What a rush!

 These are the three quilts all finished and on a teaser display in the foyer of Jacky's school.

They were sold on auction in function room at a local theatre last Saturday and whilst my husband thought they should have got more, we were pleased that they raised a tidy sum.

Here are some more pictures of the ground floor of her Montessori school taken early evening.  I am proud of her, as she started this school from scratch less than 5 years ago.  There are no state subsidies for private schools in South Africa, so it has been a long journey for her (and her amazingly handy husband!).  The demand for high quality early childhood education means it is still growing!

And finally a picture of the Just Takes 2 quilt with the borders on.  It joins the queue of 8 quilts need quilting!  At least it looks purple and white now, instead of blue and white! 

No pictures..

... and my sister Jo knows what that means!

Did manage to finish the quilting on all three school quilts by Saturday evening.  Cut out the binding for the first one ready to start on Sunday.  Thought I would only have to bind this one, as I had enough fabric in the backings of the other two to bring to the front as an edge finish.  Huh! Trimming the batting of the second one and I managed to slice off the back, so OK, trim it all off and make a binding for number two.  Much more controlled and careful cutting of excess batting on the third one!  So two bindings and one turnover edge.  Bindings machine stitched down as no time for hand finishing.  First two collected for pre-auction display at the school this week.  I lost my impetus to sew the last binding, so that will be done tonight.  Will ask for photos of them hanging at school.

On Saturday morning there was a meeting of local quilt teachers held under the auspices of the local regional guild.  Lots of good discussions around teacher/pupil/venue expectations and norms.  One of the topics was that the South African Quilters' Guild is running a year long Teachers Accreditation course.  Self-study with assignments.  Moderators are all highly experienced quilters.  Open to all quilters, even if not yet a quilt teacher!  It is a pre-cursor to the Judges Accreditation course.  I think this is a good step for South African quilters, encouraging new and experienced teachers to ensure that what they are teaching meets a certain standard.

Small finishes

Last night I tidied up the sewing space so that today I could move all the stuff that had accumulated on the quilting frame into the said tidied space!  Not having used the frame since the beginning of the year there was a fair amount of stuff.  Chucked out some it and felt good (eg the old iron with fusing stuck on it, that was keeping just in case I used fusing again, empty cardboard boxes from the new iron and lamp!).

I needed to reacquaint myself with the frame and machine, so cleaned and oiled and new needle in, loaded up a small quilt top we had made at our group back in March.  Just the thing to practice on.  It is not a computerised machine, so it is my shaky version of free-motion quilting.  Backing is a sweet brushed cotton contributed by Lindsay.  Only one disaster, breaking the needle off in my finger - no pictures of that, too gruesome, but no blood on quilt!  Put in the second new needle!  After this, I'm ready for the three school quilts!

 

And here are some other small fun things, a pair of socks that turned out a bit bigger than expected.  It's the first pair (and maybe last pair) of socks that I will knit!  My adult son says he'll wear them!  Knitted all in one from the toe up. 

And because there was some wool left (and plenty more in different colours), I figured out how to knit a 2" hexagon, and this I might make more of.  It was knitted on four needles from the edge to the centre.

And one last picture of the handprints of my sister and one of the teachers in her school, to go on the back of their class quilts:

 

One sample 6" block done for Bonnie's year-long leader-ender project.  I have lots of triangles cut, and have stitched quite a few of the 2" half-square-triangle elements that run diagonally in this block, and plenty of 2.5" squares from cleaning up scraps. It's not a race, but am curious to see how many I can make of these over the next year - I hope to have a least enough to make one single-bed size quilt (I was going to work out how many that may be, but decided not to think about it!).

A quick update...

I have managed to piece the last of the three tops. This is the second one with the borders on.

On Thursday evening I was able to trim all the blocks for the third one, this time to all the same size, and cut all the sashing strips.  Played with the layout yesterday morning and started to sew.

Did the last blocks this morning, and note that I did have some assistance.

And finished it this afternoon.

NOW they all have to be quilted - definitely going to use the frame! 

Second school top nearly done

Got the second batch of hand-prints and painted squares on Friday and worked on various layouts:

 

Don't know how I can get three photos in a row and can't get the next two side by side!

The beige blocks are cut 7.5" and the turquoise blocks 8".








This was the final layout choice, and starting to add red accent strips (1/2" finished on 2 sides of beige blocks):

And the final centre, don't know why it's sideways!  All the seams matched beautifully!

Think will add a narrow beige and a wide red border.  And Eep pestering as she wants to go to bed.