Sewing catch up

It's early morning here, and after sending out emails announcing our Guild's upcoming Fynbos Quilt Festival to be held in Hopefield, decided to get back to writing a post, with many photos.  It's been a while since the last post!

First up, one finished quite big quilt top.  This 365 Challenge Quilt was started the first year it was offered by Kathryn Kerr, and now nine years later, a slightly blurry picture of the top.  I was standing on the edge of a coffee table to take the picture, and then fell off!  Mostly ego bruised, but glass everywhere from a picture frame on the table behind me!  Only after this did I think I could have fetched a step ladder!  The 12-inch block at bottom left has over 170 pieces!  I love this top!

And, amazingly, another top finished, this time it is the Glenday Quilt.  Our Guild President challenged our whole committee to make this one.  I tried to keep sort-of similar colours as the original quilt, housed in the Cultural History Museum here in Cape Town.  It is a quarter size of the pattern (by Diana Vandeyar), because I didn't want hand applique bigger stars, diamonds and flowers!  I hope the minor wobbliness will quilt out.

And sharing an actual finished quilt, but not by me, but made by my daughter T for her friend's new baby. Quilt made in Wales and brought here by my son on his brief but welcome visit last month. This is the proud new Dad!

 

 

And to prove my son was here, and that selfies need work...

 Other sewing has been bits and pieces:  some of Good Hope Quilters' Guild's Mystery 2025 (pattern by Dewald Compion) :

 

Bonnie Hunter Mystery, layout decided upon:

 

A sweet card from a kit at last Guild meeting (kit from Tracy Bouras, The Quilting Co):

 

Another Mystery in progress:

 

Some blue sewing for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for March:

 

 

I'm really looking forward to a three-day Quilt Retreat next weekend as various admin has kept me away from serious sewing lately.  I have 3 projects that will hopefully get to flimsy stage, but/and the weekend includes a new mystery quilt!

 

But first, as it's Saturday, going off to meet quilty friends!

Jaunty January

The summer here has been seemingly hotter than usual, or I think I am seriously missing the aircon from my old sewing room!  We haven't had much cooling wind, and that also means that there has been less rain in the northern part of the country.  But that hasn't stopped me sewing as much as possible.

This is the sum total of reels of thread used up in 2024.  They weren't all full to start the year  and have now been put in the recycling bin.  Already have one emptied for 2025.

 

I've been trying to move various projects along, and have started a few new ones.  Two mystery quilts started earlier this month are in progress and these are some of the fabrics for the first one, Good Hope Quilters' Guild's named The Cape Winelands.  A bunch of deep bright blues have since been added.

 

 

Pink is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for January.  (Click on the link to go see what others have been doing with their scraps.) The very few pink scraps generated since the last pink month were quickly stitched up into various sized slabs (no pictures).  Over time I've been making notes for ideas to use these slabs of made-fabric.  I wanted to balance the weight of the pieced fabric with other smaller scraps of fabric as a whole quilt with made-fabric is quite heavy.  I was pleased with this first block (12-inch finished):

So stitched some more, and will continue making just six per month in 2025 in RSC colours. 

A couple of needle-turned pieces, the one with yellow stars is the centre from a pattern our Guild was selling to raise funds and is based on a quilt in our Cultural History Museum.  You may find it here: Glenday Quilt.    The other is from my monthly quilt group in which we were asked to fold paper and make cuts like making paper snowflakes, and then use that as a template on a similarly folded piece of fabric.  I just had to stitch it up to see how it would look!

 

 

I occasionally go the Cape Embroiderers Guild and members were asked to embroider anything in the supplied evenweave fabric square (some had outlined squares and some had circles).  I am not that keen a hand-stiticher, and so it sat for about 5 months taunting me to stitch, and this is the eventual result which turned out ok.  The squares will all be stitched together for the CEG's 40th birthday this year.

 

 

 Steady progress on Bonnie Hunter's year-end Mystery, The Old Town.  Thankfully I didn't sew the sashing pieces together as I have decided to change the layout and create little stars at the intersections!  In order, one block pressed, the rest to press, playing with sashing, and playing with layouts.  I think I will make two quilt tops, 3 x 4 blocks each.

 

 

  

Have just realised I haven't taken a photo of my completed 365 quilt top.  So happy with this milestone reached.  Next time!

Last post for 2024

I am feeling really excited today as I just finished the last block for the 365 Challenge Quilt by Kathryn Kerr.  This project was started way back in mid-January 2016 when it was first released, each block instruction being received daily by email and carefully stored until I had sewing time.  I was strict about sewing each block in chronological order (except the big corner blocks) but until yesterday (29 December) I don't think I had ever managed to actually sew one on the date of the block.   Eek, nine years!  All the fabrics selected for this project, and added to as needed, were carefully stored separately (in the old house they were in a bedroom cupboard, and with less space in the new house it made sense to be one of the first major projects to be worked on);  now I have to fit the (lots of) left-overs back into the drawers with like colours.  And sew up all the teeny scraps!

I like partaking in Bonnie Hunter's year-end mystery, so was using some of the parts of The Old Town as leaders and enders to at least have some bits sewn before the final reveal.  A couple more hours of sewing should get all up to date.

Three weeks in a row!

I'm sort of remembering to take photos for sharing works-in-progress!

This week the focus was putting the dark borders together for the 365 Challenge Quilt - yay, done!  The other two borders are joined up and will go on later.  It's amazing how these blocks fit together and how they look so much better when they no longer have the raw edges!

 

 

These are some of the pieces for the fourth corner block. There are more than 170 pieces in this 12-inch square block!

 

A little wonky in the middle but I'll live with that!

Together with the other four corner blocks.

 And lastly, this is not mine, but an absolutely delightful free-form embroidery start by my sister's 7-year-old granddaughter.

Wednesday update

 It has been a good week here as I have manged a fair amount of sewing time.

 365 Quilt Challenge:  I have all the 3.5-inch dark blocks complete and have started on the last of the 6.5-inch lighter blocks.  The outer dark border is to be assembled, and until that is done, I have a self-imposed  "no more 365 blocks" until this happens.   The next block will be the fourth corner, and I'm itching to start on that!  The bottom of the small dark blocks in the middle was the very last small one.  The other is the terrible first, and second better attempt, on a pinwheel with mitred corners from an October 3-inch one.

 

 

Three finishes in the past week!

The pink hand-pieced Kawandi, started when in the UK in July, it's lovely and soft. 

 

 

The first quilt on the new-to-me frame, bound and ready to go my sister's school.

 

I have an ecletic collection of yarn, no more than one or two balls of each one, and asked P if he would like a jersey, and to pick the colour.  No pattern, just winged it in a crazy-patch type of arrangement.  Learnt a new way to join shoulder seams with three needles, very neat, and easy to undo when I had to unpick the front to lower the neck-line. (Reminder to self to knit in ends when changing yarns...not wait until the end and have at least fifty to do!)

The second top quilted, this is the pieced back.  My daughter C was here to test drive the machine and frame.  She started it yesterday and I finished it today.  We both still need to work on starts and stops!  More pictures will be taken when it is trimmed and bound.

 

 

And today I was invited to join the rest of the Schools' staff at the year-end function at the Clay Cafe.   This is my glaze painted vase-shaped ceramic base.  This will get oven fired and we may collect all the works of art in a few weeks time.  Colours will change with firing.

 

Small progresses hopefully towards future finishes

I very thankfully read the quilt blogs listed on the left every day.  (It's just about the only reading I seem to get to these days!)  Appropriately I sometimes laugh and sometimes get tearywith your stories.  Sometimes I am inspired to jot down notes for future blocks, or how I might engage with the accumulated fabrics.  I date these notes, and it might be years before anything happens.  I really appreciate the people who take the time (whether daily, weekly, or occasionally) write these blogs, sharing their quilting passions and their lives.  And this is not the seemingly mad sharing that sometimes exists on the more popular social networks.

Although this leads to my embarassment/guilt of not finishing much or not writing anything, not sharing, not taking enough process photos, I still have been steadily stitching these past few months.  So far this year, five new starts and no finishes!

The highlight in this time was, back in September, attending an awesome two-day workshop of combined lino-printing (onto fabric) and embroidery with two very talented artists, Cynthia Edwards and Danielle Clough.  Of course my piece is not yet finished, but it's the bottom left one in this group photo at the end of the second day.

First a photo of non-sewing.  The first two pictures up on the walls.  These are daughter C's school works from 25 years ago, I just love their whimsical nature.  A few more up since, but lots more to go.

Progress pictures of Bramble Blooms ll.  The flowers are applique'd to the borders and possibly still need stems, and then the borders to be stitched to the centre.

 

 

One of my plans this year was to try and get the 365 Challenge Quilt to a flimsy stage.  A concerted effort (but not quite every day!!!) has me up to mid November!  Finally all the 3-inch blocks are done.   Have pulled out the reserved fabrics to finish up the final 50+ blocks.

 

 

My new-to-me third-hand HQ Frame and Sweet Sixteen machine were levelled about a month ago, after languishing waiting patiently since I got them in August 2023.  And because I was challenged to just get the first one quilted...here it is on the frame.  A nervous wobbly start, and still need to co-ordinate the starts and stops, but NO thread breaks!  - what JOY! 

EDIT:  that orange print was in the first quilt I designed and made when pregnant with my daugther T, 43 years ago!  Think it's last bits, but fabric definitely does not go off!

 

And these last few photos are from the Little Quilts of Love made by some of the many local quilters contributing to this comforting project.   All are about 24-inch square.