FMQ - June

Cindy, you really got the creative juices flowing this month!  Cindy Needham gave us our "challenge" this month and really got us thinking "out of the box".  Thank you for letting me run free to be creative and to "just do my own thing"!  

What we had to do this month was to draw swirls across the page and fill in the patterns that developed with our own quilting design most appropriate for the space.  I found it quite a challenge when I started, but as I got going with fabric and machine, the ideas really flowed.  It was all very well practicing on paper but when I started with my challenge fabric, it was a different story!

I must say that I managed the "Hummmm Purrrrr" of my machine a good few months back, really only recognizing now that that is a wonderful way of describing what you hear with your sewing machine when you are doing free motion quilting ie. the correct speed with the design you are sewing.  In other words the rhythm and sound of your machine.

Cindy encouraged us to use the three basic shapes in free motion quilting - the repetitive line, a circle and an S-curve.  Strong geometrics and soft flowing designs are a good combo and compliment each other.  While we strive to make our quilts as beautiful and perfect as possible, remember that this world is a more interesting place because nothing is perfect and straight and this is how we should feel about our quilts.  Don't stress unduly over them, we have enough stress in our lives.  They can be imperfect and beautiful!  Whew, that took a load off my shoulders!!  We were given lots of tips while quilting and I would suggest reading them here for heaps of information. 

Here is my entry for June's challenge.

Divided and Conquered!

First of all came the doodling....

Cindy's printed swirls on which to practice

My "doodles"

Here are a few close-ups taken of my final entry.

Thank you Cindy for "stretching" me and sharing your ideas and suggestions.  And thank you once again SewCalGal for giving us the opportunity to learn from world class quilters!

Reunion Class of '62

Check that waistcoat!

May 2012 saw the reunion of DH's matric class of '62.  What a great event this was with a visit to Westville Boys High where we were shown around the school and attended assembly with 1300 students and 79 staff members.  This also had a special meaning for me as well as I was also at the school in the days when it was co-ed.

All of us present at the school tour

After a scrumptious tea served to us in the old "quadrangle", we set off for Cathedral Peak Hotel in the Natal Drakensberg for two nights, meeting up with "old" school friends.  Two days to catch up on 50 years!

A view of Cathedral Peak from the hotel verandah

Cathedral Peak Hotel is situated in the heart of the Drakensberg mountains and is probably the closest to the well-known peaks of all the hotels.  The approach to the hotel is through typical rural settlements and along pot-holed roads lined with goats, sheep and cattle, the latter often forcing cars to negotiate around them while lazing on the narrow roads in the sun!  After signing in through two boomed entrances, we arrived in the magnificient surroundings of the hotel. 

The next few hours were spent introducing spouses and renewing friendships and acquaintances...... followed by a delicious buffet dinner in the diningroom.  Oh the food!  What a beautiful spread, not only at dinner; breakfast was quite amazing as well.

The highlight of our stay in the 'Berg was hearing "The Savages" playing together for the first time in 50 years.   During their latter high school years, Dave, Pete, Derrick and Jeff formed a band, calling themselves "The Savages".  They played at various venues including the Westville Hotel, local "socials" and private parties as well as a gig during the Christmas holidays at Drakensberg Gardens Hotel.  (This is another story)!  Considering the fact that they spent an afternoon practicing and another hour or so before the Thursday evening "event", one found it hard to believe it had been 50 years since the band had played together last!  Of course, the music and songs they played reflected what had been popular in the 1960s and everyone enjoyed the evening and sang along to songs we remembered from that time.

Dave, Keith, Pete H, Pete C, Derrick

"The Savages"













It was with very heavy hearts that we bade everyone a very fond farewell with promises to keep up the contact from here on!  Sadly, we had learned of classmates who were no longer with us and of others who were faced with ill health and fighting dreaded diseases.  There were messages sent by e-mail from those now living in far-off lands and who were unable to be there for the reunion.  It felt that 50 years had passed in a flash, but the memories from this reunion will stay with each one of us, not for 50 years, but for many years to come. 

Friends 50 years ago

 

Derrick and Dozy and ourselves

FMQ - May

May's free motion quilting challenge was done by Leah Day who I have been following for quite a while and from whom I have learned so much.  Leah is a very self-assured young lady who has overcome challenges in her life that none of us would want to face.  She and her husband Josh, run a thriving and exciting business selling all things necessary for quilting and freely teaching many quilting techniques.  You will find a link to her website here.

She called her tutorial "Foundational Designs" and began with telling us about the essential equipment to use when doing free motion quilting.  The Supreme Slider and machiners' gloves, I feel, are absolutely necessary to produce excellent work - apart from a lot of practice of course!

The first of the two foundational designs she did was "Double Stippling".  This entailed sewing a wiggily line and then sewing another wiggily line crossing backwards and forwards over the first line.  This did not come easy to me as I always try to avoid crossing over lines when stippling.  But anyway, this is what we were to do, getting me out of my comfort zone!  The second foundational design was "Railroad Tracks."  Much the same as the first design, but the lines were squared off.  A video of  both of the foundational designs can be found here.

Here is my usual doodle page, quite simple really!

Then comes my practice sandwich....

 

 And finally my attempt.... oops I've photographed it upside down!!  Haha.  But you get what I was trying to do!  I used Seralon in the bobbin and Gutermann Sulky Cotton in my 80/12 needle.

 

This was not my favourite quilting design but it was great to learn something new anyway.  I feel that we have progressed 5 months down the line and look forward to something more challenging next month; I think it is pebbling!  Thank you Leah Day and SewCalGal for giving us the opportunity to add another design to our sample quilt.

FMQ Challenge - April

April's tutorial was given by Don Linn and was how to transfer a quilting design on to your quilt top tracing the design on to a piece of tulle set into a quilting hoop, with a permanent marker.  This must then be ironed to set the permanent ink so that the ink does not come off on the quilt top.  Then with a purple marking pen (which should disappear when wet so please try it on a scrap piece of the quilt fabric first), trace the design lightly on to your quilt top.   It can then be easily seen to machine quilt.  This is an ingenious method of transferring a quilting design and I know that I will use it again. There was no "doodling" to do this time!

Tracing on the tulle

The design traced with a permanent marker onto the tulle.  I have used a piece of white paper under the tulle so that the tracing shows up nicely to photograph.

I chose to do the sample design which Don gave us as it fitted nicely into an 8 inch square of my prepared quilt for this FMQ Challenge.  I used the usual Seralon in the bobbin, Colorful embroidery thread in green through my Titanium 80/12 Quilting needle and Gutterman Sulky 100% cotton in peach/green variegated thread to micro-stipple the background.  I also chose to do a little embroidery on the leaves.

Quilted design

Close-up

Here is a close-up showing the embroidery on one of the leaves and the micro-stippling.












Thank you Don for an awesome tutorial on how to transfer a design on to a quilt top for machine quilting.  I really enjoyed this and am intending to buy your book on quilt designs!

90th Birthday Celebration

90 beautiful roses for the birthday girl!

We celebrated Mom's 90th birthday on 12 April 2012 with my two sisters and their husbands, Lesley and David and Barb and Russell at Ama Casa in the Natal Drakensberg.  Les and Dave have a beautiful home in the "valley" in the Drakensberg mountains where they run a very successful Bed and Breakfast hospitality business.  They have 3 self-catering cottages with stunning panaramic views of Cathkin and Champagne Castle.

A view from the front garden looking out onto the peaks

We were blessed to stay in Di and Colin's lovely cottage with Barb and Russ.  Such peaceful surroundings as is obvious here!

Barb relaxing!

The lounge which also looks out onto the peaks

    

 And then came the gastronomic delights!  Barb and Russ brought a prawn starter which was followed by a scrumptious dinner of Moroccan Lamb prepared by Dave and Les, well actually Dave!  Les prepared the salad and set the table with her table cloth from Mauritius.  I provided the Lemon Meringue Pie - the amount of lemon to Mom's specifications!

The table set for dinner

Dave putting the finishing touches to the Lamb

Well, we drank wine and ate delicious food and talked and then talked some more.  I think that Mom was quite exhausted as we had spent a harrowing day before sitting in stop/goes on the way to Bethlehem and then again on the way down to the Berg.  To top it all we were held up by a HUGE herd of cattle being herded in the same direction in which we were traveling, and which we gently - actually not so gently - nudged passed.

We departed the next day with Mom returning home to Kloof with Barb and Russ and ourselves back to Harrismith.  We left Les and Norah to do the cleaning up before the next lot of guests arrived in the afternoon.  Three cheers for Les and Norah!!

I was delighted to make Mom a quilt for her birthday which I know she will enjoy having on her bed and undoubtedly will show off to all the residents at Chartwell Retirement Village.  It was a privilege to put many hours of hard work into this quilt which I know Mom will appreciate.  I also made her a knitting bag out of Dad's ties.  I feel that this turned out a little large for Mom's diminutive size but I'm sure will be put to good use during flea market shopping expeditions!

Knitting bag made from Dad's ties

Quilted with meandering FMQ and feathers

No quilt is ever quilted without Purdy making herself comfortable!  What a spoiled cat!

Barb, Lesley, Mom and myself

FMQ Monthly Challenge - March

At last a new month!  I so look forward to a new month to see what challenge we are in for.  This month the fabulous art quilter, Ann Fahl, was our "challenger".  My first reaction after watching her great tutorial was disappointment in not actually seeing her in action in front of her sewing machine, but after going through it again and digesting all she had to say and the wealth of information given, I realised that no video could have covered the amount of info and knowledge she so kindly shared with us.  I have ordered one of her books, "Dancing with Thread" and can't wait for it to arrive. Click here to see other books by this wonderful teacher.  Thank you Ann Fahl for this great tutorial.

As usual here is just one page of many of my "doodling".

I found it difficult to do the spirals as per Ann's as they looked a little "messy" to me so I rather travelled back to go onto another shape.

Here is my practise piece using a 75/11 quilting needle and Loomtex batting (in South Africa we don't have the same types of batting as in the USA) and Seralon thread top and in bobbin.

Here is my final effort on one of the oblong sections of my wall hanging which SoCalGal suggested we put together for this Challenge.  I used a gold colour Colorful Embroidery Thread on the top and Seralon in the bobbin.  I chose to do some meandering, adding a few little leaves along the way and then going into a flower and a few spirals.  I think it looks quite pretty and would like to use this on a larger pieced quilt.

Close-up

I really enjoyed this month's tutorial as it encouraged us to be more innovative with our quilting designs and to think "outside the box".

FMQ Monthly Challenge - February

FMQ Challenge - February

Our February challenge was really awesome - feathers by Diane Gaudynski.  I have tried many different ways of stitching feathers and this was a keeper!  Thank you Diane, your pictures describing "how to" were excellent and simple to follow.  As before, I did a lot of practicing on paper first to get the flow of the design well and truly embedded.  Here is one of my first pages.

Then came the practice sandwich, in fact many sandwiches!  I used a Schmetz Quilting Needle size 75/11.  The red and pink examples are done with Seralon thread which is cotton and I think unique to South Africa as I have not seen anyone mention it before.  For the cream feathers I used Colorful Embroidery thread.  This was superb and produced beautiful feathers.  I will continue to use only this thread for FMQ.

Below is part of a sampler that I stitched by hand about 15 years ago and am now using as my final practice piece before stitching on my prepared FMQ quilt.  The centre is stippled and I've stitched feathers around the pieced outside of the block.

Here is my final effort.  I'm quite pleased with it but feel that my "echoing" needs a bit more practice and that will surely come as I intend using feathers regularly in my quilting.

These two close-ups show a bit more detail.

Thank you Diane for this tutorial.  I really loooved it!!

Camera Bag

Here is my latest completed project.  A camera bag with a large pocket at the back and 2 smaller pockets inside.  This was such a fun project.  I used bright 5" charms from my stash.  I stipple quilted it using a fairly large pattern.

FMQ Monthly Challenge - January

I have been making quilts for about 20 years but have only recently yearned to perfect my free motion quilting.  Leah Day's tutorials have been really fantastic; are so easy to follow, but the only answer to mastering this wonderful art is practice, practice and more practice..... and then to practice some more!  

I was so excited to come across a Free Motion Quilting Challenge and thanks to SoCalGal for setting this up with monthly tutorials of different FMQ stitches and taught every month by a different person.  January's stitch is trailing leaves and was taught by Frances Moore.  I would love to show you my practice pieces, starting with "doodling" the pattern on paper (which helps brain, eye, hand co-ordination) to my final stitching on my chosen quilt top.

This is an excellent way of practicing the pattern first.  I did a few pages like this!

 This is the front of my practice piece in green on a quilt sandwich.

 
 And this is the back in a pink colour.  It's good to use a different colour in the bobbin to get your top tension correct.

This is my final FMQ done on my quilt top!  Not too bad I think.  I'm quite happy seeing that it is the first month.  Hopefully by the end of the year and with much more practicing, I will improve.

                                                              Here is a close up view.

Thank you for having a quick lookie.  You are welcome to leave a remark!

My Quilting Story

JANUARY 2012.

I am new to blogging and I would like to go back to the beginning of my quilting experience and show some of my "older" quilts which have a special place in my heart not because they are expertly made, but because I did the best that I could at the time with my limited knowledge and experience.

On the right is the very first quilt I made.  Is it a snowball or a bow tie pattern, I'm not quite sure?  I think that I found a pattern in a quilt magazine at the time.  It is machine pieced and hand quilted.  (I had to try my hand at everything all at once - lol).  It has pride of place in my sewing room!












On the left is a Bargello wall hanging which also hangs in my sewing room.  Machine quick piecing and machine quilted.  I was in such a hurry to get the binding on and hanging that I did not quilt the border until quite recently when I had tried my hand at Free Motion Quilting, which, by the way, has become my passion.  More about that later.

  

Here are 2 Amish Quilts.  I love the bright and simple colours which were so typical of the Amish needlework.

I made this quilt for my Mom for her 70th birthday in 1992.  It is also in the Amish tradition but I took the liberty of using a floral in the piecing as well as in the border instead of a solid fabric.  I wonder what I should make her for her 90th birthday this year?!

Crazy quilted waistcoat

February 12 1999 was Dad's 80th birthday and this is the waistcoat I made for him.  It was the first time that I had tried my hand at Crazy Quilting and I used many of his beautiful ties and embellished the finished piece with different embroidery stitches.

This little miniature remained a UFO (unfinished object) until quite recently when I decided to finish it.  See the size of it next to the light switch!  The tiny blocks are 1¾ cm square - less than 1½ inches.










Then came the annual Quilt Show which was held in Johannesburg that particular year.  I can't for the life of me remember, but I think it was round about 1993/4.  Oh the excitement!  I would attend as many of the workshops in the week as I possibly could.  There I met up with "old" friends from Natal where we previously lived whom I had neither seen nor heard of since we left and had no idea that they had also started quilting.  The quilt below was pieced at an "Attic Window" workshop.  This was such fun and I managed to piece the top which was then brought home, folded up and put away until 18 years later (last year) I decided to "back and batt" it and try my hand at FMQ.  I took the bull by the horns, put it under the presser foot, dropped the feed dogs and off I went!  I was sooo excited to say the least!  The fish swimming in the window were outline quilted, which I might add took ages and the window ledge and wall were stipple quilted.  It hangs at the end of the passage where it looks quite striking.

Attic Windows

Flying Geese

 This is a Flying Geese made at least 15 years ago and has been used every day.  It is one of my favourites and is folded up every morning and placed across the bottom of our bed.  Unfortunately the border fabric has faded quite badly (see my note later on about fabric). Nonetheless, it is a very loved quilt and has been cuddled under on many a frosty night!  I actually made it for our bed in our bush cottage at Marloth Park and often wonder, if quilts could talk, what sounds it had been witness to.  Lions roaring at night, hyaenas ....whatever they do; and all types of critters wandering around the cottage at night.  Oh yes and Eland looking in at the windows as we had often witnessed.  But that is another story!









Now there was a period of about 10-15 years where I did not do very much quilting owing to a few of our childrens' weddings where I made daughters' wedding dresses as well as daughters-in-law's wedding dresses.  Also we had a few house relocations when my quilting fabrics were packed away and remained unopened until 2010 when I decided it was time to retrieve them from their packing cases in the garage and get to work again.  Why had I left it so long?!

I soon discovered that many of the fabrics that had been horded for so long were actually quite useless for quilting and so began an arduous task of "sorting and chucking" much to my maid's delight!  Many of the pieces were left over dress material and also upholstery fabric given to me by a friend with a furniture factory.  Actually some of it was put to use making totes, or handbags as we call them.  Here is a pic of one

 ....and another made of charm squares.














So, most of my stash is now sorted although I still have some "just can't get rid of" pieces!  These shall remain until such time.....

Now what to make?  My friend Gill has introduced me to Cotton Tales and Sew Many Things both in Hillcrest.  Oh my, oh my!!!  How I found that quilt fabric has not only changed but improved in the past 15 years!  Choices; colours; batiks; designs; tone-on-tones; charms, jelly rolls, honey buns, layer cakes; turnovers, dessert rolls; candy bars - I could go on and on.  A feast for the eyes.  After getting my breath back, I managed to choose some fat quarters with a colour scheme in mind but no idea of how I was going to use them.  There I was R1500 later with fabric, batting and an assortment of threads, pins, and templates under my arm, heading away on our 3 hour journey back home.  A few weeks later and here is what I produced....

Diamond Star Quilt

It was machine pieced and both machine and hand quilted.  This has now whet my appetite and the next one I made, after having discovered the Missouri Star Quilt Company and Jenny Doan's tutorials, remains my favourite to date.  Ta daaaa.....

Crazy Drunkard's Path

This was made from one of Jenny's tutorials and is machine pieced and free motion quilted with echoing spirals and stippled around the border.  Just love the effect!  It hangs horizontally on the wall above our bed.

After this, I made a few wall hangings but unfortunately I don't have any photos of them as they went to a friend's shop to be sold.

Log Cabin

 Here is a Log Cabin Quilt set in the "field and furrows" design.  Not one of my favourites but pretty anyway.   It is a single bed quilt.
















Next came a hand pieced Spool Quilt.  Why did I start this; why, why, why?????  Because it is hand-pieced, it absolutely must be hand quilted and this is taking months as it is still in the making!  Pics will be posted when it is finished. *

Dresden Plate

This is another of my favourites (I've got quite a lot of favourites)!  It is a Dresden Plate wall hanging made with a template which I ordered from the States.  It is free-motion machine quilted with hearts and spirals.  The binding is made with left-over fabric from the plates.  It looks stunning hanging on the wall.  Unfortunately the FMQing does not show up very well in the photo.  I have also done another one in pinks and purples.  Will put it up when it is photographed.  It needs strong sunlight.

 A close-up view of the hearts and spirals quilting.

Purple Dresden Plate

Here is the purple Dresden Plate.  By the way, you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Sampler

This is a sampler quilt I started in about 1994/5!  As the years passed, I realised that with my limited knowledge at the time and the fact that I had hand-pieced it, there were many inconsistencies in the piecing.  I finally decided, in 2012, that it would make a wonderful quilt on which to practice my free motion quilting.  So I hauled it out, tried to square up the blocks and found that there was not enough space left for a ¼ inch seam
which would leave the points chopped off in some of the blocks.  Oh well, what can do!  I just sommer sewed it up adding sashing and borders and all of a sudden - wow - this doesn't look too bad!  I used a different FMQ stitch in each block.  This allowed me to practice the different stitches on a real quilt in stead of scraps of quilt sandwiches.


April 2012

Here I used a 5 inch half hexie template for this hexagon lap quilt.  The fabric is a batik - Mirah's Classic Sushi Roll by Princess Mirah for Bali Fabrics.  I used 2 Sushi Rolls for this quilt.  The colours caught my eye!  It is quilted in a branching design.  It is used as a throw on our couch in the lounge.

May 2012

This is a small table topper where I used "Collections for a Cause" by Howard Marcus for Moda Fabrics.  It is quilted in a meandering loopy design.  Love the colours!

*  July 2012

Here, finally, is the Spool Quilt machine quilted.  Yes I know, I know.  It just is not done to finish a hand pieced quilt by machine; but-but-but.   This "ufo" has been put away for two years!  Unfortunately I backed it with chintz which made the going very difficult to hand quilt it and as we had just completed our July fmq challenge (see under Blog Archive July), I thought it would be great practice for the swirls and it would get the quilt done!  So here it is finally finished!

Spool Quilt

August 2012

I have now completed another Disappearing 9 patch to be used as a table topper, using "Tea Cakes" by Verna Mosquera for Free Spirit Fabrics.  It is quilted in a swirly leaf design with feathers in the border.

A close up of the quilted feathers

Also in this month I have completed a Queen size quilt as a wedding gift for my nephew Shaun and his wife to be, Janene.  They will be married in October in the Drakensberg, Natal, so it is finished well in time!

Here are some close-ups of the quilting

A swirly flower design

The feathered border

In the meantime, I have started a BOM (block of the month) quilt challenge by Craftsy, as well as a Free Motion Quilt Challenge, both of which started in January.  They will continue every month for the rest of the year and can be found separately on my Blog.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my quilting.  It will be updated as and when I have more completed quilts to show.