Inch by Inch...

I've been making slow progress these days, but I have finished Barbara's Crazy Quilt round robin block I had been working on...it has been posted off to the next recipient a day before the deadline, yeah!

I also started working on the Dear Jane blocks I want to hand quilt for my pay it forward swap. If they aren't done in time to be Christmas decorations, I figure they will make cute valentine ones, lol. The blue block is for Barbara's Dear Jane, I promised one a while back as a thank you for all the help she's given me since we met!

I've also started on a few ocean waves blocks for my scrappy ocean waves bed quilt. I will make this for our bed I think! I have a feeling my Dear Jane won't be on the bed for a while, lol, as hand quilting won't be speedy here with this newbie! I am using all my reproduction scraps and like the look so far.

We are really looking forward to our trip out to Oregon in a few weeks. Anyone in the Portland or Bend areas want to meet up? I am hoping to see Patti and Cher while I'm there (How is Saturday the 16th for you guys? I will be jetlagged, but that won't keep me from some quilt shops!). My parents have retired to a new house in Bend, out in the mountains, so we plan to stay in Portland at the start and end of the trip to keep mountain pass driving to a minimum...

I am starting to think about 2007 goals... I think 2 bed quilts for my own house, many wall hangings, and a focus on quilting for our family again. I still only have one of my own quilts in the house and it is in bits, fallen apart from abuse (my first quilt). I love giving quilts to friends, but they appreciate any thoughtful gift, and I want to quilt for my girls this year as well...and sew some clothes for them...make some dolls maybe... So maybe 2007 will be year of the family for sewing and knitting projects...hmmmm

Crazy Quilting Round Robin

This lovely patch is done by Barbara as part of a round robin we are doing. I am learning as I go about beading and silk ribbon embroidery. Spider webs and spiders are good luck images in crazy quilts, so lots of good luck for Barbara!! It is my first time beading and doing the silk flowers, but I am fairly happy with how they turned out. I will be putting a celtic knot motif in the white patch and doing a few more seam treatments before I call this one done. It is funny, I couldn't get into my crazy quilt class online, I just couldn't find the time, but since I can go crazy on this and not have to do things in a certain order, it was more "fun" to work on!! I plan to try to keep the spider and celtic knot motifs in each round robin I do, as a signature, if someone else hasn't done it before me.

Today is my patchwork group meeting. I will probably work on cutting out more reproduction fabrics for an apple core charm quilt I want to do, and a scrappy ocean waves quilt. Or I might bring my CQ work...hmmmm...

There is no Thanksgiving here tomorrow, but some of my American friends are hosting a Thanksgiving on Sunday. I am making American biscuits (biscuits here are cookies!) and we got together to make a few pies earlier (pecan, yummm!!! and pumpkin!!).

Hope everyone in the States has a great Thanksgiving!

Doing a Little Research

I found this manual with my "new" treadle. Singer Sewing Machine No. 99...booklet dated 1931. But when I looked up the serial number, I found the sewing machine was a No. 66K produced in Clydebank, Scotland July-December 1919. Cool bit of history. Will research on how to clean up the machine and to understand how it works... The decals are worn away in many places, but that just means it was well used right? They are faded where someone's hands would lift it out of the case. Some Irishwoman's hands before me...

I had intended to spend only an hour on this computer this afternoon. I've now spent two hours (between helping kids with various things and a few other housework breaks). Time to go play with kids, clean and get some dinner going. But I did have fun researching this... 

Christmas Came Early for Me!

Aine had her birthday yesterday, and I got an early Christmas on Sunday night! I told DH I'd love a treadle sewing machine, purely as decoration, but also one that I could try my hand at at some point too, maybe try to make a small wall hanging on one.

We have an ad magazine called Buy and Sell here, which is great for getting secondhand stuff, so he typed in treadle sewing machine and found a working one not too far away. He said he better get it now, because if he let it sit, he'd forget it altogether, so he trekked out Sunday night and came home with this!

It needs a cleaning and some TLC but it works and looks well loved. I love the pincushion they fashioned around it! Any fellow treadle owners have some good tips on how to clean it up gently?

I did a bit more scrap organization and STILL have a mountain of unsorted scraps for pillow stuffing. I'm also trying to figure out what boxes baskets or drawers I want to use. I've got big baskets of neutral, brown, green and blue, good sized piles of orange/autumnal, yellow, pink, red, and purple, then I've got the troube ones which I'm just going to call "lights" and "darks". I also have my "Barbara" fabrics, lol, a stack of shabby chic soft florals which have really grown on me as I have admired the quilts she makes, lol. Of course I have my civil war repros, but they have their own 3 drawer plastic bin already!! Oh...and I have a separate novelty and brights stash for kids quilts, and some hand dyes! So many!!

If you can believe it, most of my scraps have been given to me ( I begged on Stashbuster 2 years ago and was rewarded with so many amazing envelopes of gorgeous scraps to my parents house on a trip home to the states, I've been using them ever since). I seem to only buy a fat quarter or two, and always a bolt of natural muslin when I run out...something I use a lot. I am getting better at buying more, there is such a thing as being too frugal! My entire stash of repros grew over the time I was making my Dear Jane by trading fabric and Irish goodies with fellow DJers!! For my "Frugal Jane" I think I bought the muslin and maybe 3 FQs for the entire quilt, the rest was traded. I love swapping and if anyone ever wants to do one, just let me know! 

Happy Birthday Aine!

November 13, 2002, my bright beautiful Aine entered our lives. I can't believe my first born is 4 already. Time sure flies.

I'm going to try to embed a little video here of our family celebration last night for my parents and friends. Crazy kid party comes on Saturday, eek!

Quilting content will arrive later today. Please just skip over it, lol, if you don't want to hear really bad singing! Really I just wanted to see how to do this and if it works!!

Slippers and the Start of Fabric Reorganization Drive!

Here are the slippers I made along with Barbara in our cyber craft along yesterday! I bought the fabric in Sweden, I love it!

Here is most of my fabric stash, most of it is scraps! But even I can have too many scraps! I can't bring myself to throw away any reproduction scraps, but I think I will be turning my big pile of unsorted scraps into a few pillows soon! I figure that I haven't made any crumb or string quilts ever, even though I hope to in the future, so keeping a small amount will be enough to get some done in the future, as we all know they reproduce in the dark anyway! I am sorting my fabric scraps by color, thinking I might do some color coordinated scrap quilts in the future. I thought about it for a while, contemplating sorting by size or by color, but I think color will work for me... What works best for you? 

New Look

Barbara asked if I could help do a new look for her blog yesterday, so we started working on a new clean look for the blog. I had been meaning to do the same with mine after admiring many crafting blogs with beautiful banners round the blogosphere... So...after working on her layout for a while, I got inspired to change my banner and layout too...it is still a work in progress, but so far I am liking the change.

My husband returns tomorrow from his business trip, so I am hoping for some good quilting time this weekend, in between a kids party and an antique fair in Limerick. I hope to recharge my batteries this weekend and get back into the crafting groove!

Gonna go try to knit a few rows on my mom's scarf now!

P.S. Pam and Elizabeth, please email me your addresses so I can post out my little gifties to you, I hope before the end of the year! Any other takers on the swap? I am thinking of making a hand pieced Dear Jane block christmas ornament as my gift....still 2 places left on my swap!! Kate, you know I have your address, lol!

Pay it Forward "swap"

I am participating in a "swap" that Jo in New Zealand mentioned and that is making its rounds amidst the blogosphere. The first five people that say they are interested in a little handmade quilty gift from Ireland will receive one from me and the only stipulation is that they have to promise to do the same thing to other folks on their blog to spread the love, lol!! I am thinking a hand quilted patchwork ornament of some sort. Anyone interested in joining along?

Blogger and I are not getting along. I've done 2 very long posts (I even thought I had copied the text into memory...and it was gone!) neither of them have shown.

I got home from a wonderful visit with Barbara on Tuesday and feel like I hit the ground running. We had friends visiting Thursday and Friday. Sandra, Conor and Holly our buddies from our old village came for a far too quick visit yesterday afternoon. Today Aine has a swimming lesson, so soon I'll be getting us all bundled up for a walk to the pool.

This is a picture of the town where Barbara lives, Vasteras. It is in one of the few older sections left of the town. I love the wooden architecture and the buildings right up on the river!

On Saturday we hit the town shopping. I was in crafting heaven! I went a little crazy, I'm sure Barbara was shaking her head, lol! This pile doesn't include my loot from her local quilt shop I got on Monday before I left! I got some great Japanese craft books, some cute decorations, a thimble and needle glider...well...just lots... DH took the camera this week on a business trip, but I will show more of my goodies next week when my camera is back!

Sandra and I were just talking yesterday about how much we miss having shops here in Ireland. She is from England and I'm from the States, so we are used to having easy access to crafting items. Here the only thing I find easy to locate with any selection is yarn... Most fabric shops will only have a dozen or so cottons, usually in hideous colors and about $18/yard. There is one quilt shop I know of, and rumors of a few more in the country...I think that brings the quilt shop tally in the country to one definite and 2 small home based quilt "shops"...in the country!! Needless to say...online shopping is done for things I really need right away (peach fabric for my cousins quilt...) and the rest is scrappy stash quilting, enhanced by shopping trips once yearly when I'm home visiting family in the States.

I really wanted some help with my Dear Jane and was so grateful to my wonderful and generous host! It was really special to have a fellow "Dear Janer" help me layer and baste the quilt in preparation for hand quilting. I've never thread basted before, only just pin basted. I also never knew how to hand quilt. Barbara showed me the way she learned to hand quilt in all directions. It will take me ages to get the tiny consistent stitches she does, but I got the basic concept. And as if this help wasn't already generous enough, while I practiced hand quilting Sunday, Barbara whipped up a beautiful huge patchwork tote bag for me in no time at all to carry my DJ on the plane. THANK YOU SO MUCH for everything Barbara, and I only hope I can reciprocate when you and Hakan come for a visit in May.

I have been falling asleep every night so early I've gotten hardly any crafting done this week! I finished another name pillow for Sandra to take home with her yesterday. A gift for her godson... I am procrastinating with the crazy quilting, afraid to just dive in! My goal this weekend is to get caught up with the online class assignments and get some stitching done. I also need to organize my crafting stuff...since I have no table right now but the kitchen table, I've got fabric everywhere...feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the stuff so need to organize it again up in the future craft room, even if it is just into piles for a while.

Better get going. Aine has a swimming lesson today and since Daddy is away on business...me and Aisling will walk her down for her lesson at the pool!