24 | September | 2012 | Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Bali hut finally getting repaired

24 09 2012

After several visits from insurance company building assessors, structural engineers, etc. and after being refused our insurance claim for fixing the Bali hut that was damaged in the June storms (no, I’m NOT happy with CGU insurance as this was a Shire-approved structure yet the insurance company says it wasn’t designed properly in the first place!), we’re finally getting it repaired and secured permanently.

The repairs are going to cost us nearly as much as the original structure cost to build six years ago (according to the building info submitted to the Shire back then)…

Here are some ‘in progress’ photos:

The main work is to replace the short bolts holding the poles into the stirrups with REALLY BIG bolts (see the photo with my shoe in the picture), replace the steel frame with a stronger wood laminate roof frame and tie these beams to the rafters, and then add bracing from the poles to the wood laminate roof frame.

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Categories : Life stuff

Community Quilt 14

24 09 2012

I had a bit of a break from quilting the community quilts — I’d finished one batch and hadn’t received the next, then I had a lot of work deadlines to meet and a trip to Bali. I finally got back to my Sweet Sixteen this past weekend, after about a month of no quilting!

The first quilt I pulled out of the large box of 11 in the new batch was a very dark (mostly solid black) geometric quilt. I suspect it was made with a male in mind, so I figured that feathers and flowers wouldn’t be the right way to quilt this quilt.

I thought of some sort of Navajo design motifs, but all those I could find on the internet required a LOT of marking (I’m not big on marking — I just want to quilt!). So I looked at it a different way.

I saw circles in the triangle blocks (!), so I decided to use one of Leah Day’s ‘matrix’ motifs. Out came a large bowl to mark the big circles and a lid for marking the small circles, then I free motion quilted each circle using a dark charcoal thread with a bit of a sheen (Floriani embroidery thread, 40 wt rayon, colour PF488), and using dark navy Wonderfil Invisifil (100 wt, colour IF 608) in the bobbin (the backing fabric was navy).

I used a variegated King Tut thread (colour 403 ‘Cairo’) for the rising sun motifs in the blue/grey border, and a soft green/blue rayon for the flames in the same border (Robison-Anton rayon, 40 wt, colour 2313 ‘Sprite’). The large flames in the other black areas and the large border were quilted with a black Gutermann polyester thread. I didn’t want any sort of sheen for these areas, which is why I just used a ‘standard’ thread.

Total quilting stitches: 160,000