June Happenings

 June has been the month of accounts, sanding and preparing the southern wall of Ivanhoe for painting and quilting the Sunshine Rose Garden quilt, pattern by Kathy Nakajima, that I have been working on since 2009. I hope to have it finished by August 6th 2014 to display in the Bundaberg Quilters Exhibition. My sister also wants it for display in the Mundubbera Art Gallery for October 2014 when The Lemon Jo Quilters have their display. Looks like I'll become a member of their group also. The view above is to put the quilt's size into perspective compared to the house. The quilt is 2.25 metres square. I think the house makes a nice background but I wish someone would hurry up and finish the renovating. The roof sure does need a coat of paint.

 

I quite like the wall colour on the veranda walls from this distance.



 Here is a closer view of the quilt. Click on it and you can see my trusty assistant who just had to supervise. To date, I had Lisa Warne at Quick Quilts at Tiaro baste it on her longarm machine with water soluble thread, I have finished ditch stitching and stabilising the sashings, compasses, I have finished outlining each applique shape on the edge and again a hopping foot width around all of the applique. I did all of the ditch stitching and outlining by free motion quilting. My uniquely made hopping foot for my Pfaff grand quilter machine certainly works brilliantly. I have since ordered another one from America as it certainly helps with the consistency of the stich length, no stitch regulator used here. I thought it was a standard Juki hopping foot but no it is engineered by Curt of the Finishing Touch Quilting Studio in America. I used Superior Kimono Silk 100wt thread for that work. Today I started the free motion work in the compasses. I switched back to 40wt Glide polyester as the silk just didn't show too well. Then I will have to fill in all the remaining background. I have practised a piano key outer border in water soluble thread and it looks good. That will be the last bit to quilt. A piped inner border of red ( just washed the fabric again but will do so another time yet) is required to cover where I accidently snipped into the outside edge when doing the applique, then I will bind it in white. Better find the original fabric bolt. I still have a ton of threads to tidy up but I think I will meet the deadline. Have to, as I sent my form in this week for the Exhibition. I have had 3 days rec leave from work so have been able to quilt, but next week I think I'll be still tidying up threads as well as sleeping between shifts.

 This is the house wall I had ready for painting. We had a "quality time weekend " together on June 21st where he said "he'd paint the wall" as he did not like seeing me standing up so high on the trestles. He is used to heights so I stood on the ground and pretended to be "Carol" from House Rules for awhile. This is the undercoat finished. I did undercoat and one top coat while the power was off before that. I meanwhile wielded a paint brush in the downstairs rooms where I am getting some white timber venetians soon. I am then going to repaint the wider room, maybe timber laminate floor it, then move the quilting stuff in.

Clicking on the photo removes the lines caused by the weatherboards. The bottlebrush tree is due for a cut, then I am going to move back down the wall and finish the veranda posts. The window hoods will be primed, then I have ordered a Resene Cool Colour paint in Gumboot Grey for them.

The next dilemma after that is how to get in around the tall tank stand and tank to get at the western wall. The boys have some ideas and I think I will be leaving that to them.
The grandkids have visited and had fun at Grandma's house. I managed to keep the 1yr old  out of my sewing area but he loved playing with my Glide spools. I'm sure he is as attracted to their colours like me. I'm not sure if his mother wants me to teach him how to sew but he sure loved me letting him ride his 3 wheeled dune bike in my kitchen. He was only allowed to do that on their patio before he visited us.