In Need of Paint

My house urgently need to be painted!

We have the paint already.

What colour to paint? This is a most difficult question specially if you do not have a wide choice. My husband wanted to paint it white. It took  3 months and a lot of arguments. We decided on a light grey called Cirus. I have studied the blog of Colour me Happy and hopefully I have the correct undertone! There was just one light grey to choose from!

Initially we decided on Heritage Green for the roof. I thought a darker roof would show the light coloured house off, better. We had a heatwave for nearly a month now and the house is getting terribly hot. Then my friend showed me a house with light grey walls and a white roof. This white paint reflect the sunlight and make a house significantly cooler. It took another week to try and convince my husband to change the delivered paint. Luckily Dennis, our paint consultant arrange for the exchange. (My husband was furious- then I realised he was never going to change the colour- so this was a good favour Dennis did . He was ranting and raving about the handling fee- which might be a few R100 but the paint cost nearly R5 000. So he would rather spent that amount of money on the wrong paint than to pay whatever handling fee is involved. My children say- my husband is unique. It is not possible to understand or explain his thoughts. Perhaps he is what one should call eccentric.)

This is the door to my sewing room/studio. I will show you once it is painted and with the "name" quilt on. (Do not know why the photo turned side ways and after three attemps of resizing and saving and uploading- please tilt your head to the right.)

I am eagerly waiting for the painters. My husband do not readily spent money on the farm on things that cannot be used in the farming enterprise. There is always things that is more urgent and need to get done on the farm. Maintenance is very low on his priority list. He has not learned that a "Stitch in time saves nine" The funny thing is that when we get on a farm where everything is as dilipidated as on our farm he often think the farmer is a "sukkelaar" (not really successful) I have used that argument but it seems that he is not able to see what is in front of his eyes.

This is one of the reasons that I like to quilt. I can go into my sewing room and forget about everything else. (The arguments the frustrations and the immediate surroundings.) Here I can create.

I started on the Carpenters' Wheel. I am convinced that blocks with more than 36 pieces should be made on a bigger scale. A lot of their beauty is lost when making them to small. As soon as I have figured out how to create a tutorial page, I would like to try and post a tutorial on this block. For now here is the center part of the block with the other pieces placed around it on the design wall.

A Treasure

The MSC Sinfonia took us to the bay of Maputo. We went in big rubber boats to  Portugese island. This is a tiny 2,5 km square island. From there we went with local boats to the nearby Inhaca island.

On Inhaca we enjoyed a show of local youngsters carrying out different dances in the café where we enjoyed a drink. They were dressed in there tribal clothes and was really very good. (We could also eat crayfish and prawns there- but were so well fed on the boat that we did not want to eat anything.)

I bought these two batiks from a saleman on Inhaca. I liked the batiks colours and the circular objects in the images.

The food on the boat was super and with 700 staff members for 2100 passengers the service was excellent!

I am preparing for a workshop in Phillipstown. These woman are ready for a challenge and want me to do Lover's knot, Carpenter's wheel and a Mariners Compass. For me this also present a challenge; to plan the workshop in such a way that they are not overwhelmed and can achieve this. (I think the Carpenters Wheel should wait till another time and be made as a wall hanging.)

I have realised something that might be quite obvious to many quilters. A new project energize me. Therefore I am always eager to start something new- but not so good with finishing it. Once I have worked out all the details of the new project and it is just down to sewing everything slow down.

So I have decided to do just little bits of the new stuff and hopefully will complete some of the many old things in between. This new project is very interesting in many ways- but I will discuss that next time!

The MSC Sinfonia

We had a wonderful weekend trip on the MSC Sinfonia from Durban to the Portugese Island and Inhaca. It was organised as a family reunion with my husband's sisters. What we did not know, was that the boat was so big- our cabins was nearly 800m from each other!

The Family- Me and Stephanus on the right

Some of the people in our party was sea sick- I was "landsick" When I came home I noticed that I was walking like a drunk- just like on the boat when the sea was huge and the boat rocked from side to side. I also had a terrible headache. When I went to the dairy early on Wednesday morning I had to stop in the veld and was sick.

My husband at the end of our trip

I took some quilt magazine's with and  had time to study Judy Woodworth's book Freemotion Quilting from cover to cover. It was a relaxing time and we even had a Matisse print in our cabin!

   Inside our cabin

What am I doing

I must confess- I do get so sidetracked by everything I see that I completely loose my direction. I am a good starter and a poor "finisher-upper" as Helen Kelly said. So I decided to tackle the duvet cover and finish it before I tackle another thing.

The advantage when one embroider, is that you can work on two things simultaneously. So while the machine embroider, I tackle the bags that I started. But let me first talk about the duvet cover. The square will be in the middle and I have added and appliqued with a digitized design the 3 circles. The idea is that there will be 8 circles around the middle square and a separate design in the 4 corners. I think I should move the 4 circles that will be on the diagonal, towards the middle so that they are not arranged in a ring. I am quite please with the applique and the shiny stretchy satin look nice on the background cotton sateen.

I was cleaning my cupboard and came across short 2 inch strips. I decided to make colourful bags for our National Quilt Festival- where I will be in charge of the classrooms and will look after teacher comfort. I have completed the patchwork for this bags. Now for the completion of the 34 bags.

If I sew a binding on the top edges I need to work the other side by hand. I don't mind the handwork- but it will take quite a time. Then I thought to overlock it. This do not look so neat but I think after I press it and add a nice button it might work.

I still have a zillion strips left. Inspired by Wanda's colour wash kaleidoscope I sewed these strips together. I could cut 2 wedges from a set. This take forever! I do need to finish a In the hoop project that will need my constant attention- so when I am finish with the duvet these things will have to wait again.

O yes and then I was lured to make this quilt. I saw this on two blogs and made my own version. I used a lot of flower prints in purple. (I took the process pledge today so I had to confess about all my transgressions!)

That's what friends are for

I had a good day working on my duvet cover. I must say it is quite difficult to work with such a big sheet- perhaps working block style would have been easier. I am very happy with the look- will hopefully be able to show something by tomorrow.

My friend Rita sent me this pictures. Last week we were working on a baby quilt for her new grand child soon to come. It was great working together. Me calculating and cutting and Rita sewing, with me pressing. She now just have to decide on a final arrangement and sew the blocks together.

It is for the bed

I need a new duvet cover and my search for one  lead to nothing. So the decision was made to make a duvet cover. Although I sleep under sheets and use the down duvet as a “blanket” or Quilt, the cover stil need to be wash often because of pets that also like to lie on it.

I bought a cotton sateen for the duvet cover and some stretchy satin to do the embroidery on. (After I embroidered the first designs I realized that the stretchy satin will need a permanent stabilizer- so I choose to use a non iron on interfacing as stabilizer).

I usually do not like to work in one color but I thought little specs of colour in the embroidery would not look good. So I choose three greens that is very near in value to each other to use for the Fabulous Flower Quilt 3 designs of Ace Point Quilting that I bought from Secrets of Embroidery.

I have now completed the designs. I plan to arrange these motifs around one central motif.

Hopefully I will be able to show the completed project later this week.

A reluctant dairy farmer

The deadly routine on a dairy farmer is only broken by a crisis of one or other. For the rest there is certain tasks that need to be carried out at every milking time, seven days a week for 52 weeks and a day every year. One can do it just for so long! I was involved in our dairy for 8 years on a daily basis with no one to release me from this deadly routine- my husband want the dairy cows but not the deadly routine. He say because he is the boss, he can delegate!

I am now unwillingly involved again after a year of freedom. It took me a long time to shake of the depression that these years left me in. My husband do not understand this- because he fill his day with things he love.

Patrick Badi

Luckily I can also do some quilting- not nearly as much as I would like, though. The dairy is not all bad. I do have wonderfull people that help me. People I can trust and depend on when I am not there. We also have a Computerized system from Alpro  where the milk flow and amount of milk every cow is producing at every milking, is recorded. In this way I can pick up any cow that might be ill at a very early stage.

Well I guess no one has a perfect life and one do appreciate things more if you have to fight for it than when it is just there.

I bought an industrial Bernina machine to be able to quilt at a higher speed. (I was moving my hands to quickly and the machine's speed could not follow. It result in to big stitches which the judges frowned upon). I made this log cabin quilt out of my scrap bags (only partly- in the end I needed to much fabric for the outer rings and had to cut from my stash). I use an old mohair blanket as a batting and it quilted beautiful. I now sleep under this. In South Africa quilts is not part of our heritage. As a child we had down comforters for warmth on top of our standard sheets and blankets. So many households now has duvets as standard bedding. Although I make quilts since 1983 I only start sleeping under a quilt 2 years ago. I love the quilting on this quilt and enjoy it every evening in the soft light of the bed lamp.

Can you remember......

In a workshop a good teacher might give a piece of advice that is not directly applicable to what she is teaching. In one of our machine embroidery classes Hanlie mentioned that every time you change hoop sizes you should calibrate your hoop and showed us how it is done with the 830 Bernina.

Some lessons you do not learn before you do not run into the situation. I embroidered a few projects where the embroidery did not go right to the edge. I got a message about the calibration but thought something was wrong with my machine. Eventually I checked the manual- and then it dawned on me- I need to calibrate the hoop! REMEMBER- DO NOT FORGET THOSE IN BETWEEN LESSONS

Luckily in my Christmas runner it is not so obvious! (The star point on the left side did not embroider all three loops at the point)

This runner was not completed in time for Christmas- so I complete the embroidery as soon after as possible and now only need to finish the edges and add the lace pieces- so I am ready for next Christmas!

Sometimes one learn best from experience. I will never forget now to calibrate my hoop when I change to a different size.

Squiggles

A wonderful feature available in the Version 6 Bernina software is the ability to digitize squiggles. (Or stipple stitch as it is called in the software) You just outline the area that you want to fill, press the button and whola! You can adjust your squiggles to make them smaller and have a single, double or triple run of stitches.

Squiggles are a good background quilting design to have around an embroidered design. It flattens the background so that all attention is on the embroidery. The way that squiggles reflect light (in many different directions) is another contributing factor to have the attention moved from the background to the embroidery design.

Even so, it creates a lovely texture on the background- if one do nothing the blandness of the background would draw attention. Squiggles enhance the whole look without competing for attention with the main subject, the embroidery.

If you have the software go to the Bernina site and do this exercise. Experiment and learn how to use this wonderful optional feature. To get the best results, either embroider on the batting or add batting and a backing fabric before the squiggels are stitched.

This is just one of the FREE classes available at the Bernina website.