2018 Mid Year Review

Wow it's July already!  Happy 4th to all my family and friends in the States.  I spent two 4th of July's stateside in my lifetime and I think of them as happy ice-cream and fireworks day!  Having a national holiday in the middle of the summer, where you can sit by the water enjoying the celebrations with family chilling out, really makes for the best days.

Here in heatwave Ireland, there has been lots of ice-cream (99's and choc-ices!), little in the way of fireworks but lots of sun.  It's been 32 degrees C on one of the days.  We don't know ourselves.  Even the dogs don't know where to lie themselves down.

Things have been really busy for me this year and for some reason, when July comes around, I am usually ready for a break and I tend to turn my head towards doing up the house.  It's funny, keeping a blog reveals these things to you.  For the last few July's my posts are all about the house!

Finding a way to play with colour, that doesn't bury me under the heat of a quilt, and helps me tackle all those cobwebs, and undone things the strong summer sunshine seems to expose, all of a sudden seems like the thing to do.  As Yvonne@Quilting Jet Girl is having a half year review, I thought I'd dig out some photos and join in the fun, and give you an idea of what's been going on in our crafty corner.

I've added driftwood type wall paper to the hall under the dogs hall of fame gallery.  Made an arm knitted blanket for the spare room and nearly melted under it to get it finished!  27 stitches on jumbo wool from Wooly Mahoosive.

I also made a throw for our leather sofa using Flower Child yarn (on clearance at Knit Collage) using 25mm needles which were more awkward to use than the arm knitting!  This turned out more like a rug than a throw but I like the little daisies that are sewn into the wool so not sure I want to be stepping on them.  For the moment it is living on the back of the sofa.

I went mad and ordered a new sofa for the study - downsizing from 4 sofas to 2 (don't ask how we managed to end up with 4 sofas for a house of 2 people & 2 furballs!) So that means getting rid of 3 of them!  Work in progress...

On the kitchen table I have the makings of 6 projects so, I need to choose 1 and put the others away for the moment.

There is a Mimosa Layer Cake that will be a FatQuarterShop Plus quilt.  Some layer cake squares and Fat Quarters that are going to be a Moda Love Star Surround Quilt.  Some Thrive squares that will probably become a Layered lattice quilt.  A Jelly roll to make a jelly roll rug and the giant leftover of the jumbo wool to make a small blanket for my aunt's bedroom.

On the design wall is the last of the Modern Irish Bee blocks.  I had our Bee make curved blocks and they did a great job for me.  I was hesitant to select curves as they can be daunting but my Bee mates didn't shy away from the challenge and I have a wonderful Summer Bloom quilt in the works.  I've been playing with layout and am dithering between these two potentials.  I have a few pieces to add to it yet but am holding off until I make up my mind!

I've also been playing on EQ8 with it and have lots of options for potential quilts - I find the editing it down to the pattern I want to make and write bit really difficult.  It is very easy to end up with 45 quilts in the design notebook and choosing 1 or 2 is a task!

In other news, I've taught  the ticker tape workshop for the fourth time with my local branch of the Irish Patchwork Society and we had a brilliant day.  This photo from our branch Facebook page shows the variety of quilts made.  (We meet on the second Friday of the month Sept to June if you are in the Limerick area - come see us!)

I must admit I teared up a little bit when I saw Emer's finished version of our old Wilbur -the colours she used were more lifelike and true to him that when I saw her hold up the finished piece, I missed him all over again.  Funniest, maddest dog we ever had!

Our current Lazy furballs Charly & Maggie!

There has also been exhibition sewing which I hope to be able to share by the end of the month and lots of committee work completed.  I am coming to the end of my term as Chairperson of my guild and there has been a big push on to get  governance documents (thanks GDPR!), new website (www.irishpatchwork.com) and some fun stuff too like challenges, exhibitions and summer parties and meetings to attend.

Some things have had to wait like pattern writing, blog posts, swaps and online Quilt-a-longs.  There is a banner for our local branch to be made, upcoming friends baby to make a quilt for, and finally finish the quilt for our bed, but with nearly 30 degree C weather, I think that one can wait a while yet!

Hope the weather is sunny where you are!  Linking up to 2018 Mid-Year Review.

Wandering Camera!

Things have been busy!  I'll have more posts soon on the numerous exhibitions that have been on in Limerick but the big news is there is a new puppy in the house!  This is Maggie, another Basset Hound!

1.Sleepyhead 2. Where did that small thing come from? 3. Eating Charly's collar  4.  Big smiles - first day home!
5. This is what I have to look forward to... 6. Pounce! 7.  White sharp nails - not enough calcium in early weeks!  8. Mine!
9. Are step ladders edible?  10.  Cuteness overload 11. Still mine!

I'm supposed to be decorating the front room and the hall this week but my back has given out on me so its spending lots of time in the garden with the pups!

Colours from the Garden!

Quilting wise not much new to report on the making front but I did buy some new fabric to add to the rainbow stash!  Think I need another Ikea trolley!

Rainbow of colours from Ruth's stash! (Did buy some grey toned fabrics to try out..)

Wilbur's not too sure about the little intruder so we're giving him lots of treats and making a big fuss of him.  Charly on the other hand is over the moon to have a little thing to boss about!

Wilbur looking for a spot to bury a bone in the garden.  Charly - who needs a bone when you have ball?
Hair growing back after MRI - way nicer to pet him on the head now!

Be back with photos of Evolution, Distance, River of Dreams and a trip I took to MountMellick to see Ethelda Ellis's exhibit.  Yup, not a lot of making but still a lot of quilty things going on here!  Linking up to

WIP - All in Pieces

I think I've gone Star mad.  I'm still making Swoon blocks

and taking part in Melissa's Star Surround Quilt-A-Long.

Both of these designs have a large block feel to it with a star at the centre.  Having this in mind and the need to come up with a Bee Block (I'm not Queen Bee until next June but there's no harm in starting early!) I came up with this over the weekend.

I've had a look and can't find it as a traditional block.  If anyone knows this please let me know but for the moment I'm calling it Star Crossing.  It's too big to use for my Bee Block (max size 14") but perfect for a baby quilt or a throw.

Of course I had to test it straight away.  So instead of sewing together Swoon and Star Surround I pieced the HST and Flying Geese for this and laid it our on my design wall (aka the floor).  Charly helped enormously by keeping a watch at the window for Wilbur the Wrecker (aka the Happy Basset Hound).

I think the navy Kona solid is too dark for the pastels I've used.  Maybe a brighter blue would have been better.  Question : should I change it now or try to lift it with a bright thread on quilting?

This was a very quick put together for a baby quilt and I think I'll write it up as a pattern.  It goes together very much like Swoon and the colour variations and size options are endless! With pinwheel or without pinwheel it works quite well.

Funny how you get an idea in your head and the things that influence it.  So now I have 3 stars projects in pieces that I will work on putting together this week! 

Linking up to Slow Boggers Linky Party,  Design wall monday and

Finish it Friday!

It all started with this design I made up on threadbias.

Then it became 4 houses.

I originally thought I'd use the my leftover Coquette layer cake squares from Bounce but I think they are the perfect colours for a baby quilt so I bought some Tula Pink Prince charming squares

I got my neutral Bella solid material for the background in the post yesterday and so thought I would try and finish my 4 Houses project today.

 I even free motion quilted it (first time doing this!)  And then after quilting I realised I had made a piecing mistake -can you spot it?

Oh and Gordon finished Wilbur's kennel too!  Isn't it cool?

But Wilbur doesn't sleep in the kennel - he owns all the sofas, chairs, dog beds and now it seems all the cushions too!  Even the wonky ones.

I finished this at 11.45 so a Friday finish! Love how dogs don't get red eye but creepy blue eye. I hope to take better daylight pictures tomorrow but for now I'm pleased to be finished.  Linking up to 


and Finish it up Friday

WIP Wednesday - Still Swooning

Thing's are a real work in progress this week.

Wilburs new Kennel!

Wilbur is overseeing the work but is not  a hard taskmaster.  Don't worry Wilbur you still have the sofa - its got your name on it !


Tula Pink Blocks for City Sampler sew-a-long over at Sew Sweetness - 6 Blocks cut ready for sewing.










HST done for Star Surround Quilt-A-Long over at Happy Quilting.  I feel a bit of a cheat on this one as I'm doing the 40" baby quilt so only one big block required!  I'm loving these colours can't wait to make the flying geese and see it coming together. 









Still Swooning-a-long on block number 3.  These are my favourite colours so far!

I even found a place to keep them together until all 9 are done.  I just love how pretty this block looks in all the various colours.  

My friend Mary wants one with as a giant cushion.  I'll add it to my to do list!  I'm not one for making the same thing over and over but I really like making this block.

Linking up to

Lack of WIP due to Sunshine!

Finally we have sunshine in Ireland and temperatures in the 20's.  

We also had a bank holiday this weekend and went to the beach so all that I got done sewing wise in the last week was to put together my Timelord block for the Doctor Who-A- Long.

I know it doesn't look the warmest from the photos - it was windy and overcast on Sunday but its been fantastic since!  We had great fun on the west cost of Clare with Wilbur and Charly - I think you can see from the photos she won the ball every time (1/4 of his size but twice as fast) but he wins for most comical runner and flappiest ears!

Linking up to 

WIP Wednesday: Crochet Rug

Have you seen Zpagetti?  It's a T-shirt yarn that comes in a ginormous roll for about 10Euro.  I saw it in a new monthly magazine "Simply Crochet".  It's from the same publishers as "Simply Knitting" and one of my favourite monthly mags.  The 4th issue has this lovley rug and footstool crocheted with Zpagetti using a number 12 hook.

Having had a sick dog with Pneumonia, who had to be kept in and was only allowed out for 10 mins at a time, meant the rugs in our living room got wrecked really quickly.  I've been looking for something to brighten up the floor space and be washable so when I saw this project in Simply Crochet I had to give it a try.  So I bought the recommended number of rolls in two colour options (thinking I'd make one identical to the magazine for the bedroom too!)  

I received the orange, beige and camel colours a few days before a work trip and tried very hard to get the rug done before I left but didn't quite make it.  I did more than the rows in the pattern to increase the size as I had oodles of yarn left.  So with one more row to go to finish this is where I got to.

 I hope to finish by the weekend and then start on these colours - aren't they gorgeous?

I know this post probably has too many photos for an UFO.  Wilbur thinks so too. Enough with the photos.  Time for crafting.  Though I think he's thinking time for food!  He has no patience, this dog.  I'm like a broken record.  I must say off, off, off ..... 2,000 times a day.  He just can't seem to keep all four paws on the ground!  At least he can't make off with the Zpagetti rolls.  Just a tad too big for him to run away with!

Linking up to