Recent Custom quilting

 Time for a post of recent custom quilting. Another week has flown by, and I am trying not have a 3 week absence again. Yesterday's 'to do' list had 2 edge to edge quilts on it, and that did not happen, cos life took over once again. This morning I have done one of those and was going to try and make up the other this afternoon, but decided it could wait until Monday and I shall do some office jobs instead. There is always something to do at the desk, and because I am feeling a tad weary that seemed like a plan.

I shall start with a couple of my quilts to show you. First is "This Little Piggy", a Red Boot quilt company pattern. Last year I made the Paper Dolls quilt for Miss Bridie, and started this for Miss Billie. It has waited in the queue for my quilter, until she finally decided that it had better be done and gifted while Miss Billie was still young enough to think it was cute! I also had the motivation of getting my tops finished for our quilt show in October. 

I had intended to do a very quilt simple quilting job with this, but then went to Plan B and had a bit of fun instead. I have added extra details to the background quilting and hope she will have fun finding them all.

                  I quilted a girl standing on the left of the tree, and wrote her name on the dress.

Because the cow in the block above had a chicken appliqued to his head, I quilted a rooster on the head of the horse!

The sun is shining brightly in this block,  so the little pig has an umbrella!

I was having a video call with Miss Billie outside in the garden one day and I showed her all the bees on the flowers, and another day I videoed them all buzzing around. I have made a feature of bees on this quilt block......

...............and appliqued bees for the corner blocks of the quilt. (This was not in the original pattern).

I hope that it won't be long after our quilt show that the border will open enough for me to be able to give the quilt to her in person.

The binding has not been finished yet, but I have made a start on the hand stitching.

This is the quilt that I made using little scraps of fabric and reported on in my Easter post. I have ended up calling it "Out of Africa" and it has finally moved out of the quilting queue, has been bound and is now waiting for our show in October. Sorry I don't seem to have any closeup photos, but the block backgrounds have been quilted with a giraffe pattern and a zebra pattern alternately.

This quilt was made by Kaye and is a Sue Daley design, called "Round we go". I came up with a plan for the star blocks, but then had to think again as Kaye had left some of the background blocks empty, without the pieced stars in a circle.

Each circle was framed.

Some of the blocks had a dark background and I used a different frame pattern for these blocks.

I  did have a few options for these "empty" blocks, and after consultation with Kaye this was what I went with. A replica star in the circle pattern  in each block.

It has been awhile since the elephant left the building, so maybe it's time to show the pictures. This was made by Lyn and is a foundation paper pieced pattern Elephant Abstractions and designed by Violet Craft.

It was a bit hard to get good photos of the quilting as the days were dark and gloomy. I used a pattern set from Kim Diamond to quilt the elephant and found a leaf pattern for the background, hoping it looks like the elephant is coming towards you out of the jungle??

I was a bit confused with the fabrics used on the legs and talked to Lyn about this when she picked up the quilt. After looking at other photos of this quilt she could see what I meant.

Lyn went home, got her fabric pens out and did some recolouring on the legs and we both think the result is much better now.

That's about it for today. I will return soon with more customer allover quilting. It's now time to head to the lounge by the fire and read a book. The weather has been very cold again this week, but by the end of the week it is forecast to be close to 30deg!! Almost double what it's been for some of this week. Enjoy your weekend, and I am thinking of those who are in lockdown. Make the most of each day as it comes.

Blessings, From Jude 

I am still here!!

 Today I have decided to make the time to catchup with so many tasks that have slipped under the radar in recent weeks. I do realise it is more than 3 weeks since I have posted to newsfromjude and my apologies to anyone who has been checking, and I believe there have been a few. Where are the weeks, in fact where is the year going? I have been back into the photo files to find out and this usually offers up a few clues, but I have to admit to not taking too many pics lately. So off to the diary and my memory and perhaps this tells me more.

THE COMPETITION

My last post was to announce the competition to celebrate my 10 years of blogging, and thanks to those who commented, and to the 2 ladies who were cleverer than me to realise that the number of posts for each month were in fact on the archive listing for all to see. They say that we learn something every day and are never too old!!

As promised a case of goodies will go to Jo and Di for being clever and I have packed up 3 of these cases to send off soon.

I changed the competition to see who could guess how many comments had been left on newsfromjude in 10 years. This was much harder and thanks to those who had a go. Even though I have been blogging for 10 years, in the early days there were not a lot of comments. I appreciate that for many reasons a few ladies find it difficult to do so, and some leave one and then are unable to do it again. I often receive messages via email or phone text. Jean McGee was the closest with her guess of 3,435 and in fact the answer was 3,450! 

OUR GROUP NEWS

The planning is underway for our group's scheduled quilt exhibition in October, so committee meetings have taken up time. We are making plans but are well aware that in our world today that things can change at a moment's notice. As it is the 25th year of our group we are planning to have a slideshow of photos covering our 25 years screened onto a large TV. Much time has been spent going through my photo files which are scattered over 2 computers, many USB's and also saved on hard drives. So far there are more than 1500 photos which need to be checked for duplicates etc. It has been a real trip down memory lane and I have printed off many pics that I put into an album.

The Angels had a sewing day where much was achieved, but no photos were taken.

Our 25 year history books have been printed and delivered which was exciting.

QUILTING

With the looming deadline of our quilt show comes the urgency to get member's tops quilted with bindings and sleeves to be done. Counting back on Max's files I note that since July 1st I have quilted 30 tops and 6 of these were custom! I am feeling good about where I am on the schedule and hope there is a little time in September to get some of my own quilts done as well? I will be back soon with a separate post of customer quilts.

This is the next custom quilt waiting to talk to me!

DELIVERIES

This heavy box arrived at my door one afternoon, so it was exciting to check out the contents.

Who can resist a 50% off everything in the store online sale? It was a good chance to stock up on a variety of wide backing fabrics. Thankyou Alison from Canterbury quilts. 

I ordered my next blog book on August 10th and this afternoon, the 23rd, it arrived at my doorstep. That's a very prompt printing and delivery from the USA!!

News Years Day was spent zooming with Chookyblue and friends so I chose that photo to go on the cover of my January to June, 2021 book.

SOCIALIZING

There have been a few social occasions to enjoy, including a trip to Murray Bridge to visit with Mum. DD1 and DD2 travelled from their homes to meet up there. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue sky and few white puffy clouds, which was very welcome after a much cold wet and wintry weather.

DS and family visited on their way home one Sunday morning. It was lovely to see them and the piano got a good (?) workout by Miss Bridie and Mr Tate.

Mary celebrated a special birthday and the Bible Study group enjoyed coffee and cake with her.

APPOINTMENTS

A portion of my time has been spent going to appointments, including medical and financial. It was a nice trip up the highway for one of these and as I had a driver I was able to photograph the spring scenery. But I think I left my moment too long as I didn't get the view from the top of the hill that I had intended!! I did manage to get a lot of sky though!

My 92 year old neighbour has not been in good health recently and I have driven him to appointments and helped him with meals. He is currently in Respite care and hoping for his health to improve.

LEARNING CURVES

Recently I made the decision to trade my car in for another. I plan that this may be the last time I do this if I don't travel the km's that I have done for the last few years. Covid and lockdowns has certainly reduced my recent highway travel.

There is definitely a learning curve associated with current vehicles. Perhaps they are getting too smart for us "older" drivers?? (Like those SMART TV's and phones that you need a University degree to operate?) It was quite disconcerting to feel the car drive itself back to the centre of the road when I veered too close to the white line at the edge of the road! Does this tell me I like to be "in control"?? 

This is my current reading list, and there is so much I don't understand. I just want it to start when I turn the key. I am pretty happy with it, but did do a lot of complaining because cars don't have CD players in them anymore. I like to play my music while I drive up the highway and wasn't happy. 

Yesterday a friend was here and showed me how to get all this music onto a USB so that I can listen in the car. And I have to say that perhaps it's much better that now I have what I want to listen to on this little thing, and don't have to have all the above discs floating around in the car? Here endeth my complaints for now.

Thankyou Robyn.

I guess that summarizes recent weeks for you and explains to me why I haven't had much spare time? Chookyblue had another Zoom day last Saturday and I had intended joining in while I did some binding, but the day had other plans for me. I have been trying to get some order into my garden again, as winter has been very cold and wet and I've not ventured out too much. Seems like you might have heard this story before? I am way behind in reading blogs, and when I do 'almost' catch up, in 2 days I am way behind again! Life at the moment is separated into before exhibition, and after exhibition!!

Time to finish this post and head to a warmer part of the house. Be back soon with a quilting post for you. Thinking of all that are in lockdown in the eastern states. 

Blessings, From Jude