Dear Jane Progress!

I'm up to row G now on the Dear Jane! Even my husband who never pays attention to my quilts says he's proud of me with this quilt...it is nice to hear! I've hand sewn the whole thing and it is very special to me!

I am going to work on some binding on my black and bright baby quilt now and could be back to post some more!Next week I plan on quilting my star sampler quilt while working row H. 

A Bit of Good News!

After camping out on my mac for a while, I am happy to say, we have bought a new computer and can finally get back to being a blogger again. I enjoy it, and feel a part of the quilting community by doing it, so it is nice to be back! I am going to start reading blogs again too, I've missed catching up on everyone's projects!

Well it finally happened. WE SOLD THE HOUSE!! And got just about what we had hoped for. We put an offer on a house we liked in Killaloe/Ballina, along the Shannon River outside of Nenagh, our new hometown... they decided they wanted 15,000 more for the house. Ummmmm...nope...don't think that is going to happen... so back to the drawing board for us, we may rent for a while...but we'll be back together again in June or so...6 months is a long time to be apart.

I need to update my quilting projects, and Barbara tagged me for this history thing, which should be fun to do...but for this first post back, I thought I'd show a goofy photo of my family out under the kids sun umbrella today... My mother in law is visiting and we went off to the beach today... We've also started cleaning out the attic and garage in preparation for moving...so much STUFF!! When we moved from Atlanta to Ireland we sold everything but my books and some family furniture and it all fit in a crate that was about 6 foot cubed... amazing how it all builds up again.

I've got six more blocks to attach to my Dear Jane and I will have 7 rows sewn together...hope to post a photo later tonight, so better get a move on! If I'm really lucky and on a roll I'll have the binding sewn down for my black and bright baby quilt too...
 

Might be having a blogging break for a while...

I removed some software to make room on my hard drive as it was filling up. Bad move. It took away my TCP/IP protocol somehow which means I can't connect to the internet on my PC. I am using my Mac for emails and limited surfing, but I can't really even read most blogs, as it takes hours to load each one on the mac. Evven posting this blog has taken ages to do...so for the moment, I am taking a break till I get a working PC again...it will let me do anything non-internet related, which is good, but I will have to reinstall the software, which I can't find the disk for right now...ugh...

Updates on other things: I have 5 rows finished on the DJ! Myself and the girls have another type of cold...this one is a cough that wakes us all at night, hello sleep deprivation!!! Guess I better stop burning the candle at both ends, looking after kids all day then working for myself some nights on paid work, then sewing and blogging...I stay up too late and pay for it this year with endless colds!! I seem to get a few weeks break and then some new strain the kids bring home gets to me too!! The joys!!

Weekend Progress

I am working away on Row D of the Dear Jane, nearly done sashing the blocks, then to assemble the row tomorrow and attach to the growing quilt at some point...

This is the backing to that flannel quilt I'm making...I don't have much of a flannel stash, and asked fellow Stashbusters for some trades or donations of some 12.5 inch squares, as always, everyone was great, and I had fun trading linen hankies and various other things for my squares! Some wonderful ladies donated quite a lot of fabric scraps, so I have a feeling that at least a baby quilt will have to be done to deplete the flannel stash. I like flannel, but it doesn't call out to me to make tons more...but I may change my find after cuddling under one!!

I'm up at 1am here because my nearly 2 year old woke up crying for a bottle! She was down to one morning bottle but this last week she's asked twice for a bed time or today a midnight bottle... after eating a TON of food today as well...I'm thinking growth spurt!! She drank the bottle dry and fell back asleep, so she must have been hungry. Now if I can only get back to sleep myself... Think I'll sash a few more DJ blocks and then try again! 

Three Rows done...10 more to go!!

I am working as much as I can this month on my Dear Jane, even if it is sometimes just sashing just one block a night... Other days I get more time and I get more done, like yesterday...finished sewing Row C together and attached it to first two rows...it definitely helps me to match seams, doing this by hand. I am a demon for not pinning my machine pieced tops and just getting on with it, lopped off points, mismatched seams and all. I am learning slowly to be more patient...hand sewing is teaching me some of that patience!!

On the housing front, we got an offer after a viewing on Wednesday. They are coming back to look at it this afternoon, so gotta start cleaning soon. The offer was low, but if they meet us halfway, we'd be happy!!

Hope to work a bit later on the pieced backing to my flannel top, then I will sandwich that quilt and have 3 quilts ready for machine quilting the rest of this month. Going to have to get moving with those! 

Look what the postman brought!!!

What a red letter day for me today! The lovely postman brought me some swap blocks, a huge stack of lovely CW and vintage squares that I traded with another Dear Janer and that huge pile of fabric and Jennifer Chiaverini tome (her first three books!) a wonderful friend sent to me as a surprise birthday present. I can't believe the amount of fat quarters she's showered me with and the huge book...how did she know that Chiaverini novels were some of the few books in my quilting library!! This friend of mine was my best friend from kindergarten through to middle school, when she moved away... only about 20 minutes away, but that is the ends of the earth as a kid! Our mother's stayed friends over the years, and we kind of just drifted apart, never intentionally, just with different schools, different friends...it just happens.

We've kept in touch from time to time and now we both have two little girls and have gotten to know each other better again, as much as you can with busy lives and living on two different continents, LOL! I sent her newest baby this quilt last September and found out she'd just signed up for her first quilting class, woo hoo!! When I went to visit my folks in DC in November I went to visit her in Virginia and saw the wonderful quilts she'd done already and saw my imperfect, slightly wavy quilt hanging up on her wall in her living room above the baby's play pen. Wow. So she is bitten by the quilting bug and I am reaping the benefits...what a truly good friend! Now...how do I do something equally nice back for her... hmmmm....

May become a basketcase, again...

BC- before children, I used to take a few willow basketry workshops... I even made this moses basket that my two girls slept in! I was just thinking about wanting to try another class when I came across a brochure at our public library for the ladies that taught me a few years back...it was a sign, definitely! I think I'll take another class in May... I really enjoyed it and made several baskets, culminating in this huge project of the moses basket. It would be nice to do again, no one can ever have enough baskets right?

This is my DH Dave and our oldest DD, Aine (onya), she is 3 now...time flies!!