Our house

Our house caught fire on the 31st of August.  Although only half was destroyed by fire, the rest was ruined by the water of the fire brigade and the black soot.  As a result, all of my machines are in for repairs and everything else that was salvageable, is in storage.  It will be some time until I will be able to quilt or embroider again. 

We are currently renting a fully furnished house as ours needs a complete makeover.  Telkom finally succeeded migrating our line to our new address only yesterday, so the internet are up and running again at long last.

Keep well!

Embroidered toys for Aiden (3)

I made this closet organizer for Aiden's room using the Signature Closet Organizer design from A stitch a half.  which I made for my sister in 2010.  The design is available in 2 sizes which I combined to create 7 pockets.  I added satin ribbon to the edges of the pockets to create deeper pockets.

I substituted the original designs with this set from Hatched in Africa with free motion stitching for a background.

And yet again I can't remember where I bought/downloaded the monograms.

This is what the original design looks like.  This post refer.

I will be making one for a baby girl one of these days as one of Megan's friends ordered one.  All the panels are embroidered in the hoop and then assembled using a sewing machine.

Embroidered toys for Aiden (2)

Another few toys I made for Aiden.  Having a few hundred thousand designs, it is impossible to keep track of the websites of all the free one's.  I think this little frog came from the Cuties website as well.  Unfortunately it has been down for a few months now, so it will do no good adding the link.

 

A cute, or is it grumpy? frog face.

 

Ollie Owl - from GG designs embroidery

This gorgeous set of Teddy's from Inspiration Mutz was a definite choice.  I fell in love with the designs the moment I saw them and just had to buy them.  I wanted to do the bunny family is well but unfortunately ran out of time.

 

 

Baby Bear

Mama Bear

and Papa Bear
 



The family.  Aren't they just beautiful?

My son-in-law was real perplexed when I said I need unused cat litter to finish up Aiden's toys!  As I wrote in last week's post, I did all the embroidery and stitching at home.  After my husband stuffed them, I just added the cat litter in zip lock bags to the bottom before closing them up and Voila! standing proud.

 



Embroidered toys for Aiden

At long last I can post pictures of the embroidered items I made for Aiden.  We are visiting the children in Barnsley, UK and are having ball. The weather is lovely and we are just enjoying ourselves.



Daughter Megan with British husband Mark Driver and grandson Aiden.




A little bear - origin of design unknown.




Covered hangers
I bought the designs  for the hanger covers some years back and was at long last able to embroider a set.  You can find the designs here.



This little guy called Sid downloaded for free from the Cuties webpage.
Aiden just love the bright orange!

I brought all the stuffed items unstuffed, bought stuffing locally and finished them up.

 

 



A cute little quilted placemat - design available from Dainty Stitches

 



This cute little bib's design is available over here

I just love embroidering toys in the hoop and the larger the hoop, the better!  There is still some more items I will write about in a few days time.



Prizes won

I have been busy with engineering drawings after office hours the last 3 months with no quilting or machine embroidery done at all.  As we are leaving for the UK in little more than a week, I won't get back on track until August.  But I'm not complaining at all.  The extra money always comes in handy.  And we get to hold our grandson for the first time!  The little guy is already 6 months old and isn't he just adorable?

Aiden Driver

 In the meantime I can boast with my latest prizewinning quilts:

2nd Prize Machine Applique

Best Innovative Quilt at the 2014 Bloemfontein Show!

Me and Bloemfontein singer Dillon Lerm.

 

The Mariette Venter Floating Trophy

I quilt just for pleasure.  The prizes just happens, but it does feel good that the judges think I'm worthy of a first prize.  Thanks also for our Guild for the prize money.

Sadly this quilt was completely destroyed during the house fire of 31 August 014.

Outreach Quilt completed

The Outreach Quilt I wrote about in this and this post, is finished and the ladies of our quilting group is quite happy with the end result.

Free Motion Quilting

After free motioning various quilts over the past 3 years, I am at last feeling that I'm actually getting it right.  It is an art that can only be accomplished with hours and hours of practice (well, for me anyway).  I am so glad that I persevered!

I can't write about this without thanking Hettie Pringle, under who's guidance 4 of us did a beginners course in 2010.  Although we thought it quite a daunting task to free motion, Hettie inspired and helped us with valuable advice. 

3 weeks ago, my friend, Sonia Botes (read this post) asked my help with the quilting of a play mat for her granddaughter.  I used the loop-de-loop pattern and this is how it turned out:

 And over the Easter weekend, I free motioned the Outreach quilt I wrote about in this post: