Momma's sick room

Momma's sick room, originally uploaded by Cathi O'Neill.

Hello from the land of germs! The girls wanted to play outside while I sniffled and shivered, so I set up camp on the deck with laptop, quilt, kleenex and stitchery project yesterday... The lovely string quilt was a housewarming gift from Katy. Thank you very much, by the way, to those of you who joined me in sending a few little cyber hugs her way.

I don't have a lot of blogworthy shots done for the week, again just small progress on ocean waves blocks (4 done) a christmas tree skirt 4 patch (chain sewing them into pairs now) my DJ quilting (up to 85 or so now) and my secret stitcheries (one done and gifted, the other nicely underway...).

While feeling miserable yesterday I spent a lot of time following one link to another for some wonderful Australian quilting and stitching blogs. There seems to be a wonderful community of stitchers and patchworkers there! I wanted to see what shops I might be able to visit while there, and saw several people doing Dear Jane quilts and designing wonderful stitcheries, lots of creativity. Check some of these great blogs out: Leanne's House, Melly and Me, Gail Pan Designs, and Wildcraft Farms....there are so many more wonderful ones out there, I spent hours looking through them, starting to dream of a lovely trip of sightseeing and quilt shopping. Probably won't have time for any classes or retreats, but I hope to make it to a few shops and buy at least a few Aussie designed patterns to remember my trip. Sigh. A perfect way to spend a low energy day as a golf widow (DH came home late after a golf outing with his work colleagues, needless to say, today he is main food giver, fight moderator, and question answerer!!).

Help Me Send Cyber Hugs to a Friend

Swans and Ducks on Lough Derg, originally uploaded by Cathi O'Neill.

I think many of you that read my blog, read my friend Katy/Kate's blog ( I've called her Katy for 20 years, it is too hard to change!!) and have probably seen that she got bad news early yesterday morning. Her father passed away at 65 quite suddenly. She will have a very emotional and hectic next few weeks, and I'd love to do something for her. When lovely Lucy's dad passed away, many of us sent her some of her favorite fabrics to let her know we were thinking of her and giving her a hug from across the distances... I'd love to do the same thing for Katy and plan to package up some goodies to send to her. She loves doing hand dyed fabrics, batiks and african fabrics, postcards, inchies, and her new thing she is trying is push molds and using sculpey and fimo... I plan to get together a little goodie bag to send to her with items for embellishing, maybe a few bits of sculpey...things that I can find here in Ireland, and some bits from my crazy quilting stash and bits of fun wool... Anyone else want to join me? Please leave a comment for me, or send an email to catherineoneill at carrigeen (dot) net and I can send her address out to you.

The photo here is one I took a few miles from our house, where the Shannon River widens out into a lake, Lough Derg... The girls had a great time feeding the ducks and swans. Makes you stop and appreciate the beauty all around you when you hear news like I did today. Gorgeous girls, sunny day and beautiful lake... I have to remember never to take any minute of the day for granted, like my few hours of silence this Monday morning before I hear about the exciting mornings my girls spent at school.

Have a wonderful day...

Productive Afternoon

Patchwork Dinos for Merlin and Noah, originally uploaded by Cathi O'Neill.

I caught up with my housework and had a chance yesterday work up in my office/craft room! I got to work making up some crazy pieced patchwork dinosaurs as gifts for my little nephews, one of which has a birthday next week and loves dinosaurs. His little brother is 2 and will need a dinosaur as well, lol, but the 5 year old birthday boy gets a Dinosaur encyclopedia as well!  I just printed out a coloring page I found on the internet and made a general dinosaur shape based on it, and then sewed on the line I traced for the pattern, pretty quick to do it all, plus I used some old fabric for the foundation and got rid of  a little more stash!

I also put together a quick little needlebook for Ruth, as I was sending her some size 10 and 12 betweens to start hand quilting. It went together so fast and I used some of the gorgeous South African indigos she sent.



I am up to 80 blocks quilted on the Dear Jane now, moving ahead!

I have a few secret project I am working on, more will be revealed in a week or so...

But wait...I have some important news to share...

We're going to AUSTRALIA!!!!

Dave's youngest brother is getting married to an Aussie girl and we are going to Melbourne next June for the wedding!! We have plans so far to rent a campervan and go touring for 3 or so weeks before the wedding. So far it is a daunting amount of miles, but we hope to see Melbourne, Adelaide, Uluru, Great Barrier Reef, and Sydney and more points in between that big circular route. Any Aussies out there be willing to meet up with a small Irish/American family driving around in a campervan? Where would you recommend we see, what are some not to be missed destinations? I'd love to hear!!!! I am also going to check out the difference in airfare for a round the world ticket, so that I might still make it to Oregon in July. If it is only a few hundred more, I might just keep heading east and go visit my family!!

Plans for the rest of the week? Finishing up a wallhanging to give to my mom for her birthday and some more gift making, some knitted projects...

Catching Up

Finished Pomatomus Socks, originally uploaded by Cathi O'Neill.

Boy I wish I could be like Katy when I grow up. She has using small snippets of time down to an art form. When they visited last week, she managed to blog and upload photos nearly every day, while I kind of wandered through the house aimlessly... She cooked several meals for me, bless her, I only did one of the four that we had at home!! She made me a quilt as well... What was I doing during all this? Probably not much! Getting more organized, definitely one of my goals!!

I did get some chances for sock knitting in the car on a few long road trips with the troops. Look my Pomatomus socks are done and I LOVE THEM!! They fit!! I did them shorter than the pattern (did 2 instead of 3 repeats of the pattern. They are so warm and comfy.

Katy and I decided to do an informal block swap of Dear Jane blocks using some purple Civil War repro fabrics she bought from a friend clearing out her stash. She kindly shared them with me, so woo hoo again, more repro fabric, gotta love it. We will each do 2 of the same block and keep one and send the other with no deadline for doing it...just alternating turns. I like the low stress swapping!!



I have been very remiss in thanking a few cool bloggers for some lovely packages I got last week! My Knitters Virtual Vacation Swap partner sent me an awesome package! All kinds of sock yarn: Knitpicks, Esprit, more yummy Trekking, and Mountain Colors Bearfoot, it all looks wonderful. There were some postcards and a map from Philly, but no cheesesteaks, guess those don't travel well! I got a calendar, a cool quilters recipe book. She went above and beyond, thank you so much Bev!!



I also got a wonderful copy of the Roxanne hand quilting video from Hanne, who heard my plea for help figuring out how to do a proper quilting stitch. I am still intimidated by it, but the video is great!!

Big news on the home front: Aine started school yesterday!! Check out my cutie here ready for school. And if you want, there are some videos here of her first day! No tears, but got a little misty eyed...she is so brave and serious about school. Sigh.

 

Fair Trade

Katy's Cool Wallhanging from My Stash!, originally uploaded by Cathi O'Neill.

I don't have any photos of my progress this week, as a photo of some trimmed HSTs, one DJ block quilted, and more of a sock (ready to do toe on the second sock, nearly done!) just aren't really exciting photos!

But look at what Katy has done in a few small increments of time our kids gave us for crafting, in between all our trips out sightseeing! She took the new Joel Dewberry fabric my friend Carrie got me, some other fabrics that work with it and made this cool wallhanging :) I planned to make her one of my moebius baskets eventually, but kept passing by my own one, knowing that she loved the colors, and just figured, hey, I'll make another one to keep later. So I traded her the bowl for the quilt, lol!!


We've been having a great time seeing things locally, going dolphin watching, visiting castles, taking kids swimming... My girls are loving have Katy's two big girls and their lovely son Alex here, they get along really well!! Katy is a great cook too, and has made many of our meals, for which I am grateful, since I suck at cooking for large numbers of people, and am just not a relaxed cook.



Katy and I went to my patchwork groups monthly evening meeting last night, what a group of insane fun people, we couldn't stop laughing. I plan on taking her to my local quilt lady to peruse some fabrics on Saturday, when the mom's finally get a few hours out without kids, lol.

Aine starts school on Monday, sniff sniff. Aisling is potty trained. I feel like singing "Sunrise Sunset". Where did the time go?

Birmingham Festival of Quilts AKA Where My Credit Card Was Cancelled for Overuse!!

The Girls at Birmingham Festival of Quilts, originally uploaded by Cathi O'Neill.

Well, not really. But it was stopped after a purchase from the Netherlands (really Petra Prins gorgeous stall at the Festival) and one from the UK within 20 minutes of each other, my credit card company thought something must be afoot!! But I wasn't to be held back from my purchases, I left the festival momentarily and got some CASH!!

We had a great day, a very long day (Aisling chose that night to wake up at 3, 3:30, 4 and 4:30am, at which time it was time to go to the airport for my 6:30am flight!) but a wonderful day of shopping and looking at some really wonderful work.

I even saw a black and white Dear Jane quilt, take a look! I set up an album of some of the quilts I saw in Flickr, click here to see!



Barbara was there with her friend Celine (a French woman living in the UK), my friend Katy was there with her two daugthers, and my new friend Sherry, who I met through this blog and first met at the airport. It was really great to have a chance to chat with all my bloggy friends and to do a bit of retail therapy together. While I was there, Barbara gave me this wonderful bag she made for me! What wonderful friends I have :)!! I also got back my Crazy Quilt Round Robin, it is gorgeous, have a look!




Sherry and I had plenty of time after the festival while waiting for our 10pm flight to actually get her setup on a new blog. She is a fellow American also with 2 daughters, a fellow quilter, and also married to an Irishman. We had a great time getting to know each other througout the day, and she and Barbara have also become friends now too. Ain't the blogging world great!! Please visit Sherry and welcome her to Blogland, tell her I sent ya, lol!!

I bought so many things at the festival...several kits for quilts, a sewing organizer, a doll, and don't get me started on my search for Japanese taupes...I bought quite a bit! Definitely a new love of mine since Barbara brought over my first taste of them on her visit in May!


No photos of current projects, but am working along on quilting my Dear Jane, knitting my sock and have started a reproduction antique sampler, could it be a new addiction forming?

I have a confession to make...

I am not really very good at crazy quilting and I don't enjoy it very much. Shhhhh...don't tell anyone. It is not that I don't like it, I admire other peoples work very much and I do like stitcheries with stem and back stitches... I just get paralyzed with so much choice and kinda can't do ribbon embroidery very well. Saying that, I am happy enough with my final blocks for a Crazy Quilt Round Robin that I did with a group of talented quilters and CQers in England and Sweden! I don't think I will be doing much Crazy Quilting in the future, it is just not a passion, and I don't think I'm very good at it! I will post a photo of my quilt when it comes back soon though.

I also suck at doing a proper quilting stitch. Barbara showed me her technique and made it look so easy to get even stitches on the front and back of her quilt. She can quilt amazingly fast. Now looking around I am paralyzed again by the amount of techniques for hand quilting. I am doing well just stab stitching each quilting stitch one at a time for my Dear Jane, probably best for that anyway, as there are so many seams! I'll put in my latest blocks here, just click to see the details! What are your favorite methods to hand quilt? Can you recommend a good book? I'd love to learn a method where I can go a bit more quickly, though I suppose having done 60 blocks since late June isn't too bad! I am aiming to get one done each day and sometimes get a few more...

I am working on the heel gusset for my Pomatomus sock and while chatting with my friend Kathleen while doing a bit of knitting while kids ran wild over the house I managed to totally mess up the decreases. That will show me! No more talking and knitting on a complicated pattern, lol!! I spent last night ripping back to a place I could start again. A few days ago, Kathleen watched the girls for me and I snuck out to the quilt shop to see if I could find some fabric for the snowy mountains on my dad's quilt, and pick up the Jo Morton and Rothermel prints she had on clearance!! There were roadworks that had me sitting on the road for about 20 minutes. Instead of seething, I remembered I had my sock knitting with me and took it out and got a few rows done while waiting to  move again! I should remember to keep it in my bag just in case I have a minute or 2 of found time :) Gotta grab it while you can with 2 small kids!!

I'll leave you with this photo of Aisling who decided she needed a hat, mittens and tea towel bib to eat her spaghetti...gotta love them wacky kids!