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.