WIPW

I have managed to catch the flu, everything is floating around at the moment.  I must not allow myself to have too many projects on the go but my mind keeps coming up with new things to do.

So on the embroidery front I only have two centres of flowers to finish on the Cornish Coast embroidery.

 

I found an orphan embroidered block from another quilt and some charm squares so we will see what we can do here.

And, whilst in the quilt shop, buying some paper interfacing, to experiment with a new method of paper piecing, I found this panel.

Just love the colours but I'm not sure how I will use it.  So it is up on the board.  And I am unpicking the heart quilt.  There are parts of this that I like and the quilting is just what I wanted.

I think that I will keep the bits that are OK and unpick the others.  I was going to sent it out to be quilted but I won't make a decision on this until I have got it unpicked leaving the good bits.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away....

Back in 2014 (that's 10 years ago!!) I started quilting my heart quilt.  Before this I had hand appliqued 365 blocks with hearts.

  I stuffed up the quilting big time, then tried to fix it, only to make it worse.  So, I put it in a bag to put into the rubbish, but couldn't do that.  I then hid the bag in the back of a cupboard.

One of my friends at Maberly Quilters had said how she wanted to learn how to needle turn applique, and I immediately thought of that quilt.  Today I pulled that bag out again.  The quilt was still there and the quilting was still terrible.  

Now that I have looked at it I have decided to continue with the unpicking of the machine quilting.  There are 100 blocks that need to be unpicked and if I can do one a day I should have them all unpicked by November.

I was thinking about cutting it up into smaller quilts but I think it would still make a good bedspread, it is far too heavy for a quilt and is 3metres x 3 metres in size.

One positive is that I now have the carry bag back for my overlocker!

Xmas Toys - 1

As part of our Christmas celebrations my quilting group, South Sea Quilters, are making a toy to bring as a donation to our Xmas lunch.  This has led me on a quest to find free toy patterns and share the patterns with our members, and I thought I would share them here as well.  So I launched out on the web and have found quite a few.  The problem has been getting through all the associated advertising.

My first offering is an elephant and it is so cute I'm sure lots of people have used this before and is from Birch Fabrics.  (How could I have missed it?)

The patterns are easy to follow and it comes with good instructions, although the seam allowances are confusing, some are included and others you have to add plus the straight of grain are not marked.  The other thing I'm not happy about is the position of the eyes, so I made an alteration here,  I added some pellum interfacing in the ears , so that they would flap better,and omitted the tail then decided that they need a tail.   Here is my version, one big, one little.

WIPW

I have the binding on my Charity Quilt No 3 ready to stitch.  I think I have got how to do channel quilting now.

I am taking this one a bit slower as stitching for a longer stint leaves my arm aching.  Slow and steady for this one.

Charity Quilt No 4 is now all preped ready for the quilting. I will need to make sure it is flat first and I need to buy some more spray adhesive for quilters.

And I found the box with the quilting rulers from Bernina and Westerlee.  I think I need to practice a bit before I start on the real thing.

And one tiny embroidery for a necklace.

The weather & Charity Quilt No 2

Well, I took my machine to be repaired.  They plugged it in, turned it on and it worked!!

Turns out the problem was the funny weather we have been having.  It effected the power coming into the house and the machine said "I'm not working."  (The less said about this incident the better.)

Onto other things

Charity Quilt No 2 - Horses

This is for a teenager and is a single bed quilt and pillow.

I had it quilted with a circular pattern by the long arm quilter.  I did not quilt this one myself, only pieced it.

This view is better to see the quilting

I hope it brings pleasure to who ever receives it.

 

A bit of reflection

I don't think I have had a run of adverse events in years as those that have dogged me since my cancer returned at the end of last year.  It has been a constant struggle just to get from one day to the next.  But I am learning how to accept the circumstances that have come to me.  At first I 'raged' against fate but now I find myself accepting what is given to me and continuing on the best I can.

One thing that has brought me great pleasure has been my garden and this year the Camellias have been beautiful.

I have some interesting books to read, especially the Marjory Allingham books but I also found  "The Remarkable Mrs Reiby" by Grantlee Kieza.

This is the true story of the woman who graces our $20 notes.  My ancestor, who decided to settle in Australia, was an officer in the 73rd Regiment.  He was a mounted soldier so wore a blue jacket rather than the red. This was the first Australian Light Horse Brigade.   He transferred from the 73rd to be part of the mounted troop who became the Govenor's (Macquarie) body guard.  (The rest of the 73rd were sent back to England.)  The book gives a vivid description of what life would have been like for him and his family at that time.

But the most precious thing I have come to appreciate more and more are my friends.  They are a true blessing.

Update on the fight with my sewing machine.

Well things have turned sour.  My very expensive machine has turned up it's toes.  I think it needs a new mother board, and that is going to be expensive to fix.   It is all packed up ready to take into the dealer for repairs and I don't think that that will be less than $2,000.00, but it has to be done.  The only redeeming thing about the whole affair is that if I decide to upgrade or just get a repair the machine will become my daughter's in the future.  I know she will use it and enjoy it .

In the mean time I am in the process of setting up my old machine.  I was told by the dealer that Bernina is no longer making spare parts for this machine so if it fails that is the end of it.

At first I was destroyed by this turn of events, I bought the machine thinking it would see me out, but, it is something outside of my control and I know that I did nothing that could have brought on the current set of circumstances.  I looked after the machine with regular cleaning and services.

Now I have to finish the quilt I was working on, only the border to quilt and that will fit under the opening in the old machine.

Then sew on the binding for the horse quilt on which the quilting is all finished.

You can see the quilting pattern better on the reverse side.

But tomorrow I intend to embroider all day, until my hand and wrist will work no more.  

Now I'm fighting with the computer in my sewing machine!

I don't know why, suddenly, I am fighting with every computer in sight.  My Bernina 720 machine is the latest to turn against me.  This relationship didn't start well.  A geko got into the fuse box and blew the mother board in the machine the first week I got it and It has been a rocky relationship since then.

I am doing a lot of machine quilting and I had stopped to clean the machine as I didn't like the sound it was making.  It wasn't a bad sound but after years of teaching kids how to sew I am attuned to any difference in the sound a machine makes.  (Better to intervene before things go wrong.)  So, I stopped did a full clean and service.  Put the machine back together again, which is quite a process and then the computer starts sending error messages.   Three hours later I found a 20mm piece of thread I had missed caught in the bobbin case.  This shouldn't cause a problem in most machines but this one is super sensitive.

I was hoping to have the main part of the quilt finished this week but it is not to be.  Still I'm glad I stopped sewing and I'm glad I kept my ears open to the change of engine noise in the machine.

A week alone

Yes, all alone, except for the dog.  My husband has gone to Tangalooma Island with  his ex business partner for the week. 

He has a holiday apartment over there.  I'm not sure if there are any whales at this time of year but it used to be a whaling station in the old days as it sits on the whale migration route

The resort is situated on Moreton Island, which is some way out in the bay but you look back to the mainland and see the city skyline.  It is remote and beautiful.  (The website has some great photos and information.)

I took day trip excursions there when I was a high school teacher.  It is quite a 'wild place'.

I have taken this time to struggle with the computer, work in the garden. walk the dog and have commenced quilting the last quilt.  I hope to have this completed by the time he returns.  It took 2 full days to get it all tacked together, by which time my wrist said "that's enough, I give up".  So then I sat and read my next Marjory Allingham book "Flowers for the judge".  This was published in 1936 and there is a notable change in the writting.  A lot more modern in the use of the English language and her use of suspense sees a change, but the story is just as enjoyable.

So, it has been a kind of holiday for me as well.  I am enjoying this time.

 

More comupter problems

I preface this by saying that I think where I live, which causes the internet to drop out, could be part of the cause of the problems, but I have to add that it would appear that I am being stalked by a hacker/scammer.

I know someone is trying to scam me and I also know that they have tried to get into my "mygov" account, that is my tax file, medicare etc.  At the moment I have deleted my "mygov" account, so I have no health cover for my cancer treatment but then it wasn't working because someone was trying to hack me, and my medicare account was suspended. So I have no rebates or  government safety net and have to pay the full amount up front for all medical visits and procedures.

I have now set up a new Email account and will delete the one the scammer is trying to access.

Added to this I have a problem with my Apple account.  My telco provider, Telsta, has discontinued all Email services, and you guessed it, this was linked to my Apple account, so no email services there.  I just seem to be caught in a "catch 22" situation and this is really cutting into my sewing time.  And I am getting that last quilt ready to quilt.  Two full days of tacking!!  But if you don't get it right at this stage the quilting will be terrible.

I found this leaf design fabric in my stash.  I think they are supposed to be gum leaves.  That goes with the aboriginal design.

Fifi's was having a sale on their panels so I am waiting on those to arrive.   I have set myself a goal of 100 charity quilts for teenagers.  Now that I put that into words it sounds terribly ambitious.  Maybe 50 would make a more achievable goal?