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!

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.

Life as it is...

Well, this is a surprise!  I have been wanting to restart writing here for some time, but actually finding a quiet time to co-incide with some inspiration has been challenging.

After reading what I wrote last March, I want to share some updates. 

I am pleased to say that I successfully completed the South African Quilters' Guild's Quilt Teachers' Accreditation Course, and I am now an Accredited Quilt Teacher.  I attended the National Quilt Festival at Heronbridge in Gauteng in August, and was presented with my badge and certificate.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover what confidence has emanated from this, especially when presenting information at my Quilt Groups.

I continued to participate and make blocks each month for the Block Lotto, and which sadly to say, December was the last month this will be run.  This was an inspirational site, and was great fun to participate.  These are some of the blocks I made for various months in 2019.  As there had been grumblings about postage costs to here (South Africa), these were all donation blocks, with no chance of winning, and I limited my blocks to three so I only had to send to one winner!

 

Very happy that I kept up the whole year with Angela at SoScrappy's block a week project.  These blocks are waiting to be assembled into a top.  Angela's challenge each year is to use up one's scraps, one colour at a time.  I have a number of projects building up from this, not quite enough units to make a completed quilt top, so will continue this, the colour for January is bight and light green.

We did start building the house at the bottom quarter of our garden in April 2019, with the vague thought that we would be moving in by November.  I remind myself that every time we have had any building work done on our current house (we've been here 39 years) it has always taken us twce as long as promised/expected, so why should this new house be any different!  The bulk of the work is done, but still need flooring, cupboards, kitchen, municipal connections for electricity, water and sewage!  Maybe by March it will be done, or perhaps I should double THAT estimate!   Constant decisions to be made, with many compromises when either desired finish is too expensive, or plain just not available!  Not recommended for the faint-hearted!  And yet, we plan a second house in the other bottom quarter of the garden!  This time we have hopefully learnt all we need about having a perfect house built, that includes one space that is big enough space for my quilt frame! 

Since this was taken, all windows and doors in.

 The latest news is that on New Years' Eve my eldest and her family arrived for three weeks from Wales.  Such a joy to have them here, and am dreading the quiet when they leave.  My grandson is twenty-two months, and is in busy constant motion, and has taken to the swimming pool with aplomb.  (They've gone to meet up with friends today, so hence the chance to write.)   T has sewn up two quilt tops for friends' babies whilst here, and is just hoping to get them on the frame and quilted before she leaves.  (Frame is buried under some of my project boxes!)

 I hope that I will be able to share more this year, as I know how inspired I am reading blogs of other quilters.   

Milestone

I was surprised today to see that this will be my 200th public post - that took sometime to get to after nearly 8 years!  I started writing early in 2009 with the intention of just sharing with my sister in Australia, after a trip there to visit her.  But down the line there were others family members that wanted to see the pictures as well.

All that has been sewn in the last couple of weeks are these three 8"" blocks for the February Block Lotto   The top two blocks have the same green fabric, yet they look like slightly different shades of green.

I am in a serious state of  "count-down hours" - my daughter Terri will be here from Wales this time tomorrow - it's been about four years since she we saw her last.  She can't wait for the hot weather and I am really looking forward to having her here, and we both will be busy with a new-baby quilt for my first Great Nephew, born just last week.

Finished Quilts and Lotto Blocks

Just pictures - Finished Easy Street and Just Takes 2 - Red triangle blocks for the Block Lotto - daughter Terri's cute green blocks -

 

Catching up...

It's been a while since I've had the time or inclination to write.  I've been sewing a little bit ( a whole weekend at the end of May did help to get the mojo awakened).  Here are the few photos that I've managed to snap in the last couple of months.

I managed to make one or two blocks for the Block Lotto - in June we had to make pairs of 9.5 inch blocks in the same fabrics - mailed these off yesterday to the winners.

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For July we had to choose our own Pet-themed design.  I used the quilt-design software (EQ7) to modify one of their stock blocks, then paper-based pieced it.  Doesn't really look like either of my Siamese babies.  Maybe I'll get lucky and win this month!

My mother, admiring the wonderful Mother's Day flowers sent by my sister Jo in Australia:

With the impending move of last child from home, starting on a slow de-clutter.  This is furniture removal Cape Town style!  Sold the lounge suite that we had been "storing" for five years - the chair is inside the canopied back, but no space for the 2-seater and 3-seater, so tied down on top.  The buyers were taking it to Strand, about 50km on a major highway - do hope they arrived incident-free.  Does that blue leather look familiar Jo? 

 Took these photos whilst sitting in traffic on the way home from visiting Mum a couple of weeks ago - the start of a storm coming in - with amazing cloud formations.

We have Kaffe Fasset teaching a design class here in a couple of weeks for which I've signed up, so pulled out a pile of fabrics that I hope will work.  I don't have the big florals that he focuses on so had to go and buy a few (in the wash right now) based on this colour combination.  Most of these are fat quarters.

And last week I stumbled upon a Yahoo Group "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along" - one six-inch block a week, very do-able.  I've had the book "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt" by Laurie Aaron Hird for at least two years (unused), and needing to have some hand-work for the Thursday evening group, this seemed serendipitous.  My intention is to hand-piece using plain fabrics.  This is Block number 100 - Weathervane, modified slightly to eliminate 4 seams.  Started it on Thurday and finished last night - I think I could have machine pieced a whole quilt in the time it took to hand-piece this one block, but then couldn't have curled up on the couch with the cats and the TV!  (Aagh! watched Dredd - was nice to see daughter T's name in the credits!)