it, grew on me.

I've also used Marline's netting tip to transfer quilt markings and found it extremely easy to work with.

Completed: 25 May 2007

Simple Secret

On 21 March 2007 we celebrated National Quilt Day and the quilting group in Aliwal North invited our group to join them for the day. Teacher, Iessie Steenberg, designed a 27 inch mystery quilt for us to work on. True to tradition the Aliwal group left no stone unturned to organize this day to perfection and we eagerly started working on our quilts at 9am. When lunch was served around 1pm most of us were finished with the quilt top and could start the actual quilting.

With me however, size does matter and I decided that I wanted my quilt much bigger and returned home to Bloemfontein where I simply kept the basic centre design and just added more borders until I was satisfied.

I didn't have enough fabric for such a big quilt but my main fabric allowed me to improvise and play around with different colours and I am quite satisfied with my end result.

Completed: 18 May 2007