Keep calm and quilt on

 I finished the binding of the second Granny Square in the car, while driving to the recipient. Wednesday was granny daycare day and I had just over a meter left to do and just over an hour to do it. 

I got it done with a few minutes to spare. Granddaughter was very pleased with her quilt and after a very active day, I tucked her in with the new asset on her bed.

Next day, or I should say evening, I wondered what to do next. I usually sew by day and quilt in the evenings while watching some serie/movie/film. I took out the Gossip in the garden, but I had no backing that was big enough ( so that’s on a shoppinglist).

While I looked for backing material I came across an almost forgotten project: the Midnight at the Oasis!

It was layered, pinned, all set to go…so why did I abandon that one? First it is not a bedsize  quilt, so it has only a decorative function, same as the Gossip. And however fun and nice to sew, those quilts end on the rack with no immediate need to quilt and finish. 

Upon further inspection I remembered another reason why I put it aside: I was not happy with the quilting I already did. Since I just cannót sit with idle hands, I took a breath, unpicked all the previous stitches and started over

My choice of the day, being a Nordic thriller serie, was not helping. Very suspenseful, but if you don’t speak the language ( Norwegian and Danish) you have to constantly watch instead of watching/ listening.

For today I will add, hopefully, a few more blocks to the third and last Granny Quilt and pick something to watch later, in English….

(Omg, just found that I sewed the Midnight in 2013…… I think, hope,  it is the oldest ufo in my collection. I did find a small box labelled “ ufo’s”. I don’ t want to open it…..

Stitching together again!

 For the very first time since the start of the COVID pandemic, C and I got together Friday afternoon to sew, quilt, chat, gossip and láugh again. I, and I presume C as well, had a lovely time. It had been too long.

C was planning and cutting fabric for her Farmer’s Wife quilt, and I stitched up some blocks for the Granny Square 3.

For comparison I pulled my Farmer’s wife from my bed. C is doing hers with mainly Fasset and Tula fabrics. Mine is completely different and we had trouble to identify my blocks compared to hers. 

Since mine was on the floor anyway, I took some pictures

Still love my signature block!

It took us a while to get going again btw. C didn’t sew or quilt for, I might say years and I haven’t sat behind the machine all summer. It was too hot to do anything. We spent a lot of time gathering our supplies back together. But after today, we will plan more and frequent quilt-get-togethers again. We also made plans for days-out-to-go-to-quiltshops. Looking forward to those too.

Granny Square nr 2 is almost done: the border is halfway done and I’m quilting every evening now. I’ve been told that the little recipient has a duvet that is a little thin, so she’s in need of an extra layer aka gran’s quilt. 

I understood the assignment.

Bringing out the tea towels!

 There are a few moments while hand quilting, that I love best. After your quilt is sewn, layered, pinned or basted…you put your quiltring on, draw the pattern on the fabric and then you put in that first row of stitches….. ahhh pure bliss! I also love the sound of the thread knot `plopping` through the top layer of fabric when you start a new piece of thread and when you finish it. Ofcourse the moment when it`s all finished and you can finally attach a binding.

I`m now in the middle of things, at another `milestone`: putting on the tea towels!! This means that the middle part of the quilt is all done and I can move on to the borders! Yeey!

When you`re doing the borders, you can only put half of your quilt into the quiltring and that simply doesn`t work, hence the towels.

Mine have a waffle structure and the are rectangular, so when folded in half they are fairly long and because of the structure, they are as thick as the quilt itself. Now, how do I use them?

A picture says more than a 1000 words…

(Oops, upside down..)

And you` re ready to quilt!

I will start a little above the corner, so there`s room to attach a label later on. I like to quilt through the label, so it will never get loose and lost.

Ofcourse you can start at any corner you want, but neighbour friend C has this rule; she calls it `quilt psycology`:

When quilting a rectangular quilt, always start at a longer side. Spirits are up, energy flows, yeey borders.

Then you reach a short side, all good. 

After that the second long side: am I done yet, how much more must I do, I`m fed up, this is never ending…

Then: ahhh only one short end to go, I can do this, I`m nearly there, it`s DONE!!!

So, I will start at a long side……:)

Tools of the trade

 I am a hand quilter. I tried doing it by machine, practised, got lessons online and in real life ( which was a very disappointing experience: to many people next to each other, hence no room for your bigger machine table and a teacher that did not know one answer to any question…) After that I stopped trying and sticked to hand quilting. Yes it is painstaking slooooow and it takes forever to finish a quilt, but that`s the way it goes.

Since I`m in the midst of quilting the second Granny Square quilt for granddaughter 2, I thought to share the tools I use.

Thread, obviously: Coats and Clark has been my number one choice from day one. A pair of scissors, a quiltring and 

This ruler. I had it for ages. It is a bigger version of the one everyone uses at school here in e.g. geometry.

Can`t do without! I use it to draw my templates, a patchwork pattern, quilting lines etc.

A somewhat better picture… A Sewline pencil. I have a black one, a white one and this with all of the above.. Used all kinds of chalk pencils, powder but once I saw these, I never turned back. The sorry part of what once was a genuine fabric eraser, erases the pencil lines if needed.

Roxanne needles nr 11 and thimbles. I use a modified sashiko  ring thimble and a `normal` one. Since my finger joints act up every once in a while, I can`t push a needle through the fabric with my fingertip, I push it through with the side of my finger. My hands look like this:

The finger`condom` is to easily grab the little point of the needle easily when there are 4 to 5 stitches on it. I buy a cheap box of latex gloves and cut the fingers of for my quilting needs :)

And last but not least: 

I once picked up a piece of wood in the shed, put my ring on it and drew a cirkel. I cut it out and there you have a wooden board that fits precisely in your ring. Why? When the quilt is in there I slide the board in and I have a sturdy flat surface to draw the quilting lines! 

Now I don`t know if all this makes sense to anyone, but it does to me LOL…

Odd jobs

 Every now and then my quilting space serves another purpose. Craftroom when the ladies are here, storageroom for plants that need to move for a short while, and a place to put your tools when doing odd jobs.

My space is separated from the livingroom with a sliding door. The railing is covered by wooden boards. We renewed those 2 years ago and they were still not painted…

Yesterday I painted the first layer outside, but now, with frequent showers, I moved indoors.

Opened the window in my room en closed the sliding door to reduce paint smells. Don’t you hate it that you have to wait hours and hours before you can add the next layer of paint? 

Ah well, I better use those hours to quilt then. On the sofa ofcourse…..

Reporting back for duty :)

 What a summer is was! Blazing hot, extremely dry. Certainly nót the weather in which I thrive…..and absolutely not suitable temperatures to quilt.

The  5 and 6 year old ladies came to stay for a couple of nights, at the beginning of the summer holidays and came back with their 2 year old sister, at the end of it. Ofcourse, they completely took over my sewingroom. The 5 year old had fun in decorating the design wall with meticulously cut out little pieces of paper.

Bigger artwork had to be displayed too, ofcourse!

But now that autumn is descending and thunderstorms bring the much needed water, temperatures going down to a much better 21 C , I háve to go back to quilting. I only finished 1 GrannySquare; I have one more to quilt and a third ….you can see some blocks for that scattered amongst the artwork….

So I picked up where I left,

…working my way to the fav block ( pink ánd unicorns, I couldn’t go wrong here)

While watching the first part of the Queen ‘s final journey on my iPad next to me.

End of an era…..

I give you: the finger :p

 I know: I`m waaay behind on posting. I had (and still have) discomfort on my right ring finger. 

Diagnosed with a so called `trigger finger` I first went to the handtherapist. After 6 weeks of fruitless exercises and massages (on what turned out to be the wrong spot) my doctor sent me to a plastic surgeon.

Two weeks later I had a `trigger finger release operation` Ah the medical phrases you learn. What hurt the most (and I mean really hurt) was the numbing injection. When the nurse removed the cloth they cover you up with, I was sent home with this..

I thought they must have sliced my entire hand open. A little anxious i removed all this after 2 days and found a lightning shaped little cut that could easily be covered by a cheerfull green plaster. I guess they like a bit of exaggeration at the local hospital.

After another 2 weeks the stitches were removed, it took about the same amount of time for all the dead skin to dissapear and now I have this

Looks all healed but: my finger is still rather swollen, it hurts when used. Can`t bent it properly and the scar itself hurts rather a lot when touched.

So here we are: can`t cut fabric and although I can hand quilt, I have a speed from 10 stitches/hour.

I read, I played internet games, I took several walks, went to Ikea, got bored.

According to the surgeon it can take another 6 to 8 weeks (aaaaaaagh)and if not better by then: back to the handtherapist (aaaaagh)

Oh, and she (the surgeon) found a similar obstruction at my index finger. I think the phrase f….ing hell is indeed appropriate here.

(I noticed that it is hardly possible to react on my blog. I read somewher how to fix that, but I forgot where… If someone really wants to contact me: carpequiltem@gmail or hop over to my carpequiltem insta.

Dianne: your lovely comments just popped up: thanks and sorry I missed them at the time)

Girls day out again

 Finally we got another day out. C, DD and myself went to a small quiltmarket and exhibition last sunday.

Less booths than we were used too at this location; it seemed that store holders are not as keen as they were pre-Covid. Maybe because we all got used to shopping online?

The exhibition was nice, but I`m not into art quilts that much and I get an overload of that quickly. The `old fashioned` bed quilts appeal to me the most. 

A pleasant surprise were the quilts of a Russian(?) lady called Galla Grotto. She makes, in short, faces. It`s not the actual faces I like, but I was stunned by the technique and the craftsmanship. Amazing!!

However: we enjoyed ourselves and I got everything on my list. Yes, I made a list because I tend to forget things I said I needed to buy. So I got that thimble and those sewing machine needles. A bottle of Best Press was on the list too, but we couldn`t find it. DD had one at home she didn`t use as well as handquilting needles nr 11. Ofcourse I needed fabric too! 3 Bindings for 3 Granny Squares and some fq`s for the Granny quilt 3. Not that I ran out of fabrics that I used in 1 and 2, but some fresh, new ones spike the creativity. Let `s keep it at that:)

I pre washed the new haul yesterday (with retayne;I had a bleeding quilt once and I am still not over that)

Then I ironed and folded to make a pretty pile: fq`s on the left, binding fabric on the right.

(Those who know me, will be surprised by the fact that I bought PINK. The colour I really dislike, to put it mildly. Truth of the matter is, that no matter if I hate pink, the grand ladies love it, and I`m making a quilt for them, not for me. It`s C`s fav colour and she`s talking me into more pink items now. LOL. Not going to happen dear!)

Late in the afternoon, we dropped DD of and drove home again. Since this time I was not the one driving, I had the chance to take some pics on the way.

The western part of the country is very flat, as you can see.Nice, beautiful skies, but I`m always happy when, further south, I see an actual forest….

Square in a square

 Never underestimate the amount of effort, time, fabric (and coffee breaks) the square in a square blocks take.

For each granny square quilt, I need 70 for the borders. And since the quilting on quilt 1 is done in the foreseeable future, it is time to get on with sewing nr 2.  I already finished the main part, so now it s time to get to the borders.

I`ll take you through the process of my way of making the square blocks..and I skipped the fabric cutting part. I used leftovers from the quilt for the first batch.

Chainsewing the first triangle to the inner square. I `pinch` Both the fabric pieces in the middle so I can align them perfectly.

Sewing the opposite triangle, using the first `pinch

Cut the dog ears and press and repeat for triangle 3 and 4

Repeat for triangle 3 and 4

Press again and cut to size

I made 25 today.. not even close..