Dog bed

After languishing the whole winter in front of the fire, I finally started doing some stitching. At our monthly quilting meeting I am busy working on my Stack and cut squares jacket (see this post) which is progressing well. My 84 year old Mother was in hospital for a month with cellulitis and heart problems which also kept me occupied, but I am hopefully back on track again.

Our small dogs loves to keep me company in the office during the day whilst I am working, so I decided to stitch a bed for them.  The stuffing was made from the covers of our new lounge set which we bought in 2020.   They have been sleeping on the covers but manage to scratch it all over the place, so they now have a nice bed to nap on.

The completed bed.

Jack Russell, Mica (15 years old), could not wait to try it out.

Prizes won

It's been a long time since I had written a new post as I haven't been doing any embroidering or quilting.  Me and my son both had Covid two weeks apart and my husband had an operation on his back, the 3rd one.

This year I entered 7 items at the Bloemshow of which 4 have won prizes.

These two quilts both won 3rd prizes.

2nd prize

1st prize

Heart Quilt finished

I finished this quilt and is really pleased with how it turned out.

Below are some close up photos of the blocks showing the free motion quilting done in more detail.  I chose to meander mostly as to get the quilt finished rather than spending hours wondering what motifs to use where.  Judges don't prefer quilts that is just meandered, but it is my quilt and my decision after all.  I don't quilt for awards, just as a hobby.

Below is a close up of one of the corners showing the stitching done.

Now I have to get myself started on another project as I am still struggling to get back my mojo after all my work issues the last year or so.  I am working from home sitting cooped up alone in my office all day, so I am struggling to get myself to spend the whole evening alone in the needlework room as well.  But when I do get myself to do something, I enjoy it and after a while forgot about all life's trouble and problems which never ends in our life.  

My contract at my current employer expires at the end of March and my son quit his new job after a month, so I am really struggling holding my head above the water.  All prayers for us are sorely needed.  Please do let me know of any job opening for a young man with 2 years administrative assistant experience, data capture etc. if you know or hear about anything.  It would be greatly appreciated.

Stack and wack quilt

The past 3 months or so was spending quilting this huge queen size quilt on my domestic machine.  At times it felt that this quilt will be the end of me as it was stitched during the weeks I did not know if I will find another job or not.  

This is a UFO from way back in 2012 which I for some reason never wrote about.  I finished the top a few years back but added another row of blocks earlier this year so that it would be big enough for our queen size bed.  It is made by stacking 9 different fabrics on top of each other and slicing twice through all the layers horizontally and vertical.  Then all the fabrics are swopped around and stitched back together on top of vilene using bias binding.  The different blocks are then stitched together using the same method.

Half of the blocks were meandered as the fabrics is so busy, no pattern showed up good.  The other half I quilted in different patterns.  I however foolishly choose only one pattern which was stitched normally which meant I had to change feet and convert the machine from free motion to normal stitching every time the yellow blocks came up.  A mistake I hope not to repeat ever.

Below are close ups of the different patterns I used.

Workwise I did manage to land the job I was writing about in the previous post although only for 6 months.  So, it is turning out to be a stressful situation either way which is having a detrimental effect on me.  I don't know which direction my life will take and the uncertainty is preventing me from quilting or machine embroidery at this stage, both hobbies which I dearly loved but just can't seem to get myself to enjoy currently.  I am sick and tired of just sitting around doing nothing as this is not me under normal circumstances, but hope that the two weeks holiday coming up will rectify this situation.

Heart Quilt 6

It's almost two months since my previous post and about the only needlework done around here was finishing up the last three blocks of the heart quilt.  All the blocks have been stitched together and quilted, so only the borders needs to be added.

On a personal front it was quite a difficult few moths behind me workwise.  After going back to the UK firm in April, everything was going well until the mid of August when they decided they didn't have enough work to occupy me and let me go.  And I have been struggling ever since getting another job lined up as things in South-Africa is very tight with all the SOE's bankrupt and me being in the engineering (infra structure) field, you are dependent from the national and local governments for work.  I am praying that the contract work I have applied for do materialize so that I could go back to being the normal me without all these external pressures, worries and stress.  It is not a picnic finding oneself without a job just a few years before pension. 😓

If any of you reading here can join me in prayer about this I would really appreciate it.

Heart Quilt 5

With winter upon us I find it increasingly difficult to do anything other than sitting by the fire.  So any quilting etc. now is done on Saturdays only.  I also find it difficult being cooped up in my office alone the whole day and then spending the evenings alone in my needlework room as well.  My husband do visit me during the day but I am definitely having a bout of cabin fever.

With that being said, I did embroider another 3 blocks of the heart quilt as well as adding sasching to the completed blocks so I can start quilting them.  I am however struggling with puckers.  Almost all of the blocks pucker, bit I will try my best to eliminate them with the quilting which I decided will only be meandering between the hearts.

These blocks I did not crazy quilt as I wanted to show of the beautiful Langa Lapu fabric prints which doesn't show up as well on the small crazy quilt pieces.  Three quarters of the blocks is done with only 4 more blocks to go.

Heart Quilt 4

 After falling seriously behind with this quilt, I finally got time to stitch another two blocks.