Come Visit Us at Our New Home!!

I've made the switch to Wordpress.com. I like it better for layout and for the fact that it lets you add other pages to the blog besides your journal entries... I am so glad I started this blog. I've made so many friends through this and felt a part of the quilting community. Will you come visit me again in my new home? I hope you'll save me onto Bloglines and continue to come visit!

I Swear They Breed in There!!

See that basket? That is my basket of smaller Dear Jane scraps and muslin scraps... See those blocks? I got 37 8 inch blocks from that basket and it is still FULL!! I did manage to clear it of anything that could be turned into a 3 inch square, so I have a crumb pieced quilt in the works (in my head in design stage, lol) for the small pieces.

Barbara and her husband Hakan arrive tomorrow for a visit. I am looking forward to a crafty week, Dave is looking forward to a golf filled week. I hope to show them around a bit as well, and take them out to hear great traditional music. Should be fun... if my poor kids ever get rid of the germs that keep coming around... There are more head colds and ick going around and everyone's kids seem reinfected around here... Keep your fingers crossed that my girls are happy tomorrow morning, I have 5 hours round trip in the car with them while I pick up our visitors at the airport in Dublin. I really hope I don't have to tell Barbara and her DH to find their way by train, but will have to if the kids are not on the mend!! Ugh...what bad timing.

See, bet you guys thought I forgot how to quilt!!! I do find however that I go into withdrawals if I am not knitting something as well... At the moment, all it is is a swatch for my next pair of socks...have never swatched before to get gauge, trying to learn the science behind it all...

Our Meeting with Pat Sloan...and an Official Finish

I still am quilting these days...but not a lot of interesting things to show... Cutting sewing and trimming a gazillion HSTs for my Ocean Waves blocks... Couching gold thread onto a celtic knot design... I grab my time while I can with small kids, things get done in small doses.
So here are some photos of our meeting with Pat Sloan in Killarney! My friend Kathleen and I headed out to stay with her parents in Tralee, Co. Kerry, and then while she minded all the kids for us (bless her!) we headed to Killarney for the talk. She showed us some wonderful quilts, then we saw a show and tell from all her tour group members, some great quilts! We sat at a great table full of ladies from Georgia (Dave and I lived in Atlanta for a few years...).

So here is one more finished knitting project. I started this in February. It is a Debbie Bliss pattern for her new Pure Cotton yarn... I just love all the cables and the celtic knot designs.
My addiction is definitely quilting and knitting these days have to get started on a new project soon.

Moebius Madness

This is the wildest knitting I’ve ever done! You used a long cable needle (about 4 feet long!) twist it around itself and make a moebius strip, some sort of mathematical thing with only one edge…when you knit you knit from the center outwards, it is wild to see it grow that way! I got the pattern and technique from books by Cat Bordhi. This is the book I used. I plan to make a moebius felted bowl from it next!

Inspirations

Dave's brother John is a vintage car collector, and this is his new baby a 1913 Ford Model T. He was down for a rally in Limerick and stayed with us during pox season this weekend.

I've seen several photos lately of washing lines and bleeding heart flowers...so here is my homage...our little fairy garden with bluebells, pincushion flowers (appropriate for quilters, no?) and some tiny bleeding hearts peeping out...

The washing line is new with me. When we first moved here I didn't own a dryer, it is a luxury here in Ireland still...most houses will have the washer most definitely...but while we were renting for our first few years in Ireland, I had to dry clothes on very weak radiators in winter as it was always rainy! I promised I'd never use a washing line again, lol! Since 1999 I've had a house and a dryer, and never had a washing line... but while I'll never go back to hanging socks for weeks to dry in a damp house during rainy weather and winter, I am loving using a washing line in our gorgeous sunny weather we've had lately. Something very zen like hanging out those clothes, just being in the moment of the day, hearing the birds singing, feeling the breeze... I've been really inspired by other bloggers and by my fellow Irish friends who always hang out their wash to get the line and get out there!

Here is a basket I made back in the days ( I really need to get back to making willow baskets, I loved it!!) it is full of seeds I should have planted out...still not up to it today, but maybe tomorrow!!??

I am sorry that I am not the best blogger. I see less and less comments on my blog and I know it is because I don't leave many myself. I read a lot, but am not great at commenting. But I've been lucky to make some wonderful new friends through this blog and I've been asked by my fellow expat Tracy at Pink Purl (wonderful crafty blog, go visit!) to name my five inspirational blogs. I met Tracy because I was looking up a Norwegian craft designer who does a craft line called Tilda. I'm glad that I left a comment...and found her blog.

So my five international inspirational blogs are:

Pink Purl (Norway): US Expat Tracy has a wonderful way with words. Her cooking, crafting and gardening are lovely to look at and her posts make you slow down and appreciate your days.

Spools and Thimbles (Sweden): Dutch expat Barbara makes beautiful quilts, bags and is into lots more crafty things. She and I have become friends and real life and she inspires me everyday to do new projects and get others done. Looking forward to having her and her husband visiting in a few weeks!

Tazzie Quilts (Australia): Tazzie how do you get so much done with two children!! A published designer, she makes me amazed with each post how much she can get done in a day, lol, and still manage to coach a netball team and keep up with housework. You are my mommy hero, and I love all your projects!!

Yarn Harlot (Canada): I love this blog...she is very funny, check her out. Obsessed crafters will relate, she may even get you knitting! I think she has something like 8000 subscribers on Bloglines, and she uses her power, lol, for good, raising money for Medicins sans Frontieres. She is also an author and has some really funny books out there.

Quilting with the Past (Netherlands): I love antique quilts and love Lucy's quilts inspired by them! Lots of eye candy here.

There really are so many more that I love to read, but check out some of these, lots of good stuff!

A Pox Upon This House...

Ugh...since last Thursday night there has been much sniffling, aching, moaning, and whining in this house, and some of it was even the kids, lol. My oldest, poor Aine (onya), got a nasty sore throat and a bit of a flu, which morphed into a bad head cold which I had Sunday (while DH was away all day on a vintage car rally with his brother...can we say TIRED!). Aine is still not 100 percent now on Tuesday, but she is so much better than she has been... I just wish for longer than 1 hour increments for my sleep soon, before I go demented. Sleep deprivation is cruel.

But on the flip side, not leaving the house to go farther than the wheelie bin to dump our trash has led to lots of progress on various projects...

My Amelie Cardigan by Debbie Bliss (in her new book based on her Pure Cotton line) is done...just need to buy some buttons! This is a beautiful cardigan with some unusual construction...probably a bit challenging for my first big sweater in a long while, but well worth the work.
Aisling's I Spy a Double 4 patch quilt is done.

I have made good progress on the girls knitted fairy dolls, just wings and some sewn dresses and they are done!

Many many HSTs have been sewn and pressed (have to get my rotary cutter back from Kathleen, who I taught a 9 patch to last Monday, and has now nearly finished her first quilt!!)

I had some lovely photos of my garden, washing line, and the said vintage Model T Ford car of my brother in law...before the pox came upon me...was planning a lovely montage, but that is too much work right now...

Office Productivity

I was able to finish the free-motion quilting on Aisling's quilt during the day today while the kids played nearby...in my new spiffy cool office! I did the hearts freehand and then just did a meander...one of these days I want to try those peacock feathers Tazzie described!

I have also gotten to the construction of the cable cardigan...button band, collar and buttons left!!

I got a commission for two more children's name pillows...people keep telling me I should sell them...might just try to do that with a few other kid related fabric items...there is a local Sunday market here that I've been wanting to do something at...just trying to find the right items...

I've been tagged twice for the 5 inspirational blogs meme, gonna have to have a good think about that and do them on my next post!!

I received a lovely package this week from Elizabeth at Forgetmenot Quilting! I had sent her out a Pay it Forward swap goodie and she very kindly sent these along! I had admired the chicken pincushion she'd done before, and she filled this lovely one with lavender, it smells heavenly!

She knows me well as she included two gorgeous CW fabrics and some crazy quilting fabrics, as well as some nasturtium seeds!

I have a bit of a fun adventure tomorrow. I will be meeting Pat Sloan in Killarney, Co. Kerry! I emailed her last year after following a link about an Irish quilting trip she was leading last year. They were going through a town where I knew there was one of the maybe 3 quilt shops in the whole country, lol, and wanted to tell them about it. She kept my email and sent me a note to ask if I wanted to meet up with the local quilt guild at her hotel this year, and to bring my Dear Jane, lol!! I don't know her stuff well, but what an honor to meet such a talented quilter! Guess I better learn how to applique more now!!

My friend Kathleen's parents live in Tralee, nearby Killarney so her mom, bless her, will watch the kids for us while we go for a quilty excursion...we may even leave early for a movie (Becoming Jane...we are both Austen fans!) A bit of a mommy break and quilting at the end of it, cool!

Sorry I don't have much crafting to show...we've been in London since last Thursday. My friend Katy and I are Bob Dylan fans from a long way back (well as long as you can go back if you discovered him in 1988, lol!!) We've probably seen a half dozen of his concerts together now in the DC area, Ireland and now the UK... Funny how we met due to a few guys at college in Maryland and because of liking Dylan, and now we are both quilters living in Europe...

How wonderful it is to have real and cyber friends to meet with this week!

I've finished all the parts of my cardigan now, jus thave to construct it and knit up collars and button bands...cool. Dave is heading to Germany next week, so sense some more sock wool coming to my stash soon!

More crafting next week I hope!