Angels, Round quilts and Baking

It has been another full week here but that is nothing new. I know I say the same thing all the time. I always plan what I am going to do each week, but more often than not, the end of the week comes, and there are still things not crossed out. Lots of preparation things are scheduled for THE TRIP, so maybe later in the year it will not be so busy??? I did manage to fill out the online form this morning for my visa for the US. Not a quick thing to do! In fact most of the day has been spent making phone calls, attending to paperwork and doing invoices, and planning retreats. Max has not been switched on.

Tonight I am using the laptop for my post, and not spending time trying to work out the little guy. Need to get some "beauty" sleep tonight as I am heading to Melbourne tomorrow. It has been another very hot week, and apart from a trip to the dentist on Tuesday, I have not needed to venture much further than the air-conditioned studio. Watering happens early in the morning, but even with plenty of water poured onto the plants, it still looks very sad this year. There is nothing like the water that falls from above, to revive things, and this year that is very scarce. So it might not be a good idea to wander around my garden at present. 😩

A few quilts have been finished by Max this week, which will feature in a blog post soon. Thursday it was Angels day, and a few brave souls ventured out in the HOT weather, but inside we did not realise how bad it was outside. I do sympathise with those who work outside, (although I do remember a time when we milked the cows twice a day, rain, hail or shine!)

I remembered to take a few photos of the angels, although I did hear a few mutters, go away, go away! It was a very productive day, and I managed to quilt 4 of the many that have been waiting a LONG time for the quilter. And the girls stitched binding to 3 of those, and another measured up the remaining ones for backings, or put borders on another quilt. The pile in the queue is probably not much less, even after doing 4!

(This almost 80 year old lady is a lot more agile than me, as my knees won't kneel like this.) She was looking for a fabric to use as a border in a quilt, and this corner of my studio is where the donated fabrics are kept. All in the shelves and the drawers is Angels stash.

 And this lady "loves" hand sewing like I do, (which is NOT), as she made a slight repair after the quilting was done.

 Most of the quilts we do are scrappy, using the fabric that is donated, and is always a challenge to use. But they will keep someone warm, and they will know that they are made with love.

Sometimes there are quilt tops that are donated by members, which are not scrappy.

This one came from a deceased estate, which makes us all think about what might happen to our treasured stash and unfinished tops one day.

And this is the fourth one, on the last row, and now waiting for binding.

I blogged a photo earlier in the week of the round quilt that I was making. I have made 4 of these this week. A request came a few months ago for a round play mat for "Bro". (And I need to add here, as I know a few of you have thought that Bro is a boy, that Bro is an abbreviation for Embryo, and is unknown yet, if Bro is a girl or a boy).  A few photos were sent of ones that DD3 liked, so I had an idea of what she meant. Things have certainly changed with the modern mums, and I had not seen a round quilt, (or play mat they were called.) I was a bit limited in fabric choices like those in the photos, (as there does not seem to much colour!), but did purchase a couple in the local shop and had a couple in my own. So I have made 4, and they will be able to choose what they like, (if any).

When I started thinking about doing a round quilt, I was trying to think of how I could make a nice circle on the fabric, and had intended to do minimal quilting, and maybe just turn the back to the front?? My circle rulers are all too small, and then I realised that I had the perfect way to do it. Load it onto Max and let him do the circle!! Errr derrr. So one large backing fabric, and the wadding, and then 4 different squares laid on top, and it was easy peasy! A few photos of my process follow....

I stitched the circles around the edge of the quilt, and then searched for circular patterns. I was only able to quilt a half of the circle at a time, which worked ok. These were the first 2 designs I chose.

This pattern had angels all around the outside circle, and hearts in the centre, which I thought was rather nice.

I liked this pattern which featured hearts, and was made for a much smaller circle, so when I enlarged it, there was a lot of open areas that puffed up quite a bit.

So I went looking for something to fit just inside the circle and fill that area between the arcs. I found another heart pattern, but it was not quite the right shape. But with the wonderful tools that Max's program has I was able to make it work. I divided off the half hearts at each end, and changed the shape from a right angle to a gentle curve!!

And it just fitted nicely around the circle. But then there was a space in the middle that you can see below.

Don't stress, another heart will fit in there!! (I think I was happy by now).

The puffy area before I added the curved design........

............and after!

The final one was crosshatched, and finally there were 4 quilted, all on the one backing.

Next bit was the binding, and someone asked if I was going make it on the bias. I was rather short of fabric for the binding, so tried a small bit out with a normal straight cut binding. This worked ok, and if fact I ended up with a few wavy areas doing it this way, so glad I did not go with the bias binding. As these floor mats, will be washed frequently, I decided to machine stitch the binding to the back and fold it over to the front, and secure with a machine stitch. 

This one was much smaller than the rest, because there was only 90cm left on the bolt.

They all look a bit like pizza bases, laid out on the floor!!

And some more of my time this week was spent in the kitchen. It was not really great weather to be heating up the room with the oven on, but doing a bit each day helped. I am off to Melbourne tomorrow to attend the Baby shower on Sunday. As DD2 and I are driving, it is a good chance to take "stuff", as I previously travelled on the train. I have baked sausage rolls for the Sunday afternoon event, and prepared some meals for the freezer for those times in the months ahead when finding a meal might seem too much!?

(All of this will not go to Melbourne, as some of this will end up in my freezer for future retreats).

Well that's a summary of newsfromjude for this week. Time is going so fast. Just over 9 weeks now until that plane leaves.

Will be back soon with a weekend report, and a quilt show, and news of retreats. I have updated the scheduled retreat page recently, so check out what's happening and would love to hear from you.

Blessings, From Jude