In my last post I mentioned quilting my Sunshine Rose Garden quilt for the deadline of August 6th. I made it with a week to spare. I had a few setbacks with the washing and blocking. The drought meant we ran out of tank water, you guessed it the day I wanted to wash it.Our spring water and a white quilt do not mix. We do however have a small tank behind the shed, so I was able to carry water to the laundry. After a slight mishap with a 50% bleach dab on a small stain, I had to wash/rinse again, I hung it on the wobbly Hills Hoist ( lucky it didn't break from the weight of it) overnight and in the morning light took this photo of the back. We have had a plague of wallabies on our lawn every night so I was expecting to find grey fur as well meaning another wash cycle but that didn't happen. After the bleach mishap, I had to re quilt a small area as the silk thread either dissolved or yellowed. Lessons are learnt along the way. I successfully blocked it and rolled it up to drive it to Bundaberg on August 6th.
2 close up views of the quilting. I ended up going with my friend Kerry's suggestion of just echoing around the applique as the sashings were just too narrow for a filler that I contemplated. The day I delivered it to the Bundaberg Quilters Exhibition I helped with the setting up for the show. There were quite a few wooden stands to be organised.
My quilt hung alongside quilts from a prize winning quilter. I was quite happy to be considered worthy of that privilege. My very first formal patchwork teacher Margaret, from 1987, found me wandering the aisles on Saturday August 9, and was suitably impressed. She taught me the basics and also a lot more about advanced quilting of quilts and understanding quilting designs. I really wish she had the opportunity to continue teaching me but life gets in the way sometimes. I really hope her creative muse is allowed to return soon. I have come to the conclusion that having a very large project on the go for a long time is also a destroyer of the creative muse. My mind certainly has been wandering about future projects ahead now that this one is finished. At the show, the most often asked question was " if this quilt is for the spare bed in your house, what quilt have you got on your bed" They were most amused with my answer of " a Spotlight bedspread about 8 years old" Whenever I have made one for our bed , I am always told it is too good to sleep under.
The house has not been forgotten in my quilting marathon. This is the downstairs room where I hope to move most of my sewing stuff into. The walls are currently a yellow colour and I chose a test pot of paint simply on its name. Taubmans February Frost, our birthdays are both in that month and when I saw it in the colour area I was looking at, I had to try it. I have not been back to buy more paint yet, as the outside window hoods are next in line for painting. I have had the timber venetians installed though after the window frames were painted.
At the AMQF in October I am doing 2 classes with Carla Barrett the quilt whisperer from the USA and one of those is where we send her a photo of some quilt tops so she can design potential quilting patterns for them. I have sent her these as I want to emphasise the cube shapes with the quilting.
With this one I want to create movement across the quilt.
On the family front, the annual trip to the Ekka is happening, Grandbaby number three is set to arrive early next year, and we along with most of Queensland are still in the grip of a severe drought. Today there are some predictions of potential rainfall shortly so lets hope it happens.
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