First Crazy Quilt Block!

My first crazy quilt block. I thought I was going to keep it with just whites and creams, but these browns and greens leaped into my pile too...

This is a photo of my grandpa (future big band leader in previous post!) as a young boy. Love those Edwardian poses and clothes for kids!

Put a tiny piece of my wedding dress lace in there, and some Egyptian fabric to remember my trips round the world (spend a month in Egypt...)

I plan to keep the colors in a brown/green/cream/white pallette, for a theme of "family tree", so "earthy" colors, "tree" colors!

This will be sent out for a CQ round robin, so no embellishing...that is for RR folk to do...I get my first block to embellish soon, that lovely quilt top over at Barbara's blog!

Photos in Your Sidebar...

A couple of people asked me how I added the photos to my sidebar. I'd like to say that I came up with the idea and the HTML code to do it all on my own, but I confess, I copied it from Tropical Screamer's blog. I saw it a while back and thought it was a great idea to have a gallery of quilts. I feel very unprolific compared to many fellow Stash Quilts bloggers, and this reminds me I have worked on many quilts and completed many this year as well.

Basically you find a photo of your quilt on your blog, click on the photo and open up the page with the full size view. You copy this into memory (I use ctrl-c) and then you use this code:

li (this makes it part of a list, all this code should have these things around them : < >)
a href = "http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4688/515/1600/CIMG0666.jpg"
(this should have the link to the photo you want to show)
img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4688/515/1600/CIMG0666.jpg" width = 100
(this makes the photo come on the sidebar and makes sure it is only 100 pixels wide)
/a (this ends the code for the link and photo)
br (following thing is brought to next line)
b (code to bold the title of quilt)
Aine's Pillow (title of quilt, no <> symbols needed for text you want to see on blog)
/b (code to end the bolding)
br (following thing is brought to next line)
My first foray into free pieced letters. She sleeps on it now! (description of quilt, no <> symbols)
/li (end of this quilt photo and link code)

Sorry if I've dumbed this down too much...but never hurts to add as much info as you can... my coding is very far from perfect to a real whiz at HTML code, I am sure, but it gets the job done for me, so I am happy... This is just the code for one photo and link, to make a bunch of them just keep repeating this set of code for each quilt/photo you want in gallery. All blogger templates are different, but you can set up a title for the gallery, like Works in Progress, 2006 quilts, etc... Clear as mud, right? Hope this helps a little bit?

A Finish and Some New Projects

I finished the Star Sampler wedding quilt on Friday, and plan to deliver it to my friends today on their first anniversary...about time, huh! I just stitched around the stars and in the ditch, fairly basic quilting...I used free motion so I wouldn't have to wrestle the quilt around each pivot on each star...boy is it hard to do straight lines on free motion setting! But I got there anyway...

As if I didn't have enough projects I want to do, I've been inspired to do some more!! I love the montessori Aine went to! She learned so much, is writing her alphabet at 3 1/2, counting, knows 1-10 in Irish and Spanish as well as English, colors of the rainbow, so many cool things they've taught the kids. I'll be sad to leave here and leave it behind... I have decided to do a little free pieced letters project for the school, a little wallhanging with "Little Mischief Montessori" on it. Also, just a small patchwork pillow for the 4 teachers they have (2 of them work in the creche where my little one Aisling goes as well when I work...) will use some orphan blocks for 2 of them and then do two heart blocks I like for the others...they are great stashbusters for small pieces of fabric!

I am also starting on my Crazy Quilt Round Robin blocks! I plan to use a family/ancestor photo on each of the six blocks I need and then lace and beads from my wedding dress and veil...will be my first time using lace and silks in a quilt, should be fun. I love some of these family photos we have: my great uncle doing rollerskating as an exhibition sport at the St. Louis Worlds Fair, and my grandpa who was a big band leader in his early days! Aren't they fun? I love the old photos!! 

Almost Ready to Post off to Oregon!

My cousin's quilt is quilted and bound now...just needs a label! Anyone have any ideas for what to say on the labels for her quilt and the baby's quilt? I will probably just keep it simple... Made with love from your cousin in Ireland...Cathi O'Neill 2006??? Hopefully she will be recovered and don't want anything to specific about the accident on the label...the year and its existence will be enough to remind her of why she has it! I'm still keeping all fingers and toes crossed that she will make some sort of recovery, but haven't heard much lately. I hope to send these off to Pendleton to Aunt Mary, my cousin Chrissy's mom, by the end of the week.

I have also started quilting on my friend's wedding quilt, with some hope of getting done for Sunday, their 1st anniversary! I've got all the sashing quilted with stitch in the ditch...and will go through each star and probably outline them in some way... Hope to be doing binding later in the week...

I've put my DJ on hold for a bit...need to complete all the outside sashing first...ran into complications when figuring out how to put the borders on!! Anyway, when not quilting the star quilt or binding it...will work a little here and there on that quilt.

But it looks like we will be really moving soon...still no official date for our closing, but maybe mid August, and we may have that date in the next few days!! It has truly taken forever, and DH has been living in Nenagh Monday - Friday since January...too long!

I am hoping to start on my Crazy Quilt blocks...am scanning in some photos of my ancestors and will print some out onto fabric soon...I want each block in the round robin I am doing to a photo, either of the girls, Dave and I, or other cool ancestor photos I have! I have one of an great grand uncle of mine and his rollerskating buddies who performed at the World Fair in St. Louis (my mom is from St. Louis), way back in the late 1800s/early 1900s...will have to post that photo when I get it scanned in! 

Some Progress to Report!

I have done baby quilt number 2 from my double 4 patch swap! This one goes to my friend Jen in Colorado Springs, for her third son Henry. It has lots of things to spy when he gets older. Hope they like it!! I have enough blocks from this swap to do one more quilt for another friend in Oregon...will wait to deliver hers myself when I go for Christmas to my parents new home in Bend (and my brother's new bachelor pad in Beaverton)...

I have my cousin's quilt sandwiched and decided to meander the muslin parts of the quilts with maybe the center squares outlined... I need to become a more precise quilter...too many puckers and wrinkles, so meandering is helping it. Doing liberated quilting is wonderful, but for traditional designs...I should learn to be a little more patient and precise. Need to walk the middle road I think! I don't want to ever become a member of the quilt police (like I'd ever have the skills to be one!!) but I can also just make a conscious effort to do the best that I can and enjoy myself as well! I am happy with my cousin's "peachy quilt" but wouldn't want the quilt police anywhere near it, they'd have a heart attack!!

Anyway, we are hopefully getting closer to getting our new house. We looked at furniture this weekend a bit, and priced things for doing the kitchen. There is carpet in this kitchen, have you ever heard of anything so strange? Carpet and kids aren't a good mix, especially in the kitchen, LOL, so that is one of the first changes to make!

I am doing the Crazy Quilting round robin with Barbara and a few of her friends, so Crazy quilting is becoming a new interest of mine. I'm really excited about the idea I have for my own blocks...it will include photos of my family and ancestors, my wedding dress, parts of girls baptism gown...and more...won't spill the beans on the entire concept of the quilt, but looking forward to getting started. When I get a spare moment... 

Cousin's Quilt Finished!

As I've blogged about for the last month or so, my cousin was in a very bad car crash at the end of may, along with her 4 month old baby. The baby came through with only minor abrasions and a small concussion, but my cousin had severe injuries including traumatic brain injuries. She was in a coma for a while, and is now awake!! However, she still isn't aware of things just yet. They are trying to get her to move her eyes to answer yes and no, but not sure she is there yet with her understanding. Please send out prayers, good thoughts, good karma, for some sort of cognitive recovery for her if you can! But awake is great news!!

My aunt said she loves the color peach, and I thought that pastels would be soothing to her eyes. What do you think? (please excuse the wrinkles from hanging!) I need some ideas on how to quilt this simply, I'm still a novice machine quilter and haven't hand quilted yet (will be learning for my Dear Jane!). I will back it with flannel for a soft warm feel!

I hope to post again this week with my first DJ border attached. With no school for Aine and doing my work mainly at night, and Aisling giving up her naps (oh no! there goes the daytime sewing!) it is going slower than I thought...but hey it is progressing!

I'm looking forward to a package from Hancocks of Paducah with flannel for this quilt and a HUGE design wall I hope to create in the new house, if we ever get there...might be end of August at this point...UGH!!! The package will also have some bleached muslin for another handwork project I will start: a seven sisters wallhanging using my blue South African indigos I have. So many ideas, so little time to quilt!! 

More wonderful things arrive in the mail!

Look at the great package I got from my Dear Jane online group Secret Pal! She has been so great to me this year, so generous! Oddly enough, I nearly bought that scrapmaster ruler just a few days ago! I must have been psychic! She has sent me so many thoughtful and beautiful things and it is only up to June (we send out packages once a month...). I am truly grateful, especially with how expensive and hard to find any quilting things are here. It is like Christmas every month.

I've had some bad luck with the pal I am supposed to be sending to, which I'm sorry about. She asked me to not send packages after April and just send letters, but then I haven't heard from her again since. Sigh. I will keep trying and will send a lovely Christmas/Birthday package at the end of the year. Sometimes you just don't know why things don't work out. I do hope she will talk to me eventually. I feel like I must have done something to have it happen, but I've never done anything but send gifts and nice emails, so really it can't be anything I did. Sigh again.

This month I am going to focus on getting my cousin's quilt done and my DJ top done if I can. I am doing another month challenge on Quilters Around the World and I will be trying to do the triangle borders done and attached for my Dear Jane.

I'm sewing my cousins quilt top together a bit today, but had a night out with the girls Saturday (my friends lovely husband watched my 2 kids and his 2 kids so his wife and I could go out with the group, bless him! My DH had to go to his brother's 40th birthday shindig...) and I have a bad cold. My recuperation from the night out, hay fever and a cold has been slow! Aine has no more school for a bit, so we are having a lazy day today...I'm still in pajamas at 2pm. Girls are having a great time playing pretend games. So far today, we've hung out pretend laundry, done real laundry, had a teddy sleepover, a potato sack race, and played tooth fairy...so many hours left to go in the day... I will have them clean up all their toys at the end of the day...they are having too much fun now. They want a lot of attention at this age, but they are so cute and fun to watch!