Crime and Four more blocks

We had an early awakening yesterday morning.  My cell phone rang before 5am, it was our security company telling me that we had an intruder on our property.  Apparently a neighbour had phoned them.  Within 2 minutes there were at least two cars from the security company as well as two or three  police vans here.  All trouped through the house and searched our large and dark back garden, but no sign of anyone and we didn't see any signs of attempted break-in.  All left, and about an hour later I heard someone walking across the roof of our carport going towards the street, we think someone had been hiding on top of our roof out of sight, probably scaled the wall using the burglar bars on the kitchen window as a ladder!

Later in the day our neighbour spoke to P and said their dogs had been barking and they saw someone on the wall between our properties and called in.

Getting quote tomorrow to have electronic alarm beams installed in back garden.

And in spite of being tired last evening did manage to stitch up four more JT2 blocks.  I was feeling to lazy to print out the paper-base for the first one below, decided to stitch it without base...hmmm... wasn't any quicker in the end as all the pieces cut were oversized for paper-base, and had to re-trim every piece carefully.  The colours are all purples, not blue!

 

 

Disaster and recovery!

I'm writing this with some relief today, as after 12 nerve-wracking days, I finally managed to restore my regional Guild's web-site that I have been the designer/manager/programmer of since it was started in 2007.   I had originally created it in basic html, and then a year or so later set it up in Joomla! 

And I must say that I've had no formal training in this, just buy the book, read as much on-line as possible, and hope to goodness that nothing too technically complicated arises!

Joomla! is a marvellous open source content managed system for web-sites.   A couple of years ago I tried  unsuccessfully (with some "expert" help) to update the Joomla version, as the community had developed some great features.  As I am soon to hand over my baby to another keen quilter I decided two weeks ago that it was time to try again to have the latest version running it.  That's when the disaster struck!  Seemingly total wipe-out!  But all was safe, just needed to have the hosting Systems Admin (very nervously) remove ALL the files on the server, then I uploaded the files previously saved locally, fiddled a bit with the MySql tables, and was astonished to see that even the new info added just before The Disaster is all happily in place.  I'm sure How I Did a Recovery is not written in any manual or wiki anywhere


I'm hoping that there is another quilter/knowledgeable Joomla user, or someone who knows one, out there who might be prepared to share How To Do a Version Upgrade (without losing all the current data!).

But did manage to sew one Just Takes 2 block, and take a photo of the baby jerseys knitted ages ago but only recently sewn up.

I didn't crop all of it - just left some of the cutting mat, so you can see it is 12.5" square!

March Block Lotto blocks

These were fun and easy to make, named "Steps" blocks.  They are each 6.5" x 9.5" and will give me 9 drawing chances in the lotto.

Some small finishes

I'm still plodding away at Just Takes 2, managed to complete Part A today, almost a year after the instructions were published!  This is about a quarter of the whole quilt!  Have done a few blocks from the next section, but the applique takes a..g..e..s!!  And I'm determined to hand stitch them.

Other than the hand applique, this was the first hand-pieced block, all the others have been machine pieced.

Great niece!

This month's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is Orange .  Today is not a sewing day, but itching to get started with orange.

Having got my mother hooked on making fabric from my left-over scraps, and her taking a whole lot of scraps with her to Australia two months ago (she's back tomorrow, yay!) to give herself something to do, she's now got my eight-year old niece making the most fabulous pieces of made fabric.  My sister sent some photographs of S in action and her work, and she's been waiting for me to put them here (my sister takes way better photos than I do!).  I asked S on Thursday what her favourite colours are, so now need to find lots of pink and blue scraps!  Mam - hope you've left some scraps for S!

Serious concentration here (do her feet even touch the floor!):

 Keeping her fingers away from the needle:

 Nice straight seam (and I don't know what she is actually sewing here!):

 Ta-da!

 And these are her made fabrics, and my sister is so proud of how neat the backs are:

 
And don't you just love those teeny tiny four-patch centres!

Cymru am byth! **

Happy St David's Day!   Today is the Welsh National Day.  We used to get a half-day off school, after dressing up in costume and a big group picture taken!  Well, actually... my mam had one costume (she had sewn and knitted)  that fitted a 6-year old, and my three close in age sisters and I each got about two chances to wear it to school!

I don't have pictures - but go and look and these links!

Traditional Welsh quilts   most of them were made from woollen fabrics

Web images of St David's Day

St David's Day at Wikipedia

St David's Day at schools    (those Welsh Cakes look good - think I might make some today!)


** Wales forever!

Summer Sunday

It's been warm here in Cape Town today, almost a bit too hot to sew, but needed to get this month's Block Lotto blocks completed.  I had done all the string piecing and had all the other pieces cut out, but had to unpick the first one, so that was holding up the finish.  The rules for this month were 6 x 9 inch blocks with "low volume" fabrics in both the string piecing and the backgrounds.  I am glad to see my first contribution arrived from January - but can't tell which are mine!  T is still playing on the side lines, she made two blocks in red and white.  Do hope our postal strike will be over by the time they need to be posted.  Same applies to the envelope sent yesterday! Someone had better watch her post box next week!

9 blocks for Feb Block lotto

I've appliqued the propellers onto these 6" blocks for Just Take 2.

Good day!

Not a lot of sewing has been done this past month - work is very busy and it's been hard to motivate myself once home in the evening!   Have parked off a bit watching mindless television with daughter, and slowly stitching on a block or two of Just Takes 2.  Applique is not my favourite!

Today I presented my first mini workshop to my monthly quilt group - on Mitred Corners - had everyone hand stitching borders on small squares finishing with mitred corners.  Out of about 30 ladies only half a dozen or so had used mitres before.   In preparing the class found an interesting method which I also experimented with on a hexagon - this worked well.   I get really nervous, and forgot to say half of what I prepared, even though all written down, never mind, I'll email them all the notes!  Maybe pictures next time!

I believe my 8 year-old niece is sewing up a storm with my mother (her new-to-quilting grandmother) - just waiting for some photos!  And my sister is waiting for me to send scraps, so said niece can show her mother how to sew them!

Happy sewing, everyone!

Block of the Month

Am looking forward to the first weekly meeting tonight of the quilt group of which I'm a member - I'll use the time to cut up all the scraps that got generated this last month into usable sizes, and if still time, some applique for Just Takes 2.

This is my Creative Quilters' December Block of the Month.  This is the penultimate one, and I'm glad that I used a bundle of coordinating fabrics for this project.

A pressed half-sewn block - have pressed 5 out of 25 - got bored so made the BOM instead.

Oh darn, still have 2012 on photos, but have worked out where and when to change it - must remember next time!

Work day and some pictures

Went into the office today in the middle of some leave... just as well, as the outlet pipe of one of our essential aircon units was blocked and water was leaking into the offices... technician called and all seems to be fixed.

 Here are three more completed blocks from Just Takes 2.   The first two are pieced on paper...

 

...but this one is hand appliqued - I now have a much greater respect for all those fully hand appliqued quilts out there!  This is first time I've attempted anything like this, and yes, there are some odd stitches in it, but am quite pleased I tackled it.  I can now complete the assembly of Part A - this was the last block, and it's taken me on and (mostly) off since July to finish.

One of the blogs I like to read is Block Lotto and although I've made 2 or 3 blocks I've kept them for myself, but I think this time I'm going to sign up and these are going into their pool.  They are are 6" x 9" and were simple and fun.  Daughter T also made one in red and white, also looks good, but she wants to keep it!

 

And here are the 25 half-sewn blocks for Easy Street, waiting to be pressed. 

I've just noticed that the watermark on the photos still says 2012 - I'll have to try and remember where in Picasa that can be changed!

Finish number five!

Blown away by the final reveal of the mystery quilt - lots of happy sewing in the near future to finish this one.  As lots of quilters have commented, it was a mystery right up to the end!

I finished this today.  The second from the gifted fabric panels last July, but had to add some other pieces to make it a reasonable cot quilt size.  All free motion quilted on the frame, but I again overdid the quilting so it is not as cuddly as I would like.

Close to the New Year!

The end of year rush into summer holidays and the festive season has eased up, so some sewing has been done! Yeah!  Have tried to work on 2 or 3 different projects each day, but progress is steady but slow.  One flimsy done this week (which doesn't yet count as a finish) - the kaleidoscope started in August in Bettie's class.  This quilt top is made from one fabric.

Kaleidoscope - a cropped image of the finished top

Detail of kaleidoscope

Original fabric!

Daughter T quilting (and playing iPad game at same time) on small quilt she put together last week.  Not an original, but worked from one of the patterns in this free eBook on Log Cabins.  Oh boy, can she sew accurately!  She made the setting triangles a little bigger, so the centre floats a bit.  It's about 21" square.  We tacked it on the frame first.

And today Bonnie released part 7 for the Easy Street mystery quilt - and I have completed it - as next (and I think final) part is out tomorrow!  What a wonderful relaxed mystery this has been.  After carefully selected each piece for each triangle so not to have duplicate fabrics in each section, I managed to reverse the order of one pile in the piecing, too bad that now there are two the same near each other, as there they will remain.  I guess these are probably the edge pieces of an on-point design, but still cannot work out what the centre will look like!

Easy Street parts in separate up-cycled fruit boxes (with about five other UFOs Projects edging into the picture!).

UFO Progress

Today I managed to have the fourth UFO finish, one day ahead of the self-imposed dead-line! It is one of two quilt tops made from panel fabric I received at my quilt group's Christmas in July party (southern hemisphere winter!).

 

This was the first time of using the quilt frame as it should be, each layer on a separate roller.  The 6" throat space is a bit limiting, especially as I like the quilting to be a bigger scale so that the quilt remains softer.  It's really nice to have these simple tops to practice using the frame.  And this time gave my daughter T a chance to use it as well.  No prizes for the quilting on this one, but finished it is!

Long weekend

Our local talk radio station (567CapeTalk) plays brilliant music on Saturdays and Sundays.  Put the radio on (turning it up real loud when a real favourite is played) and just sew, or cut.   And tomorrow is a public holiday here, so lots more sewing (or maybe all the Christmas shopping) can be done.

This week I managed to complete 4 blocks for Just Takes 2, and, whilst watching a couple of movies, did hours of applique, on one block but it's not yet complete!

 

It's marginally depressing to note that all the blocks and the final lay-out of this year long mystery quilt have been published!  The applique is holding me up, but I am loving each block, and will work on it steadily. The two ladies, that have put this together did a marvellous job.

But quite pleased that I'm totally up to date with Easy Street.  This is part four done:

Look at how high a pile of 145 3.5" blocks stands... 2" !!

Now go and look what all the other quilters have blogged about their progress so far.  And if you are doing this mystery - link up, and if you don't have a blog - start one!

Keeping up!

Last Thursday  I drove from Cape Town to Hermanus, about 2 hours away, to have our final Guild Committee meeting for the year, and our Christmas lunch.  This was one of the home-made desserts!  A divine cheesecake topped with jelly and fresh fruit - it tasted even better.

I am so glad that I am keeping up with Bonnie's mystery this year.  These are all the 64 3.5" square blocks from part 3, finished sewing this evening - I do like them.  I was very pleased that I was able to find about 50 of the purples squares in the box of 2" squares, so they are very scrappy.  Turquoise is not a colour of which I have a huge range, so have 3-5 triangles of each fabric.  After pressing part one on Thursday evening and checking size, found I had to unsew about 30, but finished re-doing those as well tonight.  Please go and see what the other participants in Bonnie's mystery have blogged (157 of them at close to midnight here, but USA has hours to go for today!).