New Year Beginning

A week into the new year now, I really do hope that this will be good year for all.  The last year was so busy that I can barely remember everything.  The trip to my Brisbane sister in April and the trip to my family in Wales in October were my highlights.

Quilt ideas are everywhere.  This was at the local museum, https://museum.wales/stfagans/   We arrogantly think we have thought up original quilt patterns...this is over 1600 years old.

 Our local Quilt Festival early in October was tiring, but so much fun.  Each on the Committee was challenged to produce at least one mini quilt hexagon for an art installation.  This is one of mine, based on the Festival logo.

 

 Joined a few different in-person stitching groups, the meetings of which are soul-food.   Not a lot of finishes in 2025, but a few projects got moved along a little. 

 And, a fair amount of time was spent thinking about this:

https://www.goodhopequiltersguild.org.za/mystery-block-of-the-month 

One does not realise the detail that is needed in writing a mystery quilt pattern!  I wanted to add some photos here, but it's too soon!

Please join in with us.   The introduction will be out next Friday.

 Happy quilting!

A Few Photos

In July I had the pleasure of spending a month with my children and grandson in Wales.  Whilst it was wonderful to be there, it was marred by all of us being sick with a nasty flu.  So we didn't do as much as we would have liked.

 

June was blue for Rainbow Scrap challenge, and managed to make these few crumb blocks. 

 

These are the two quilt tops made with the units from the GHQG Mystery 2023, The Spice Route Quilt.  I decided to make two smaller quilts instead of the final reveal.  The one above is still to have a couple of borders added, similar to the one below.  I was happy to have enough brown crumb slabs to use for one of the colours. 

 

This little quilt is destined to be a Little Quilt of Love.  Made from bonus triangles from one of Bonnie Hunter's mysteries.  Had enough of various units to make 3 more flimsies....need to finish them!

 

I have resumed making the blocks for the 365 quilt. But after a flurry in June, the making has slowed down again!

 

  

And finally, a work in progress from a class last week with John Cole-Morgan.  Borders to be added, etc!

 Thanks for reading!

Another of Those Catch-up Posts

2019 did start of with a rush!  Lots of easy steady holiday sewing, and then some serious, I've got get this done, stuff!  Then a 12-hour plane ride and back.  Should be back into a calmer mode... until the new house building starts!

To start off, in February, pictures of my office door being adorned with a logo, and my name (just in case I forget where my office is !)- it's a first for me!   Actually it's nice to no longer be in a fish-bowl.  As we share offices with another non-profit, this is to keep things straight!  Also had the air-con upgraded, with the attendant disruption and mess.

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I had a mad, mad rush to meet the end of February dead-line for submission of the final assignments for the South African Quilters' Guild's Quilt Teachers' Accreditation Course.  This is one of the two practical pieces submitted, a small wall -hanging, 24-inches square, own design.   Now that is back with me, the ribbons will be removed, I only added them to meet the three embellishment requirements... really, I avoid these like the plague!  The buttons are obvious, but I think you may have difficulty finding the third embellishment!

 I did make time to make blocks for both February and March Block Lotto.  February's blocks were mailed off to the winners from....

February Block Lotto

March Block Lotto

...Wales, where we went for two weeks, mid-March, to see our darling growing family, with a flying stop in London to see our son at Uni.  E does sit still occasionally, but not for this photo, trying desperately to get down.  Grandpa amazingly patient with the little guy, many times up and down the staircases.

I did manage in the first week of March to finish his quilt.  The back was a lovely brushed cotton flat sheet.  All his Dad's family are in the airline business, and my father-in-law (his great-grandfather) flew a plane like this in the 1930s, from Europe to South Africa, hence the theme.  As we all were sick at one time or another in Wales, photos are rare, but did get these of him and the quilt:

E, not actually looking at quilt, but trying to shimmy backwards off the bed!

 

In other sewing, Angela at SoScrappy has been running a block a week project this year, the blocks are small (4.5 inch finished) and are sooo cute, that they could not be resisted!  Each is either set square or on point, the grey "sashing" is a lovely local brushed cotton.

RSC2019 Sampler - January Red blocks

RSC2019 Sampler - February Yellow blocks, with an extra two

RCS2019 Sampler - March Green blocks

We went to the American Museum at Bath and will post pictures of the Kaffe Fassett exhibition soon, and yes they said please take non-flash pictures, and please post them on social media.  So will oblige!  But there a quite a few, and need sorting out.

June sewing and meet my Grandson

From the left:  two of the Noonlight blocks (waiting for all their mates flying in from the Block Lotto makers), 26 blocks for the Scrappy Block Project (using strings and keeping block corners 90-deg, but whatever size the strings dictate),  three Squared Away (turquoise/teal,not quite blue, not quite green, RSC colour for June), 5 of the biggest KKK blocks (finish at 6-inches).  This might be the last of the sewing for a few weeks, because....

  ...counting the days until there will be lots of hugs for E!   6000 miles travel - just to get there!

Lots of catch up pictures

Lots of things have happened in the past month or so.  A lovely garden tea to celebrate my mother, a brand-new first grandchild, a visit to welcome him, a ski holiday, and some sewing!

Our family and a few friends sharing memories of my mother under the trees in the tea garden on a nearby grape and rose farm.  They had put the roses on the table for us.

Three days later, a whirlwind visit to Wales to see my daughter T, and her new-born son, E.  First, one night in London with my son M - these daffodils growing in the pavement outside his flat:

 

Then a six-hour drive to Cardiff to arrive only an hour after they got home from the Maternity Unit!  M and I camped out on the couches in their tiny 1-bed flat.

 And the first quilt for E, originally he was referred to as "Pickle".  It's been a long time since I free-motion quilted anything, but this called for it, rather than being frame-quilted.  Or rather the thought (under pressure) of clearing all the stuff off and from under the frame to pull the frame out just seemed overwhelming.  Back is brushed cotton (flannel).

Just had four days with them, as a prior booked family ski holiday couldn't be missed.  This is view out of the plane window as it's coming in to land at Tarbes/Lourdes airport - those are the Pyrenees  Mountains covered in snow in the background:

And some skiing and snow hiking took place:

 The view from the apartment window in Bareges, it's snowing out there:

 The Tour de France comes this way in summer, a lovely day for skiing:

Morning coffee with chocolate macaron and pistachio tart decorated with fresh myrtille berries with my daughter, C:

And on to some sewing...  

Six Block Lotto blocks for February, where we had to take small orphan blocks and dress them up to 9-inch square:

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler (RSC) for February.  Same block in two sizes and a couple of wonky windmills from the left-overs.

 A sort of summary of purple February and green March blocks created from RSC inspired colours.  The top three green propeller-like blocks are the Block Lotto ones.  The three green ones underneath are the RSC March sampler blocks, in three sizes.  As purple sort of was about a quarter of my pre-cut scraps I was able to churn out loads of blocks.  Cut green scraps were decidedly less in number. For this year I am still trying to use only the scraps that have been trimmed and sorted, working well so far!

 95 (purple) and 93 (green) 3" 9-patches (for Jack's Chain); 29 and 14 short 9-patches from left-over ends of strip piecing; 35 and 4 5-piece mono slabs 10"x 4"; 23 and 3 8" blocks with 4-patch centres; 101 and 22 3" light/dark squares; 27 and 2 6" economy blocks; and a handful of other odd purple or green blocks

Star chains and Chevrons

My blocks for March's Block Lotto.  They each measure 14.5" square.  The fabric rules were to use any green for the background, a light for the chain squares and a contrast for the Ohio star in the centre.

This is a quilt top made up from the 12 blocks I won from the January lotto, added to the six blocks I had made.  (To be added to the pile of tops for quilting!)

A 3.5" high pile of 4.5" squares, mostly novelty prints - I dug the out of the box on Thursday at our group meeting, it was fun to see how old some of these are!  I counted them (260) and weighed them (456 g) - to be mailed this week to Wales.  I didn't realise I had so many of these ready cut!

And an update on the growing spread of 6.5" Split 9-patch blocks (29 done).   I have another 31 sets ready to sew, as stops and starters between other piecing. 

Celtic Solstice Part2

So, Bonnie releases part 2 of her latest mystery, and it calls for: the LARGE quilt cut: 488 2” X 3-1/2” green rectangles, 976 2” neutral squares, 976 2" yellow/gold squares, and I go, "gulp, OK... maybe I'll just watch, and not continue...".  Mulled over it for a bit,and thought if I don't cut ANY pieces out before the Monday morning link-up, I might never get to it.  So bit the bullet last night and after some thought, wondered if there might be a typo, so just cut enough squares to match the 488 rectangles, thinking that I can cut more later if needed.  Yay!  Didn't think to check yesterday, but Yes, others had picked up the typos, and there had already been a correction to the instructions:  only 488 of each of neutral and yellow squares needed (at this point anyway!!).  Haven't sewn any of them, that still awaits!

Yesterday also another Skype quilt lesson for my daughter in winter-bound Cardiff - this time reminding her of the finer points of laying up a quilt pillowcase method. She has no large table space in her flat, so it's laid out on the floor, and she props up her ipad on the floor so I can see what she's doing!

More words and one picture

Had a good couple of weeks, have completed about 13 Just-Take-2 blocks and started putting Section C together, but again have to wait for the appliqued ones.  Just counted the photos on my phone plus 3 more, as I try to take a picture of each as I finish it.  Soon I'm going to figure out how to upload photos straight from phone to blog, promise! Have 30 small stars done!

Tomorrow is our quarterly Guild meeting, have to be there real early, and I'm not good at real early!    Can't even go to bed early tonight as we will be out celebrating a wedding anniverary (Ours! 33 years!)

I was happy to see one or two of my blocks at opposite sides of the globe in Laurina's and Kate's quilts made from the February Block Lotto.

 (Ah ha!  Just added a picture from a URL!)

Saw the first episode of the first season of Da Vinci's Demons on Monday, well part of it, as I was out and the recording didn't get the first 20 minutes!  This is the production that has spirited away my daughter's boyfriend to Wales, with daughter.  I think they are enjoying being there, but it's far from her home, but closer to his family in Holland!

Week-end and Milestones

Yay!  On last Thursday evening I finally completed my four-year long marathon of taming my scraps.  Last November I wrote that I estimated that I had another year to go, and my estimate was almost spot on!  Thank-you, Bonnie.   Sorting and trimming these scraps at home would have been boring beyond belief, but sitting for 2 to 3 hours almost every Thursday evening talking with quilting friends and sharing the history of some of the fabrics was worth the reward of now having usable pieces.   I have been making notes of various quilts and blocks that can use these specifically sized pieces.  One quilt that I have wanted to do since I first saw one in an art gallery in about 1976 was (what I now know as) a colour-wash postage-stamp quilt (I do wish I knew who had made that one so long ago).

On Saturday morning went to the Stoep Quilters Exhibition - a lovely experience, especially their Christmas theme, and to Creative Quilters meeting in the afternoon - all inspired and fired-up after seeing the show and tell of these industrious ladies.

My amazingly creative mother has been taking the tiny left over pieces (from the scrap-taming) and playing!  With her help, maybe those charity quilts will all get done (done 6 - 7,8 and 9 waiting for quilting!)

Less than a week and my younger daughter will be home from a year in Australia, lots of re-arranging house and clearing out to accommodate her and my older daughter and partner who will be home in November from Wales.  Will be wonderful to have a full house again, if only for a few months!

Yesterday spent sewing some more rounds on the pineapple blocks, and re-visited the Just Takes 2 blocks (groan, so far behind!), but did finally complete the list of WIPs (was pleased to see I could cross off two that had been finished since I started making the list!) - but horror of horrors! the list is over 30 quilts in various stages of completion, as well as a number of embroidery projects.  My commitment to myself is finish one every fortnight (estimate that by December 2013 will only have new projects under way - LOL).

My older Pfaff 1212 machine needed a service (so I thought), but was told the motor was not fixable... hmm... P thinks not, so he took the whole thing apart, removed the motor, took it to be rewound (or something!), has put the machine back together again, it works, but NOW it needs servicing - I think it will be back to normal soon.  There is one part over, a small plastic cover-plate, definitely not a moving part.  Thank goodness for T's Pfaff, which is a similar model, to look at and see where everything needed to go back!

Pictures next time (maybe!)

Have a good quilting day!

Books in the mail

A day's leave and Bonnie Hunter's latest book, String Fling, collected from the Post Office (deemed too large for delivery, but at least no customs and vat to be paid), yippie!  Managed to write a blog post for Liberated Round Robin showing the flimsy (pictures in last blog-post).  Am looking forward to quilting this one.

And last week collected Leah Day's book, 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs (paid customs and vat this time).  Yes, I know you can see all the designs on her blog, but it is really nice to have them in one place to page through.  Go see what my Fish Hoek Friend has been doing!

T says "will it never stop raining", and my response is, welcome to Welsh summers!  I wish I was there instead of watching it rain here in Cape Town.

My plan is try and sew, if not every day, then every other day, even if only for 15 minutes.  So after looking at the six blocks from 15minutesplay that have been pinned up for the past year (there were more, and good intentions, etc), suddenly I knew what I wanted to do to put them together.  So I grabbed all the 2.5" red strips to make the blocks bigger.  Sewed for 30 minutes last night.  Pictures next time, when there is more to show.

I made a promise to myself when I turned 50, that in that year I would make 50 quilts for charity.  Four years on, I think I'm up to number five actually finished, with about 3 or 4 tops waiting to be completed.  But I now might have a secret helper, who has been raiding my crumbs and strings boxes and making the most beautiful "made fabric" - no pictures yet!  I think I have her hooked!

Love to you all!

Welcome to the New Year!

Happy New Year, ok, ok, so its two days late, but have been very busy.   Have managed to finish sewing all the pieces of Orca Bay (pressing, well that's still ahead) .... and yet there are others out there who have put the whole thing together!   (Busy, as in busman's holiday, finishing off accounts for my daughter's ill-fated coffee-shop, and my sister's gem of a Montessori school.)

As I snapped this picture, Eep (yes, that's the sound she makes, so name has stuck) jumped up.. so one more...

Please go and look at the linky-thing  at Quiltville, to catch up with the other Orcadians

After much mind-changing, have settled on purples and off-whites for the Just Takes 2 mystery (and if they go together nicely and reasonably quickly, will do some in red and green (go Wales!):

The first blocks have been released, but I need to wait a week or so before starting that!