Change is inevitable.

I've finished two quilts since we last spoke. They are quilt twins, made for a lady I know who wanted one for her grandchild and one for the first grandchild of her next door neighbour. I've talked a little about them before, using Ann Kelle Urban Zoologie teamed with various Sketch colours and white.

Max's Quilt - lovely and crinkly all over from the wash!

The tops went together relatively easily, the quilting on Max's made me tear out my hair and almost swear off machine sewing. Thankfully, Kyle's quilting went like a dream and I was slightly mollified.

Pucks and Tuckers - the worst I've ever had on a quilt, including ones
I quilted before I learned about the magic walking foot, which didn't save
me here. I've put it down to bad piecing on my part and also to vengeful
quilt gods. Thank god for crinkling up in the wash!

The binding is a diagonal red and white stripe - I love it. I should have bought more, I want to use it on everything!

I embroidered labels for each little boy, and even put my very first printed labels on too.

These quilts were delivered the day before I left Ireland - nothing like last minute stress! I'm back in DC, but not for long - just for Christmas. In the time I've been away Paul has gotten a new job in Houston. It starts on the 7th of January and so once Christmas Day is over us (our first), we'll be putting everything into boxes, heading to Houston to find a new apartment, our first car, the new grocery stores, new library, new everything.

Rare Winter sun in Ireland made this a bit washed out...

I'm daunted. The last few months have been constant go, though thankfully all the associated worry is over and my family are all well again. But the idea of going into another state of flux, a new place to settle into, new routines to find, new people to meet - it's a little overwhelming. So I'm taking it one day and week at a time.

I'm grateful to have my sewing machine right now, I'm pottering, doing what takes my fancy. Once we start moving, hand-sewing will be my outlet. I have no idea how often I'll manage to pop in here, or when we'll have internet. I'll do my best. It's more likely that Instagram will provide the quick connections over the next while!

Kyle's Quilt

Having just written it all out, I feel lighter. I am looking forward to the adventure of it, and getting to choose a place to live together (another first)!

I think I'll try popping in and out with picture updates when possible, love to all and

Happy Winter Holidays!

Up the Dubs!

In some ways this post is perfectly timed, in most other ways it's long overdue!

A college friend of mine had her second boy this summer, a total dote. Not having been into quilting when her first boy arrived, I decided that I needed to celebrate Ciarán's arrival with quilts for both boys!

Ciarán, the newbie, actually surprised me by being a boy. I was convinced he'd be a girl and so after his arrival I set about making a quilt using Tsuru ...and old lace in both cerulean and indigo. Originally I was gung-ho about a whole cloth quilt in just the cerulean, but sitting on the couch one night I sketched out a quilt plan and knew it was the one!

I set about finding all the navy I had in my stash and used the white with pale blue polka dot cotton as my 'white' and backing!

I really love this quilt, which I think I might say about all my quilts. This one is the twin of the St Louis 16 Patch I shared in my last post.

They're both 36" square, and have the same polka dot blue backing, which is then doubled over and brought around as the binding.

I added an embroidered label to the back. Happily this whole quilt is made in the Dublin colours, and having a Dub for a Mammy I'm hoping this colour scheme is going to suit Ciarán down to the ground. He certainly picked an excellent summer to come along!

Which I've just realised is upside down in this picture :-o, but reads,
Made for Ciarán 2013 By AOH'

I plan to show you all Conor's quilt in the next couple of days!

I'd like to say sorry to anyone who wrote me a comment on the last post, this trip to Ireland has been more manic than I was expecting and the only decent computer here is refusing to recognise my USB stick. Right now, I'm bashing this out on an ancient desktop that has been here more than a decade and runs about as slow as a dead snail. I do plan to answer/send a couple of emails a day this week so hopefully I won't be so badly behind next Monday!

However, I am going to have a bit of a routine for the rest of this week so I should be able to start getting you all caught up on the finished projects I've been hoarding since Easter (there's not that many, just 3 more)! I'm even hoping to get the sewing machine out here so I can be making some things.

I'd been really looking forward to partaking in Selfish Sewing Week co-hosted over at Made with Moxie and Imagine Gnats. However, all my planned projects are in DC and I'm now staying in Ireland for a few more weeks where I can be a useful taxi service for a bit. I am still looking forward to browsing the linky, however, and gaining some selfish sewing inspiration for the future!!

Late Summer Round-up

Hello, again! The summer has been slipping away from me and I'm about to spend the next, almost, month without my laptop. I will, however, have my camera and the ability to steal time on the laptops of others! Projects I've been working on since earlier this year are all going to be delivered in this next month so I can finally share them!! Yay!

In the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with the other little bits and bobs I've done recently.

Earlier in the summer I was tidying my fabric cubbyholes and tossed down these fabrics beside each other...

I've never been a big fan of pastels in my wardrobe, but I just loved these together. The patterns are all by Amy Butler, I've no idea which collection and I bought them in the first ever online fabric shopping trip I went on. The solids have just amassed slowly over time. That yellow in the back is not as crazy yellow in real life, but it just loves to shine like crazy in photos. It is definitely the stronger yellow in real life though, but I kept it.

I'd seen the hundreds of St Louis 16 patch quilts popping up all over the blogs, and been attracted by their simplicity and ability to show off patterns. And there was just enough of these cuts to make a small baby quilt, so I did!

I embroidered a little matching label for the back, and used the backing as binding courtesy of Rae's tutorial. Very useful!

The label's upside down , I tried inverting the picture but because I took it on a slope it just gave me vertigo, so upside down won out! I quilted it with horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines in a yellow thread, that blended surprisingly well, and used my walking foot for the first time. I am a total convert, it's such an ingenious invention!

I really ended up loving this quilt a lot. Even with the mess up in that central square! I drew out my colour placements beforehand, laid it out, looked at that block multiple times thinking surely there's a way to distribute the colour more evenly in this block... It wasn't until I was basting it that my brain came up with the 'duh, green, yellow, green, yellow' answer... Sigh, it's still pretty with 'green, yellow, yellow, green' in there. What a lapse in logic and reasoning!

This quilt is destined to be donated as part of Swim, Bike, Quilt's 100 Quilts for Kids.

I have also made a few small things as gifts here and there over the summer. First up, there are these burp cloths:

They are double-sided flannel burp cloths, with the handy little shaping to help them sit beside your neck on your shoulder. There are loads of tutorials on these, I read a lot of them, and then just went for it. Each cloth turned out slightly differently, for instance I now know that rounded corners all around the burp cloth will give you a much easier time when turning them and topstitching!

I also made my very first zippy pouch! Someone who started at Paul's work soon after he did landed her dream job this last month and headed off last weekend on the six hour drive to relocate for it. So I thought a pouch filled with sweets for the journey, but useable for make-up/nail polish/emergency food upon arrival would be useful.

The genius tutorial is by Pretty Modern and the pouch is completely lined, with all the seams fully encased. It was surprisingly easy to follow (I'm always a little daunted by zips) and I even managed to get the zig-zags lined up on the top!!

Finally, I made two hot pads from Patchwork, Please by Ayumi Mills. Some of the ladies in the DC Modern had made these back in June as part of the Zakka-Along 2.0 and increased the size so instead of bell pepper coasters they got hot pads! I got the book for my birthday so I figured why not go for it!

I'm not 100% happy with them. I used two layers of Insul-Bright batting because I wanted to make sure that no matter which side you used to pick up hot things that your fingers would be protected. That seems to have made them a bit bulkier and puffier than I would have liked. Again, with these, I read the instructions a few times, found them slightly confusing in places, got the general gist of the thing, and then did it in a way that made sense to me.

That worked and didn't work. One of those has a white tag for hanging them up trapped inside and no-one will ever see it again! I'm just lucky that I didn't trap a pin in there too. I think I'll probably use Patchwork, Please to try and make the fabric covered box later in the year. I need something to put hair bobbins and clips in on my dresser, but to be honest, I'm not in a hurry to start deciphering the instructions again.

And that's it. I have no idea as to what sort of schedule I'll be able to update things on when I'm home. But I'll try and make a couple of Finished Friday link-ups.

I'm hoping to start truly making and blogging in a considered way. I think I got caught up in buying fabric just because I felt I had to have it, and over the summer I realised some of the projects that have made me happiest are ones that came from my stash, from things I didn't love love in the first place. I'm also learning that I have more fun designing and making things from scratch, I'm not such a big fan of quilt patterns...

That being said, I've now found a sort of zen in doing the curved piecing for Retro Flowers (right in time to have to put it down for a month!). Still though, now I know the zen is there, I'll definitely be back!