Whoops

Time has slipped away the last while as I've become extremely busy. My mother has broken her arm and I have taken over her work on the farm, and I've also started giving tuition again with the start of the school year. I've repapered my bedroom, and all the painting and stripping involved. I've also become surrogate mum to a kitten; I always say our house is the Underground Railway of badly treated cats and dogs - somehow they always manage to turn up here! The kitten is very small, and very fluffy. It was very dirty with a cold, but both have been cleaned up. It spent a few days watching our other cat, studying how she was cleaning herself! So very little sewing done, but hopefully will have something to show for myself in a day or two. Just wanted to clock in!

Problem averted

Problem averted as there was plenty of fusible web at the fair. I had been using Bondaweb, but they had Steam-a-Seam 2, and I think I'm converted as it was fairly handy. That said, any shop near me stocks Bondaweb, so I may get a supply of Steam-a-Seam for particular things.

Workshop went well on the first day, but I had so many problems with my machine the next! Yes, I know, only a bad work(wo)man blames their tools, but I had to change bobbin thread, top thread, tension, stitch length, re-thread several times... My thread kept jumping off the tensioner so all told the back is not very attractive, but for once I don't care. It's going onto my wall, right side out, so I don't care about the back.

Photos of quilts with pets seems de rigeur, so I thought I'd sign off with a photo of my helper, Winky. She may be 7, but she's a big kitten!

Drat

and drat some more. I have a workshop this weekend
http://www.cavanmuseum.ie/LQF-Brochure-2009.pdf (Red Poppies) with the Lakeland Quilt Fair and need to order some fusible web, having just finished what I have. Unfortunately, I don't live anywhere near shops, and I have just discovered that my credit card has been copied, and now cancelled, so I can't order online. There are a few shops which are selling at the Quilt Fair, so fingers crossed someone is selling what I want to buy!

Finishing off a Nancy Halvorsen wallhanging I started last week to demonstrate using fusible web to our group. Picture to follow, hopefully.

A start

An introduction. My name is Eleanor, I am Irish, currently unemployed and, more pertinently to this blog, a new-ish but thoroughly obsessed quilter. I'd always liked the look of quilting and patchwork, and last year started classes. Our group is small, and to be honest is run more along the lines of encouraging people than necessarily teaching, so I've been reading blogs etc for some more tips, and was itching to join in! The problem was, I couldn't think what exactly I would blog about. I've blogged before, and it's just dwindled away, so I thought this should have, at least to get me going, some sort of aim. So you can guess from the existance of this that an aim I have! More of later, when I have myself bedded in here.

A photo is needed, which will explain rather a lot about me, maybe! This

From Drop Box

is the first patchwork thing I made, and a year later it's still like this - unfinished! To be honest, though I am ambitious enough (hence a 25 block Storm at Sea being the first thing I make!) I am worried about messing it up quilting it, so have left it to one side until I get more experience with quilting. I'm making my way there, though, with baby quilts and throws. You'll have to excuse the photo, I just couldn't get a spot big enough for to lay the quilt out, never mind then being able to fit it all in! As it was, I had to stand on a chair to be able to get that! I'll have to dig it out and see about taking a better photo!

So that's me, signing off for the first time, and now I'm off to go and stalk some of you! (As in, add your blogs to this! Any suggestions gratefully received!)