Playing with my new pen tablet

With hubby off playing golf on a freezing Sunday, I got my newest toy out for some practice.  Now I know I still have a LONG way to go but the more I practise, the easier it must get.  So off I went.  It started out rather rocky but I do think I got better the more I tried.

Then I needed a quilt top to try my hand on and I dug through my panel drawers and found two matching train panels that I could join to form a reasonable sized quilt.  Stitched these together, took a photo and playtime it was.

I am actually so enjoying this as I don’t have any unpicking to do when I make a mistake; I simply erase and start over.

I was also due for a cellular phone upgrade and my son – far more clever than I am – usually chooses a phone for me.  This time however I asked for a phone with a stylus as then I can do the same exercise on my phone when I am not near a PC.  If all goes well the new phone will arrive this week, so rather excited about my new toys.

Quilted duvet cover

I was asked to quilt this duvet cover seeing that the recipient likes the colours but from past experience, I’ve learnt it best to not simply try to stuff the batting in between the top and back but to unpick totally, find a larger replacement backing and cut the batting to fit the top.  So unpicking I had to do.  Then I popped the top and new backing in the washing machine just to get rid of any sizing and to allow me to cut it truly straight on all 4 sides.

Taking a hint from the printing on the top I decided to do Swirls and leaves, a motif I once saw Adria Good do on a top she quilted.  Mine would definitely not be as picture-perfect but I still had time to start practising on paper or the whiteboard. As Angela Walters says “80% of successful quilting is knowing where you are going.”

Did this one rather fast (large all over motifs do go quick) but I am always a little surprised how non-quilters think that a quilt comes off the frame with the binding on.  Luckily up to now, I’ve remembered to ask whether they knew someone who’d do the binding for them and also, up to now, got rather perplexed looks from them.

So I did the binding on this one too.  There was enough backing fabric left to be able to do this.

Eating, shopping and no quilting

DIL invited us for supper on my son’s birthday on the 21^st of August and as with all her cooking, absolutely magnificent even though the brisket took her a full day to cook.

Needless to say, visiting them, we simply cannot escape the little terror that would use any excuse just to be by his grandad. However, grandad had to be at the office at 6 am Saturday morning and left while the little one was still asleep and he was stuck with me.

When he returned home, I treated myself to some long arm videos and practise sessions which can never be underestimated.

Had youngest granddaughter Saturday afternoon and this one is seriously trying to stand alone.  I invited the kids for cake on Sunday but my daughter simply decided she couldn’t wait a day longer and had a slice.

On Monday I invited the kids over for curried lamb (head, stomach and feet – called “afval” in South Africa) but seeing that the curry had a bite, got pizza for the little ones.

I ordered wide printed sheeting from Chamdor.com for quilt backings and the parcel arrived on Tuesday at the office.  I am happy with the quality but should take a closer look at the print on the fabric next time.  I ordered a blueish colour and it turned out to be full of grocery related word.  So we learn.

My son helped me to purchase this tablet pen online and although another learning curve, I’d be able to audition quilt motifs on my PC screen instead of having to print it on paper in a plastic sheet and use a whiteboard marker.  Guess what I’ll be doing the next couple of days?

Kaffe Fasset applique

This quilter always does something different; with this quilt, she not only used Kaffe Fasset to piece the quilt but also did an applique motif with the same fabric.  She requested an all-over leave pattern around the centre applique panel.

Then she asked me to stitch veins inside of the leaves.

Because I go to bed early I only squared the backing and loaded the layers on the frame before bedtime but up at 4 am I was able to do the all-over leave pattern as well as all the veins before hitting the shower at 6 am.

I was hoping to be able to do my normal early- Tuesday- leaving –the- office -routine but it was wishful thinking.  One of the admin staff lives with family who tested positive for COVID and is in self-isolation, so that means I can’t simply go whenever I please.  Imagine me telling a customer “sorry, I need to bring my dogs inside, can’t help you any longer”!

After work, I got to start echoing around the applique but this posed to be a massive problem.  With all the colours I either lost my line or simply did not see the applique motif and stitched right through it.  Heaps of unpicking done on this.

My daughter and the baby came to visit one afternoon, so not much more quilting done further.

I felt the area surrounding the applique needed dense quilting in the hope the applique would stand out somewhat but I am not sure the loft in our local cotton blend batting would allow this.  The only way to find out was to try.  I used a dense meandering (smaller scale) to try and achieve this.

I don’t think the loft of the batting allowed for my plan to fully work but one does see a little fullness in the border areas surrounding the centre applique panel.  My wish was to accomplish this with the centre applique itself. On the back, the centre applique looks almost better in standing out, so maybe it was a combination of the low loft batting and the extremely busy fabric that caused the applique not to pop.

I had my hair cut and coloured yesterday and now I’m good to go for another couple of weeks.

How I join Loomtex batting

Now this is definitely not the ONLY way and not necessarily correct but works for me and a quilter recently asked how I joined these.  With Loomtex (being polyester) one cannot use an iron and joining tape to join these but I am just too stingy to simply throw them out.

So I’ll start by having at least straight edges on my scraps, mark a half-inch line on one part.

Overlap these and join with a wide and long zig-zag stitch until I have a larger batting piece than my 12½ inch square ruler.

Then I lay my ruler over the piece and cut a perfect square.

The small bits to the top and left will be discarded but I can still use what is left on the right and bottom.

I will keep on doing this and then join the blocks again marking my half inch line and making sure my scrim stays to one side.

I keep adding blocks until I have batting 12 inches wider than the width and length of my quilt top.  I also turn my seams in different directions so as not to have all going the same way.

If I have a longer length of batting I will not chop these into squares but simply cut a straight edge to join to the previous.

Soon enough I have patchwork batting and once sandwiched between the top and backing and quilted no-one will ever know or feel the difference.