Prize winning quit

When I started working on this quit, winning prizes was the last thing on my mind.  After 8 months of not quilting at all after our house burned, this was the first project I started working on.  I wanted to use taffeta and when I found a beautiful coordinating satin, there was no stopping.

Little did I knew that this quilt would go on to win first prize in it's class at the Bloem Show as well as 2 special prizes - one for best quilted article and one for best traditional quilt!

At the prize giving function I received these two trophy's:

from the beautiful Miss Bloem Show 2016 Marylyn van Vuuren.

And this is the winning quilt:

The Judge comments:

Baby shower

Yesterday was my best friend of the last 35 years (Rika van der Merwe) daughter's Janie Kritzinger baby shower.  She is expecting her second child but first little girl named Néa.  Big brother Ruben will be 3 when his little sister is born in about 6 weeks time.

The nursery is decorated in pink and white with bunny's.  So, I used the bunny theme as well.

I bought the Bunny Doorstop Design from Inspiration Mutz a few years ago and decided to make one for Néa's room.  Everybody at the baby shower loved it and was quite astonished that it was done with an embroidery machine!

I also included 2 bibs and a pair of Free Standing Lace shoes all done on the embroidery machine as well.

I embroidered a pair of burp cloths for her Mom using the same fabrics I used in the bunny.

Below is the proud grandmother, Rika with Ruben

and the Mom to be Janie, with Ruben and husband Jurie.

When I met my husband, he was a lodger at Rika and husband Koos's home.  We owe these people so much.  When our oldest was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, they were there for us.  When our house burned in 2014, they immediately offered us a place to stay.  And so the list can go on.  Dear friends for life!

Ageless embroidery designs

After embroidering Lexy's burpcloth, I was asked to embroider a blanket as well.

It is usually rather difficult to choose a design from the hundreds of thousands I do have, but as I recently bought this set from Ageless-embroidery I was looking for an excuse to use it.  At $1 for each set, it was a real steal.



It's a boy set

It's a girl set
 



And this is what the stitch out on Lexy's blanket looked like:

 

 Another happy customer!

Charity Quilt

A few of my quilting friends decided to make a quilt for charity and asked me to design the centre block.  I offered to make the block instead and this is what I came up with.

The main fabric used contained beautiful wonky hearts which I enlarged 200 and 400% and appliqued.  Then I embroidered some dragonflies and spider webs in between - continuing the theme of the main fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Spit Cloths

I've been busy with quite  few burp cloths the past 3 weeks.

First up is 4 I embroidered for our new grandson whose due date is the 9th of March.  As his room is decorated with Giggles, I used sock monkeys from Designs by Ju-Ju for his burp cloths.

Below are some pictures of the nursery painted by his Daddy.

I also made one for a colleague of my husband.

And last but not least, 4 for a good friend of mine who will become grandmother to her first granddaughter in April. 



Viewer's Choice Award

And the winner is.... 

This quilt of mine won First Place at our Guild's first quarterly meeting of 2016 which was also co-hosted by my Quilting group, the Rotary Cutters.  Everybody just loved it and was quite astonished at the fabrics I used namely satin and taffeta. 

I received a goody bag full of niceties!

2016's Quilting Project - Free Motion

Whilst deciding what our quilting group was going to do as a project for the year, I remembered this project of mine stuffed in a drawer for almost 20 years.

 

I originally wanted to make a carpet but after discovering that the fabric I bought was too dense, I gave up and put it away.  It took about a week of drawing the pattern and I was not about to throw it away.

 

As the fabric was already partially damaged in the centre, it was decided to use applique to cover it up.  The rest will just be stitched in a dark grey with tone on tone free motion in the open areas.



 

Casper kept me company although he decided to lay on top of the fabric making it impossible to move it at all!  He is 17 years old, outlived our house fire of 2014 and stayed alone at the damaged house for 6 months! So, I guess - he is allowed!

 

4 of the Rotary Cutters is working on a medallion quilt similar to this one

 



whilst the others is doing the Free motion project depicted below.  A beautiful wall hanging.