Stitch in the ditch

Also known as SITD…. This was the request from my latest very brave client.  She only needed me to SITD around her blocks as she plans to hand quilt the detail…. Some quilters are SO courageous!  Anyway, her wish, my command and off I went.  It was fun, fast and easy.

I used YLI Wonder Invisible thread on the top and a 60 weight fill-tech pre-wound in the bobbin.

I so hope she will come to show me the quilt once the hand quilting has been done as I can only imagine a masterpiece.

As for now, I will disappear from the quilting scene for a while as it not only is Roland Garros but also ICC, way too many buttons on the remote control to press to find time for quilting.

Phew! I’m bushed!

Almost 4 hours of travelling, with the odd stop and missed off-ramps my daughter and I, arrived in Sin City (anywhere near Johannesburg) and immediately went to the Magic Mama baby show.  Now regarding myself as a pro with quilt festivals, I had a plan of action.  Day one would consist only of looking, taking notes of what looked worthwhile and marking stall numbers of what we liked most.  Day 2 would be a major shopping day.

However taking brand new expecting mom along, trying to explain that tomorrow is another day, is almost hopeless.  Some things she just needed NOW or TODAY but the foundation was laid.  Even only mostly looking on day 1, we were dead tired that evening but we had the quaintest guesthouse and a lovely hostess.

We were in our PJ’s and in bed at 18:30 that evening.  Now my kids can’t understand why I am up at 3:30 or at least before 4 am each morning and I think my daughter now understands.  With us being literally asleep by 8 pm, I woke up before 4 am the next morning to find this young lady already awake and on her phone.  Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Day 2, after a lovely fruit salad and flapjack breakfast we arrived at the venue exactly at the time they opened and then major shopping happened.  We had our list of needs and wants and my daughter even attended a lecture on breastfeeding after she was totally freaked out by a demonstration on breast pumps.  Now she is much more relaxed about that issue.

Another 4 hours’ drive back, we could proudly display our purchases packing it from my car to hers. Needless to say, another extra-early bedtime, that evening.

As for my Handy Dandy scrap quilt, it is done and I will purchase the batting somewhere in next week and then can start the quilting.

A Handy Dandy Scrap quilt – The top

I have plenty of other activities happening on my side but I do try and get an odd couple of minutes of quilting per day between it all and it was a great feeling to have half of the top sewn together and pinned to the design wall. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how many of my lines lined up perfectly (not all though) as I’ve found this to be almost the hardest part of a scrappy quilt. I think in this quilt the cornerstones in the sashing having to align with the blocks, made it easier.

The first border is a scrappy one too and I had to do a little more cutting, again making it easy on myself by using the Go.

The final border was a wide background border and easy on the cutting but I had a hair appointment and as much as I love being without grey hair, I hate sitting in a salon for two hours.  I am really not into making small talk and I think people sense that and simply stay away from me.  So these sessions are really boring.  Luckily one of my favourite restaurants are opposite the salon and when I park and show the signal, they know to wait for 15 minutes and then deliver a carafe dry white wine to the salon.  When sipping on the ice cold wine while playing a game on my phone the time pass somewhat faster.

With both, the borders attached my quilting activities stopped for a while.

While posting this I am packed to go to a Baby Show in Randburg (some 3 hours’ drive from us) with my daughter.  It is her first baby, so she goes big and mom has to tag along.  This reminds me of the picture doing the rounds on Facebook.

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Miraculous koi escape customer quilt

On Saturday my daughter had her gender reveal party, so now we are looking forward to our second granddaughter which will be the third grandchild.

A quilter sent me a picture of a quilt, she wanted me to do.  Now not being very arty or creative, I looked at it and didn’t have the foggiest as to what one should do with this, even though she told me what the quilt was called.  Guess I was just too eager to look at the picture; I never bothered to read the message properly.

As usual, I printed the picture and thought I’d start planning and only on about day 3, upon walking into my sewing room with the printed picture on the table, I suddenly got it.  A massive Koi (in fact several) is hiding behind all these colours.  That ‘aha’-moment!

When the quilter finally brought me the quilt, I double checked with her to see if she too saw what I saw and we were in agreement.  Then the fun started.

Scales on the Koi done and I was satisfied.  This was the first time I used 40 weight thread in the bobbin and it took some time getting used to.  I am used to ‘feel’ my tension at the bottom and this thread is so fine, I hardly feel a thing.  So my ‘Angie mirror’ and table light had to be taken out to see what was happening at the bottom.  

My enlarging mirror is called Angie as my friend Karin’s daughter, Angie, gave me this one year for my birthday to pluck eyebrows – needless to say, it nowadays is used for other fun stuff.

Satisfied with the tension, the scales of the most prominent Koi got done.

Then I simply did rather straight lines on the fins.

The water was added to the background.

With the border done, I have yet another finished client quilt.

A Handy Dandy Scrap quilt – Starting to assemble the main body of the top

Phew! I’ve been cooking venison off the bones for days now but I refuse to simply discard these as this finely cooked meat works great in pies, in ‘vetkoek’ (non-South Africans can simply google the word and go to images to see what these look like) or simply instead of ground beef as curry with rice.

This is actually still part of Clue 4 but all the blocks are placed on-point and I chose to piece my rows at an angle to make joining these easier (I think?)

Row 1 done and I still like it a lot.

A new delivery arrived at the office and all South Africans will agree with me that we tolerate bad service like no one else can.  After all, it is all we have.

However a couple of months ago I discovered the Handi Quilter South African website and this must surely be the best service ever.  I am as happy as a cat with cream (wondering if my cats liked cream??)

I made the first batch of venison curry and invited friends Karin and André over for supper one evening and it was extremely good curry.  I got this recipe from a co-worker and it has never disappointed me.

In the meanwhile, I got a rather interesting arty quilt from a customer, so the progress on my scrap quilt is once again interrupted.