Quilting update......

 Another week has gone by, and I wonder where, and what have I done? While I am not completely retired, I have tried to step back a bit, which means I should have a lot more time, shouldn't I??? Even today I had intentions of getting a quilt done, as it has been loaded for a couple of days, and I switched Max on first thing intending to do a few rows before my first appointment for the day, but the day had ideas of it's own, and tonight the quilt has not been started. I did change the needle and oiled it this afternoon, but by then it was too late to start, and I decided that tomorrow was another day!? 

Well what did I do, you might ask? Mid morning there was a coffee date with a few for a friends birthday. Then sit and linger and chat and the time flies by. On the way home I visited with another friend who also had a birthday today and then did some shopping for bread and milk. By then it was time for late lunch. I have another friend who has been in hospital for a few days, so I decided I may as well take a bit more time out of the day and visited her. On the way home from there I called in to another friend (these friends are all quilters!) who has been not well for a couple of days and lives on her own. She was still very unwell so I took her to the doctor and then home again. Called to the post office on the way home from there and collected a parcel for another quilting friend and delivered that to her. By the time all that was done, it was too late for me to start the quilt, and here I am on the computer instead, catching up with newsfromjude. Are you exhausted?? Because I am. It seems to be so easy for a day to disappear and I feel like I have done nothing.

Catching up on customer quilts again and first up is made by Jenny using the Quick Curve Ruler. It was only a small quilt, so I did a simple custom by placing a block pattern on each block which gives it a custom look.

This is another simple quilt made by Jenny with a cute Sweet Dreams Panel. I quilted this allover with a pattern called Nightskies, which you can see in the second photo taken of the back.

Another by Jenny, and you may have worked out by now that Jenny is a prolific quilter. She brought me a bundle last year and I still have "some" here to do yet. This quilt she called Blue Fantasy and it was quilted allover with Funky Flowers.

                          This is Marie's Mysolation quilt that was Rachelle Denneny's Mystery for 2020. 

We were going to do an allover pattern on it, but decided on a simple custom that would show up on the background fabric. The following pattern was designed by Laurie Thomas of It's a quilt thing designs and fitted the block just nicely.

Marie and I were very happy with how this turned out, and was a much more cost effective option than full custom, but just that bit more than an edge to edge.

Joan used up a lot of scraps to make this small quilt for a nephew to use in his beach house. It was quilted allover with Curling Waves.

For our local exhibition each year, the President usually sets a challenge and this year it was a Mystery quilt, called Mystery and Mayhem. Over time instructions were given out for several blocks, all using different sized half square triangles. I do admit to not having started this project, but Ruth gave it a go and here is her finish. Others in the group are still working on their quilts and I have heard a few mumbles calling it more Mayhem and even worse! Ruth makes a lot of quilts that are donated, but she is keeping this one for herself. I am looking forward to seeing them all hanging together in the quilt show and they will all be so different!

This was quilted allover with a pattern called Ocean Froth, which you can see on the back in the 3rd photo. Ruth picked out a "safe" thread colour of teal, with orange a second choice. A couple days later she said let's go with the orange. I am usually more of a blend thread person, but went with her choice and it was amazing!!

PERFORMING MIRACLES

Some of the quilts that I receive occasionally pose a challenge for me. This is one of those. These lovely Dresden blocks are appliqued onto a linen background fabric. This was posted to me with instructions to just SID the dresdens only. After a few emails back and forth, things changed and now I was to fill the background and she wanted lots of quilting. Hmmm. Thinking and came up with a plan.

Double circles around each plate was my idea with some feathers in the space left. I needed to line up those circles going up and down and across so they were level. So I chalked in some lines and basted them to keep me on the straight! But can you see the problem? The plates were not all lined up the same. In some blocks the edge of the applique is closer to the circle on one side.

But I kept to my plan and hoped that the quilting would draw the eye and you would not notice the applique that was not right in the centre of the circle?? Hopefully my plan worked??

**************

 The next miracle needed was a round robin exchange quilt that Dot sent to me for simple custom. I had studied this hanging on the wall and had a plan, and one of the borders was half square triangles, so was looking for a simple pattern for these.......... until I noticed how that border really was! Can you see those rectangles in the border. There were quite a few of these in each border and all in varying places! So I needed plan B, and a way to camouflage those and not draw attention to them. I did consult Dot and it was then that I found out the quilt was a Round Robin quilt and borders were added by other people.

Hopefully my Plan B gives you something else to look at and you don't "see" the HST blocks with the fillers in between??

The rest of the quilt was easy to quilt and we were happy with the outcome. I did ask Dot whether I could post about the issues with this quilt and she was quite happy because it wasn't her work anyway! She even suggested that I include a lesson on how to avoid such things as having to place a filler into the border!? I decided I would stick to a conversation about the quilting issues and leave it at that!

I think that's enough for tonight's post, as it is well past my bedtime. I need to be bright eyed for the morning to get that quilt done as I will be away again on Friday. 

There are a few more things I have to post about, so hope to be back soon. 

I also need to apologise for not replying to a lot of comments on my blog. I love to hear from you and thank you for visiting and leaving me a comment.. I have been trying to keep up with reading but have got a bit behind.

Blessings, From Jude

Happy Birthday

 Time for another family birthday today as DD2 turns 44 years old! Can't believe how fast those years have gone by. Once again I have enjoyed going down memory lane and finding some photos for this post. 

                        DD1 and DD2 (right),  all dressed for my brother's wedding.

....................................A few more recent photos found in the files.

I hope your day has been special and relaxing while enjoying the school holidays with your boys. Happy Birthday, love from Mum xxx

                                                             Blessings, From Jude

A LOT has been achieved in 22 days!

 

Since Raylene arrived here on the 27th March, it has been a hive of activity  at Number 8! Lots of cutting, sorting, stacking and packing has been happening. There has not been many idle moments, but we can look around and see that much has been achieved. After Easter we had the place to ourselves, and just as well we didn't have to share the space, because the 2 of us used all available surfaces. 

The Go Cutter has had a work out and earned it's purchase price many times over. We were struggling a bit at one stage with threads sticking in the blades and wondered if the blades were becoming blunt from overuse? We have since learned not to keep cutting with mats that are getting old and cracked!! It's a bit like using the rotary cutter and pushing that blade too long instead of replacing it with a new one. Our err derr moment was realising that a new mat solved all the problems!! (I now have spare mats of each size waiting in the wings!)

                                                                                                

I must admit we were too busy to take a lot of photos, but there are a few. I do have a few empty shelves and emptied out a whole drawer of strips. Cutting scraps also breeds more scraps, and it's a never ending task. I think I could spend the rest of my life sewing scrap quilts, without even making a dent on the bolts here.

These look a bit like sandwiches all stacked in heaps, but they are 4" finished half square triangles, already cut and paired with a light colour. I love sewing these, because they turn out a perfect size, needing no trimming as long as your 1/4" seam is accurate, with no ears to trim either! My fairy has worked out to sort the fabric into colours before going through the cutter, and then they are already in their colour sections.

Lots of fabric packs all bundled up ready to sell.

These are what is left of the 2" and 2 1/2" squares after packing scrap packs.

1 metre pieces ..................

........and embellished packs in various colourways.

These are 3" finished half square triangles.

Lots of Ready, Set & Sew kits.

After a busy time, my offsider has returned to her home this morning, but the task will continue and I have this lot sitting on my desk ready for me to process this week.

We kept a lot of the smaller pieces for crumb quilts, and the string bin is full to overflowing, but I have drawn the line at these bins full, which are destined for the bins tomorrow.

There are 5 more weeks until market day, so I might be occupied for awhile yet, in between some customer quilts waiting and other activities in the diary.

I have received the all clear from the doctor re my face, and ventured out for my first shopping trip last week! Have also been back to church and a few other social outings with friends, in between the busyness of cutting and packing.

On Thursday we enjoyed a day trip to Mount Gambier, and stopped for lunch at the bakery at Penola.

We managed to come home with a lovely bag of apples, which have now been peeled and stewed ready for some apple crumble desserts to put in the freezer.

The local garden store have commenced doing lunches this week, so Raylene booked a table for 4 and we enjoyed more time with friends.

We have also enjoyed visits with friends at home, including a lunch and celebrating a birthday with afternoon tea. After church on Sunday we attended the 25th birthday celebration of the Gum Tree Quilters and will save that occasion for a separate post.

Max managed to get quite a few customer quilts done during that time, (photos will be in another posts) and this week I am working on some of the donation quilts that Raylene and I made a few months ago that have been waiting patiently for the quilter. 

This is the black and white string quilt that Raylene made during her last visit and it was quilted allover with a pattern called Square Dance.

The binding fairy at work.

And another 16 patch scrappy quilt, quilted allover, also has been bound.

This rail fence quilt was quilted allover, the binding stitched on and has gone home with Raylene to be hand sewn.

Today's job was to load this scrappy trips quilt that I made during isolation in 2020. This has been quilted allover with a circle meander, and the binding has yet to be decided on.

Today was a catchup with some housework, put on a load of washing day, and clearing the sewing tables for the next cutting session sometime soon. Another backing has been loaded in readiness for tomorrow morning. I also hope to get some gardening time this week, to keep a few weeds at bay before they get out of hand.

It probably sounds like I have been working Raylene like a slave all this time. She keeps telling me that she enjoys all the packing and stacking but she really is the organising queen with her good ideas. In reality, she actually keeps me on the go, looking to see what is next on the list, and wanting direction. I look back and remember the TV ad that used to be on, advertising the Eveready batteries and the Energiser bunny that kept going and going when the others faded out!! I keep telling her she must have Eveready batteries in her! I do hope she will have an easier, quieter week now that she is home. I really  appreciate her special skills, her help and her friendship. We really do have a lot of fun in amongst the business.

Be back soon, 

Blessings, From Jude

Memories

 I know it is a more than a few days since I have posted, but life has been rather busy here, and I do intend to update you with the happenings soon. I was up early this morning with a list of things I needed to do, but have been waylaid after a message from my granddaughter. She sent me a photo from 3 years ago, which then reminded me of where I was this time in 2018. So I have spent some time going back and reading a few blog posts from my trip. I am so glad I managed to blog the events of the trip.

It was 3 years ago today that I flew out of Adelaide, bound for Sydney and then to the US with the Aussie Quilters group for the trip of a lifetime. It is just as well I did this then, because International travel is currently not happening, and I don't think I will be getting on a plane and going overseas anytime soon. 3 years doesn't sound like a long time, but it feels almost like a lifetime ago now.

It was a fantastic time with this great bunch of girls and we had a lot of fun.

Well, that's all for this post, I better get on with the jobs of the day. I only have another 3 days with Raylene here and we have lots of things on the list to do yet. Lots has been achieved though.

Be back in a few days.

Blessings, From Jude