Organizing fail!

While busy in my sewing room this weekend I decided to do something about my fabric which is in a cupboard but because of the width and length of the rack only the fabric in the front is visible when I opened the door.

See, I could never see what is behind these bolts.

I honestly don't have an inch of unused space in my room but I use 8 cupboards like these to keep my quilt books and magazines.

Cleverly I thought I'd swap the books and fabrics and now my fabric is in single file and visible if I open the little doors.

However when I started packing my books in the old faric cupboard I had exactly the same problem..... darn!  Now my books aren't visible at a single glance - stacked in double rows with only the front books visible - just as the fabric was!  In fact I even had to take some books to another room.

There is just no way I am changing back again and until I can figure out something else to do (declutter I suppose) this will have to stay.

My week in quilting

Daily posts about projects kept in plastic bags are not much fun but I do this to not only keep track of my progress but also to motivate myself.  At least looking back on my own blog shows that things did happen even though my UFO list is still 21 items long.

On Tuesday my goodie-bag project quota for July 2012 got done.  Quilted backings done for me by Iessie Steenberg and Frances van Schalkwyk - kind fairies!  Now I can attend the IQC in July without feeling guilty about incomplete projects.  Yip, accommodation already booked for this first time African event.

Spent way too much time on the telephone on Wednesday and didn't quite finish another months' quota - a time consuming device, this little telephone.  Got up early on Thursday, did my morning household routines and then returned to the grinding board.  With the help of Rina van Straten and Magriet Bester who quilted these backings I got done with my August 2012 projects just before 10am.

Felow quilter, Elsie van dier Bijl, came over on Thursday morning with a big box of freezer paper that her daughter-in-law, Robin, sent us from the USA.  This should last us a lifetime or so.  Thanks Elsie and Robin!!  Elsie decided to make this the year to finish her UFO's and she made me so jealous with her progress.  Started working on a new months' quota but taught an evening class so I didn't get to finish.

I finished my quota for September on Friday just before the mister took me to dinner and I've now officially worked myself out of pre-quilted backings. Now I'll have to make more or seriously suck up to my fellow quilters to help.  Either way, I think I'm taking a break from goodie-bag projects for a while.  This months' quilted backings done for me by Frances van Schalkwyk and Rina van Straten.

Focus after having fun

I had a great time working on my own quilts for a while but with us planning something much bigger than just a quilt with our 2013 National Quilt Festival it was time to focus on the important again.

So on this lovely rainy day in central South Africa I tackled the goodie bag projects again and whoop-whoop I'm done with my quota for June 2012.

I unfortunately can only show the packaged picture to keep the surprise.

I was able to do this as fast as I did with the help of fellow quilters Iessie Steenberg, Wilna Geel and Frances van Schalkwyk who quilted the backs for me.  Thank you so much, this is a bigger help than any of you can ever imagine.

UFO progress in an all-night-quilting session

I finished the appliqué on border 3 of my Simple Yet Elegant BOM on what was left of my Friday and Saturday morning but then had to prepare for an all night quilting sessions with a couple of the girls.  Apart from Wilna, who has done this with me before, the other 2 were newbies at quilting through the night.  The girls arrived with a salad bowl I at first thought would feed an army especially after they started adding to the basic ingredients.  It seems however they knew they'd need every ounce of energy to make it through the night and very little left-overs made it to the dustbin.

Natasha and Wilna

Sonja brought along a UFO but broke the rules by also bringing Jelly Roll strips and enough fabric for a third possible project.  The idea of these all night quilting sessions is to bring something that you NEED to work on but not necessarily WANT to and hopefully with being faced with only one project you'll get to take it up again and possibly finish it.  So with too many options, Sonja soon decided that she could do with a little sleep for an hour or two and disappeared onto the couch.

Natasha came with a quilt top for a baby and up until this evening she too was one of those people who badmouthed herself into believing that she couldn't free motion quilt.  We set her up nicely; Sonja cleaned out her machine, oiled it and replaced the needle.  Then we created a perfect space with a machine bed, supreme slider and once she put on the winning gloves there was just no stopping her!

Here she looks at her completed top with only the borders in need of some quilting still.  No mother could be prouder of her baby than Natasha was of this quilt!  Here's a little close-up of her very first free motion stitching.

I couldn't decide whether she was prouder of the front or the back of her quilt, so I had to take a photo of the back as well.

When I saw Sonja's Jelly Roll it reminded me of a block pattern I found on the internet on Friday and I showed her this.  Having to start reading and understanding instructions at 2:15 am seemed a little daunting and Sonja decided this block was just way too difficult to explain to anyone else.  In the end it turned out the block was basically just a variation of the Cathedral Window.

Sonja 

I think if Sonja reads the instructions again on a morning that she's all fresh, she'll wonder where the difficult part was.

Wilna, her quiet ladylike self, worked on the free motion of her Colorful Cube quilt and got ¾ of it done.  Just a couple of block more to go.

Wilna

Natasha, by then almost asleep in her chair, quilting with only one eye open at a time.... "to give the other one a bit of a break!", decided to push through and quilt the border and a new pattern almost came naturally after she overcame her initial fear of doing the free motion quilting.  You go girl!!

I took out a very old UFO I've had for a couple of years.  There are several reasons why this stays a UFO. It is compiled of all my least favorite things..... a "one block" pattern, the same colors in every single block and finally it is foundation pieced, my least favorite quilting technique.  However every block I get to stitch during the 'all night quilting' is a block that wouldn't have been done otherwise, so I too pushed through and completed 5 of these twisted log cabin blocks.

The next morning I finished one more to at least complete row 3 and went to bed with DH cooking us a whole chicken in the Weber with a tray filled with mixed veggies basting in the dripping sauce of the chicken.  When I woke up just before lunch I only had to make a salad and we could enjoy lunch before I again went to bed to enjoy my Sunday afternoon nap!

Breakfast date

I finished the applique on the second border Thursday evening just before midnight and then enjoyed a rare full nights' rest.  This morning I had a breakfast date with the coordinator of our 2013 National Quilt Festival, Iessie Steenberg, to thank her for all the hard work she does.

Nope, I'm not that kind by nature but I had quite a scare some 2 weeks ago.  Another quilter e-mailed me asking whether I knew anything about Iessie not coordinating the festival anymore.  Gosh, you know that feeling when it seems your intestines switched positions and you are in need of a toilet desperately - not knowing whether you'll bend over it or simply flop down onto it??  That was exactly how I felt!!  Luckily I was still capable of e-mailing a single sentence back:  "I know nothing about it."

So why didn't anyone tell me?  Obviously because it wasn't true and the person who e-mailed me got confused with the Bloem Show that needed a new coordinator to give Iessie time to focus on the festival only.  This however made me realize how easily we criticize and how slow we are to compliment.  So I invited her to breakfast on me and we ended up talking (IQC obviously) until 12:30.  If we stayed any longer they could have served us lunch!

Now just to convince PIC (partner-in-crime) Karin to come along with us.  Please......... pretty please, Karin!!