LOVE quilt progress and other projects

Thank God for the extended weekend (I took leave on Friday, 26th December), I managed to do quite a lot of things at home, and that includes my crafting.

On Christmas day itself, I spent the morning and part of the afternoon working on the “In the mood for LOVE” quilt. I will tell more about it later.

In the evening, after dinner, I worked on the lunch bag, in preparation for my Friday class. I attended the class at Epal (yeah, where I broke my needle threader. Urrgghh!) while my hubby took my son out in the morning to run errands, and later to do Friday prayers. So that about gave me 4 hours to attend class, which worked out just great for me. Only, I spent the first 1 hour of the class unpicking the water bottle bag FIVES times!

The instructions in the book for the project which came with the machine when I bought it were confusing and, I think, to a certain extent, wrong.

The instructions say to cut the length of strips (4 pieces in two different fabrics) at 45 degrees at 2” away from the edge of the strips, and then attaching it to one another. When I did that, I ended up with 2 strips which were about 3 inches short. When I tried to match it to make the pattern called for in the book, it would not match up due to the shortness in length.

It seems that you are not supposed to cut the fabric at 45 degrees at the 2” length, but, just at the very top, attach it, and then cut it to the correct length. So, Tini, if you are planning to do this lunch bag, make sure that you don’t cut it up the way it says in the instructions.

I told the instructor about it, but she did not look like she will inform the management about it. She just kept saying that, “Ya! Susah sikit, tapi boleh buat. Payah aje sikit. Kena adjust” (Yup, difficult, but it can be done. Just difficult a bit. Just need to adjust). When I asked her how do I adjust so that I don’t have to re-cut my fabric (I had already re-cut the fabric 3 times before this!), she just told me to re-cut. *sigh*

Anyway, I finally managed to get that part of the water bottle bag done right, but made another mistake with the bottom part of the bag when the circle piece for the bottom of the bag did not fit snugly, and that’s when I broke the needle threader when probably parts of the bag piece or pins must have gotten stuck with the threader as I struggled to try to fit in the bottom piece with the body of the bag. *sigh*

I came home to finish the water bottle bag, and completed the placemat, which was part of the set, close to 1.00 a.m. last night while my hubby watched a movie. I completed the lunch bag itself in the evening before dinner as I sat down next to my son who was doing his math’s workbook.

This is one project where I feel that my workmanship wasn’t the best. I struggled with many parts of the lunch bag and the water bottle bag, and broke the needle threader in the process, which makes me really mad with myself for not being a little bit more patient when I did the bag. *sigh* It’s water under the bridge already anyway. BUT, I am very proud of my embroidery work though! LOL! *wink* I think I did a pretty good job of the appliqué work too! *grin*

Upon completing this project, I have thus far completed 4 projects already at Epal. I need another 8 projects to complete should I want to get a certificate of completion from Epal. It will entitle me to get a loan from MARA should I want to purchase any of the higher end JANOME machines as MARA supports SMIs (Small Medium Industries) in support of the government’s move to encourage small cottage industries.

I am not sure yet if I will want to get a loan from MARA to get another JANOME machine, but I do want to get the certificate of completion just as proof of what I had done. Who knows when it might just come in handy! *wink* Something to think about after retirement, maybe? *wink* Maybe………just…maybe……. *grin*

Anyway, I have already opened up the 2nd December project kit this morning just to see what to expect for this project. It’s a quilted wall hanging calendar. Tini had already started on it when I was working on the lunch bag set. It is already nearing the end of December and I am only just about to start on it………hmmm…… *grin*

Moving on to my other projects, I completed my firework bag on Saturday, 13th December 2008, in class at Epal when I finally stitched the buckle onto the bag. I did extra work when I quilted the entire firework motif as was instructed to me by the male teacher during one of my earlier classes. I was told that it was not necessary to do so by Lieza who graded my bag, but, since I did it already, I think it made the motif stand out even better. It was worth the extra work that I did quilting it.

Now for a project that I completed more than two weeks ago and have been wanting to show-off, but work at the office has been so hectic, I come home too exhausted to do any blogging for the last 2 weeks – the SOCCER QUILT I made for Aiman!

I think I finally put in the last stitch on 8th December 2008, at about 10.00pm, just in time for Aiman’s bedtime. He was eagerly waiting for me to put in that very last stitch into his quilt! LOL!

I presented it to him as my hubby was tucking him in bed, and he quickly snuggled into it, pretending to be fast asleep when I snapped the photo! LOL!

I made up my mum cum guest bed for this photo shoot two days ago so that I can properly `show-off’ *wink* all my hard work. *grin*

I have taken close ups of some parts of the quilt to show you the corners of the quilt, the hand quilting of the soccer balls and the 16-patch (front and back). I don’t know if you can actually see it in the photos.

I also took close-up photos to show parts of the binding and the border and the backing piece, which, I must say that I am very happy with the way the binding and the border match almost to perfection. Even the backing piece matched up to the binding, even though I had bought the backing piece online and could not put them together for matching prior to making the purchase.

I hope that Aiman will treasure this gift from me for a long time to come, if not, for a lifetime. Love you, Aiman! Love you very much!

Okay, back to the “In the mood for LOVE” quilt, I attended class today and completed all the patchwork blocks for the top piece, and have put them all together already this afternoon! Doesn’t it look so sweet? *wink* (Photo taken at Quilt Gallery)

Now what is left is the borders in 2 ½” and 6” in two different colours which I am still undecided which fabric I should use. I might use the flower motif for the 6” border, but I don’t have enough of any of the other fabrics to make up the 2 ½” border. I might need to do some shopping for that. I also still need to do the binding together with the batting and backing piece.

I need to do some designing for the backing piece as I bought all what was left on the bolt at Yee’s in SS2 when they were having the year end sale, but it was still not enough to make my backing. I just simply love the fabric as it matched the top of the quilt, but I might need to add some other fabric that complements it to make up what I don’t have enough of. I need 7 ½ yards, but what was left was only 6 yards.

I just can’t wait to complete this quilt and snuggle into it with my hubby! *wink*