A Quilt A Day

Ready or not, it’s summertime out there, right? Well, here in the country where I live, it’s a rainy day on a summer day! Pssst! You are right, we do not have the four seasons here!

Anyway, if you have been here before, you would have read about my “house cleaning”! Now with the house basically clean and much better arranged furnitures in place, I have the painting job to think about next. Having not decided on what color to choose from, and what more, to even start painting, I was thinking more along the lines of getting some UFO quilts completed. I am a novice but avid quilter. When I got myself started with quilting, I just couldn’t stop. The last few days, I have been working on the basketful of scrapes fabrics and piecing them to make baby quilts for my grandkids. Well, there I go again with yet another few UFOs. At present more than 10 UFOs quilts and a couple of small wall hangings quilts all stacked up in the closets, just need to have the backings pieced, which I am not very keen in doing. :( Hmm. I am a lazy bone at that though, and if the backings are not done, when will those quilts ever be completed! There are also a few stitchery blocks that need to be assembled and I haven’t got the best creative ideas about how these blocks would turn out once finished. Gee! Have I got so much to do with so little time!?

Oh yes, there are more UFOs, trust me, but some are nearing completion. Most of them just need a couple of more blocks made, or some stash busting for borders and backings. These few I am talking about here are the small wall hangings, table mats and canisters. But this will be another stack of quilts to be done for another time and that's for sure! :(

I just figured if I got these pulled together and placed in a spot in the house where I'd have to look at them every day, and then I'd feel bad because they weren't finished. That guilty feeling again! It's scary how many almost finished UFOs I have languishing around. Time to get organized here lazy-butt!

Nevertheless, at least for now I am in the mood to get these UFOs quilts completed. To reward myself for that, I took out a quilt I purchased quite sometime ago, and have in on my bed last night. It was raining lightly at the wee hour of the morning and it felt so nice and warm snuggled under it.

Just to share with anyone who is interested, here are some pictures of my UFOs quilting tops and finished wall hanging quilts for your viewing.

Well, to friends out there who experience the four seasons, wishing you a happy and blessed summertime!

~Many flowers open to the sun, but only one follows him constantly. Heart, be thou the sunflower, not only open to receive God's blessing, but constant in looking to him.~ Jean Paul Richter

~ I will praise thee with my whole heart.~ Psalm 138:1

Quilt Story

Welcome to all! Lets have a cuppa and I'll talk about my quilting with you... :)

I have always enjoyed sewing. It all started when I was in junior high and back then we had homemaking classes and sewing is one of the supporting subjects. I tried all sorts of things and that was sewing my own clothes, crocheting, cross-stitching and the list goes on and on.

My mother is an avid seamstress and in her yonder years, she sewed for us pretty simple dresses. Besides making dresses, she also enjoyed crocheting, knitting and patch working. She still enjoys the latter hobby even now. Those old clothing’s that were not worn anymore would be cut into pieces and she would pieced them together into patchwork. So basically she introduced me to embroidery, crocheting and quilting which I fell in love with!

I am an avid and novice quilter with a minimal amount of experience but I started quilting very slowly and got braver with every attempt. I strive to better myself with new skills and how-to with the help of the enormous amount of information found via the books and magazines and in today’s high technology world, the INTERNET.

Actually my passion for quilting started way back in 1997 when I bought a copy of the Simple Patchwork and Quilting for Beginners by ONDORI Publication Japan. I have not find time to really get started then.

Early 1999, a friend brought her mom’s quilts to the office and how impressed I was at the fine job her mom had done and that’s when I gave quilting a try and made a baby quilt; just for the fun of it. It turned out that the baby quilt was pretty beautiful and I just loved it! Then after a while I stopped. Guess then I was busy attending to other businesses of mine! However, the fad came back in around Year 2001 where one of our office's tea-girls showed me a queen size quilt she pieced and quilted by hand! What a beautiful quilt she got there! Just as any other experienced quilters, she inspired me and so to a lady neighbour of mine (PuteriDoris) who is an avid and long-arm quilter currently living in the US. Though one does hers by hands and the other by long-arm machine, their finished quilts are truly beautiful. Well, that's when I started quilting once again but this time at a much slower pace. Well, quilting is no simple thing to do for me, however, I forged ahead and started to feel confident enough in my work to give quilts as gifts to those people I have in my lives. Thus, the first successful and finished baby quilt I made was given as a birthday gift to my grandchild, Nigel, for his first birthday present. It's a pity I didn't take a picture of this quilt and now it is kept at his other grandparent's home for him to snuggle in whenever he stays over.

The second finished quilt I made was a table runner that I made from scraps, machine pieced and quilted by hand. In February 2005, a special and good friend, Michele came back to Malaysia from New Zealand for a holiday and as a souvenir I gave her this precious quilt. Again no picture taken. :(

I made several pieces of quilt tops in Year 2002 alone and a few small ones for wall hangings and table clothes. Now there are piles of quilts’ tops stashed up in the cabinet to be quilted. Though I couldn’t possibly know everything about quilting I am sure my quilts wouldn’t compare to a seasoned quilter’s quilts, nevertheless I am proud of the few I had done.

To all the experienced quilters out there, thank you for sharing your skills and knowledge. You are a great inspiration.