Saturday, May 4, 2013

Keeping Busy

Things have been ticking along here, as usual. I'm glad we haven't had any dramas. I have enjoyed visits to see the girls over the holidays. Look at the beautiful grass in the new paddock:
Today I went out for a visit too. Aria had a bit of a stressful time with the farrier during the week, and hasn't been keen on people since. I was pleased because she was happy to see me. The mark on her face is from a halter she was wearing for a few days. Her fur is all rumpled. 

 The two foals love to race around together. Aria is incredibly fast.
 I think she moves beautifully.
 Mr Mouse has been busy too.
 There are lots of things to explore.
 There are craft projects to help with. He was making sure the backing fabric from my quilt project is comfortable. I have it with the reverse side up, ready to put the batting and top on. Mr Mouse needed some encouragement to allow me to get on with the job.

 Now that Miss Dog is feeling good again she needs to be kept in line. Mr Mouse does have a frown on his face and is about to launch himself onto her bottom. Sadly I missed the action with the camera. Miss Dog takes whatever he throws at her with good humour.
Johnny repaired the roof on my greenhouse. The plastic unfortunately perished on the roof, so he did a beautiful job replacing it with corrugated plastic. I'm going to try to grow some greens for winter salads in there. 
 I am very pleased with myself for getting stuck in to finish this quilt. I have had it in the "to do" pile for such a long time.
 It is all Kaffe Fassett fabrics, and I am machine quilting it in a squiggly pattern almost all over. I just outlined the green sashing strips with a straight stitch and am not quilting onto them.
I tried to use an invisible thread to quilt on the top over the areas that are not red. I didn't want any colour from the top quilting thread showing through onto the red back. My machine tends to have quite a lot of the top thread showing through, and I just can't seem to figure out the tension issues. The mono-filament thread I used is like incredibly fine fishing line and the quilt shop had one single roll. Hmm- perhaps a sign that the stuff is an absolute b----h to use. It kept snapping after short lengths of stitching. I have decided to abort the quilting mission on those areas and get the binding on. The Crafty Neighbour has a thicker invisible thread that I can try from her own aborted mission. I think invisible thread is something for expert quilters to battle with. 

I'm in a real craft groove at the moment. Awesome.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All the animals look lovely. Glad Poppy is feeling much better.
The quilt is great, shame about the basta%d quilting thread...stuff like that makes me insane with rage!!

Have a good Sunday,
Megxx