American Quilter in Ireland

Where Have You Been....

2011-06-13T17:28:00.002+01:00

Well, I don't know about you but time sure does fly when you're having fun or working your fingers to the bone, which ever comes first. I have been long absent from this blog and for several good reasons. First, I opened up a quilt shop for reasons still unknown to me. Second, my three very busy children - the oldest of whom is now 6'2" tall and still growing. And thirdly, life has been very difficult in this house the past two years there have been many ups and downs, triumphs and sadly a few tragedies (pets), but mostly just plain hard work, blogging about fun and happy things was going to be trying to say the least. But thankfully life is on a more even keel and we are all healthy and life is looking good so onward and upward.

The shop is going well (touch wood) and we are building a shop/classroom on our farm so that I can continue to grow the business. The top photo is of our stall at the Knit and Stitch show in Dublin last October. We will be there again this year but in a much better location!

This picture was taken last year at Six Flags Amusement Park in Massachusetts when we went home for a two week holiday. We landed in New York during the first week of July, the hottest heat wave of the summer, and it didn't let up for the entire two weeks we were there. Thank God their grandparents have a swimming pool or we would have been back in Ireland right quick!

I have started a blog for my shop and hope that you will stop on by over there, not sure when i will be back over here!

www.kilboraquiltshop.blogspot.com

all the best and thank you for all the emails!

Hugs and Kisses!
Anne Marie

The Tourist Season has Begun!!

2009-05-12T10:43:00.000+01:00

We have just completed our first Cycling Tour with the most fantastic people and it went better than expected!! We need to do some tweaking and make a few changes but that was to be expected.

We took a break from all our work one weekend and took the kids out for a cycle. This hill was a bit of a problem, in fact we scrapped this route from our tours -- too hilly. Although if you are an avid cyclist we have an alternative route and this is the hill you would be going down!!! Needless to say, my children were cursing me under there breath while I took this photo. FarmerBoy and DS2 were behind me and there was quite a bit of mumbling going on with them as well!!!
Today, was like Christmas of sorts. I received my first shipment of fabric for my little shop!!! 50 bolts of Moda Marbles. They are 4.5metere bolts which is perfect for a small operator like myself and a great way to bulk up your shelves without spending a fortune. I have ordered 16 bolts of Thimbleberries and they will be shipped out in June from the states (I can't wait to see if I make out better purchasing through the states). I am also considering another order of some Henry Glass fabric that I have had my eye on.

After the Spring Market I will be putting in an order with Moda for some of their upcoming lines. As well as purchasing some nice patterns. I have a small budget to get this up and running so hopefully I will make some good choices - - I will be doing some serious praying!!!!!

I have been spending what little free time I have had putting together some nifty little classes that I am going to offer this Autumn and Winter. Please send me lots of good vibes!!!!
See that big patch of dirt??? That is our vegetable garden, all 45 ft x 90 ft of it! We have sown about 500 potato seed and we are going to be constructing a 20 ft x 13 ft poly tunnel on it tomorrow. We have broccoli, beets, turnip, pumpkins, strawberries, beans, parsnips, carrots and cabbage!!!! In the poly tunnel there will be tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, courgettes and basil. We are so exhausted from all of this but it will be well worth it when all is said and done.

Well, I am off now to the Garden Center. I need to buy special spray for our potatoes since we have already had blight warnings!!!! I also have to replace some of my strawberry plants, it appears that the sheep love strawberry plants!!!! This prompted FarmerBoy to go out and put up the electric fencing!!!!

Bye All!!!!

Busy Busy March!!

2009-03-24T10:46:00.000Z

It has been a very busy month, March that is! We have been doing alot of work on the house, painting mostly - both inside and out. I have also been building a new website all by myself!!! I am meeting up with some of FarmerBoy's relations on Sunday and hopefully we can get it up on the internet, keep your fingers crossed!

The first picture over there is my driveway, or rather the lane that leads to my home. It is a quarter of a mile long and is the greatest asset we have. A guest once told me that it reminded him of the show Dallas!!! Okay, whatever!!!! We certainly don't have JR's money but the thought was nice... The downside with a lane like this is that it requires a tremendous amount of maintenance, the gravel has to be raked, holes have to be filled, and the goarse (the prickly green brush) has to be trimmed back. Can you guess what else has to be done? If you guessed the fence you were right! We have been painting the fence on every nice day we get and child labor laws be damned -- crack the whip and let's get painting!!!! We are a third of the way done or maybe a little more than that. There is sheep wire on the fence so it really slows you down and FarmerBoy is a perfectionist so it is pure torture.
The kitchen has been painted, sitting room painted, one of the guest bedrooms has been painted and hopefully the downstairs hallway and stairwell will be done soon. The vegetable garden has been plowed and we are planning to harrow it soon, need to get my potatoes in. The seed trays are done and are in the mini greenhouse. Hmmm, what else have we done!!!

The darling children have all started their GAA season and training is going on, I am in the car non-stop! Middle son is prepping for his second music exam and has sung a solo at church and will be singing at the First Holy Communion this year with the choir.

We purchased a 9 seater bus for our cycling/walking business. I have a meeting with Failte Ireland Business development this week about marketing supports for the activity holiday business. We seem to be going non-stop and hopefully things will come together soon. It took us two weeks of phone calls to find out where to get public liability insurance for the cycling business and it took a week and a half for our insurance agent to give us a quote for our mini bus. Talk about frustration, sweet mother of Jerusalem there are moments when you want to scream!!!!!!

Last night I finally got to sit in my small cubby hole and sew. What a delight it was and I am now up to date with my BOM Mystery Designer Quilt. I have some bindings that need to be sewn down and two quilts that need to be machine quilted which I will hopefully have done soon. I have also decided, after some encouragement from some of my Irish friends in the village, to give quilting lessons one morning a week in the local community center. I will put a notice up in the village in late August as well as the local notes in the paper and the two churches in our village. I am meeting with a rep for a fabric company this week and am going to dabble in selling fabric as well. Do you think I just might have a full plate?? So, now you know why I have been absent for the past few weeks and hopefully I will be less negligent with my blog going forward or at least until all the guests starting flooding in (I can dream can't I!!!!).
All the best!

Cute Little Lambs...Not!!!

2009-03-01T13:28:00.004Z

First, let me dispel some ideas that some of you may have!! Lambs may be cute but they are a nuisance and they bite!!

These pictures were taken on Friday, the pet lambs have become soooo impatient about getting their bottles they have now taken up residence in our garden. All four of them parade around the house baaing all day long and leave you know what all over the concrete footpath that winds around the house!!!!

Imagine coming down first thing in the morning for a cup of coffee and the first sight you see when you enter the kitchen is four faces peering in at you through a set of french doors!!! And not only are they peering at you but banging the door with their heads and baaing non stop. When you open the door they all charge to come in and let me tell you folks they have hard little heads....

Even the kitten is dismayed, she slinks around them and when they come over to say hello she leaps up onto the window sill. Our golden retreiver, Sophie, ignores them and refuses to look at them when they come up to her and poke her... It's as if she's thinking, "if I don't look at you, then you simply don't exist"!

Can you imagine some poor American or Dutch couple coming to our door and being attacked by this marauding group of hooligans... it might be funny if you were in your car watching and certainly the next morning after breakfast we would all be chuckling, but during the assault -- not so funny!!!

The last straw was this morning, the little suffolk lamb (her picture is below or rather her mug shot!) bit my DD, yes they have teeth and they can be quite sharp!! She broke the skin and we had blood. This happens every year, we disinfect the cut and move on, but still it hurts. They also took up camp around my rose bushes and started eating all the new leaves as well as trampling down the spring flowers that are starting to pop up through the ground.... This was an act of war as far as I was concerned.

I have been scrubbing and scrubbing for days; we are getting the house ready for the upcoming tourist season and they were creating havoc outside which simply means more work for me.... cute lambs my foot!!!!!
FarmerBoy and I had to expel them immediately. We pretended to be their friends and coaxed them with their bottles, once they had finished and were too full to realize that we were not their friends, we grabbed the two biggest ones and carried them to the field with the best security and put them over the fence!!! The two little ones wanted no part of this and ran like bats out of h*ll, squeezing their little bodies through the rails of the fence and running up the field. They must have met up with the rest of their gang because we haven't seen them for two hours. My only hope is that they aren't hiding somewhere preparing to ambush me when I go out for firewood, trust me people if they were just a little smarter they would be a force to be reckoned with!!!!!

The Long and Winding Road!

2009-02-25T20:30:00.001Z

Hello everyone!! Sooo very sorry that I have been absent for the past week. I have been thinking about my blog and thinking about projects that need working on (that I would love to share), but to be honest with you I have been mostly trying to earn a living!!

Times are really tough right now for people all over the globe. FarmerBoy and I are very blessed in many ways but as some of you know we are facing some truly challenging economic problems in this house and my priorities are focused on those challenges, not quilting!! I have been finding it particularly difficult to focus on projects and sewing, my lack of interest and motivation makes me sad sometimes but this too shall pass. We faced yet another difficult challenge today and spent a good part of the day discussing how to overcome yet another hurdle!!! Enough said!

I hope that you will come back and visit and forgive me for my lack of inspirational posts -- hopefully by the end of this week we will have reached the end of this road and things will be looking a little bit more cheery!!!!

This picture is of a road that we love to travel on!!! I took this picture in November while FarmerBoy and I were out mapping our cycling routes. We never encounter cars on this road and it takes you up into the Mt. Leinster Park which has the most spectacular views of Carlow and Wicklow. I so wish that I could share this beautiful countryside with you!! Our business goal is to get people out of their rental cars and travel these back roads with us, this is the real Ireland!! Whenever I map out itineraries for people that are staying with me for a couple of days, they get a little nervous when I inform them they are hitting the back roads!! Trust me I tell them!!! I will send you to places and you will see things that are gorgeous and are not in your guide books. Well, they return to the house in the evening sooo excited and bursting to tell me about all the great villages and people that they met!!!!!

Now I just need to get my quilting mojo back!!!!!

Machine Quilting Lesson 2!

2009-02-16T10:20:00.001Z

First, I took a picture of the bottles that are used for the lambs! We have to make formula several times a day and fill up 5 bottles and head off to the field. Because we have a young family there is always alot of help getting the feeding done. The only problem is being here to do it. If we have activities like most families we have to plan quick trips home between these activities to feed the little lambkins. We were in and out alot yesterday!!! The things we can accomplish when we set our minds to it!!!!

I took a picture of the second step in my machine quilting lesson!! I wanted to quilt flowers on the border and I practiced with pen and paper first, then I practiced on some fabric and wadding. As you can see I then progressed to the quilt with my hands shaking, the thought of having to unpick a messy job was foremost in my mind LOL!!!!!

Not bad if I do say so myself, I think I'm getting the hang of this. I have come to the conclusion that if you want to be proficient at machine quilting you have to work at it every week. I usually let my quilt tops pile up and go months between machine quilting because I have never learned to do it properly or better yet given myself the chance to learn how to do it properly.

I spent some time on the internet looking for instructions and videos on machine quilting and this is how I have been teaching myself. I have half a pad of paper full of continuous line drawings. I thankfully had saved all the remnants of wadding that had been trimmed off previous quilts and used those to practice on.
The last photo is the back side of the quilt. I am glad that I have taken the time to do all this practicing and research, I can confidently say that I have conquered my fear of machine quilting. I can piece quilts with great precision and I have some seriously good sharp points but I was always let down with the final step.

All the best and keep quilting!!!!

Machine Quilting - Lesson 1

2009-02-15T11:37:00.000Z

I have spent a few hours last night and an hour this morning finishing up the machine quilting on this quilt. There are plenty of people who can machine quilt circles around me!!! I am a true novice although with each project that I have worked on this week my skills are improving!

This is one of the quilts that I made for the twin grandnieces of FarmerBoy's, he is putting serious pressure on me to get both quilts done so that he can deliver them. With much trepidation I got them ready and away I went. I wanted to keep it simple yet add a bit of whimsy, every so often I would quilt a few hearts! These pictures don't really do justice to the quilt, it has turned out ok!! I have a pile of quilts to machine quilt so I should be fairly proficient in no time LOL!!!!

Finding time to do the above quilting is proving to be more difficult, we seem to be constantly on the go and I have had to take over some of the farm chores this past week. FarmerBoy has picked up a few odd jobs but of course they are time consuming and the jobs have to be done immediately or else they will find someone else. He has been putting in 14 - 16 hour days away from home so myself and the kids have had to pick up the slack. We are getting ready to go load up the jeepwith sugar beet and then spread it around the field so that the sheep have something to eat. Grass is becoming sparse so we need to get them taken care of until beginning of March. The grass is starting to grow, in fact my front lawn needs to be mowed and today would be a perfect day since it is quite warm.
We are going to the garden center this week to start preparing for a veggie garden. I am also going to start my trays of flowers so that my window boxes are blooming in May!!! The house looks so bare without flowers, spring is right around the corner -- Yea!!!!!!!!!

Anyone care for a Cuppa?

2009-02-10T13:59:00.000Z

I just finished this, it only took me 6 months to complete!! I came up with this little design myself -- just winged it or rather I flew by the seat of my pants!!!

Last spring and summer everything was about cupcakes... I wanted to do something for my kitchen table or a wall hanging with said cupcakes but I had no patterns. So off I went and thought about it!

A cupcake is usually in a paper liner and it gives the appearance of a fan-fold, how could I achieve the same look?? I made up a square with 1 inch strips (about 10 strips), then I used my steam-a-seam lite and ironed that to the back. after this I drew out the shape of the cupcake base. I had never done any applique so this was a learning exercise for me as well as an exercise in embroidery since I did a back stitch for the cherry stem!!!!

This table runner has also served as an exercise in machine quilting, something that I am not fond of doing. I did a small stipple around the cupcakes and lettering, and a then a floral vine on the border which I am very happy with.
I of course had my companion sitting by my side, basking in the sun!! My DD's little kitten was sleeping on the chair next to me -- what a perfect day.

We have a very busy afternoon here at Casa Kilbora, I have to go get the children, bottle feed the lambkins and then run off to our local town to fulfill my volunteer requirements for an organization we are involved in. I'm glad that I set aside some time this morning to get this finished, now I have to find some fabric for the binding!

All the best and keep smiling!!!

When is Spring Coming?

2009-02-08T19:21:00.000Z

Very soon my little friends, very soon! Here are a few photos that I took this past week while out amongst my flock!!!

I feel so sorry for them, the snow melted with in 24 hours but still it must be miserable for them. The lambs look at me as if to say, please let me go with you into the white house over there.
The mothers let me get fairly close to the lambs which was amazing, the must be getting use to us being around them. Come summer time they will run the minute we climb over the fence.

I was standing at my bedroom window ironing 2 weeks ago and 2 cars pulled into our lane and a load of people got out, including children. Our home is on a hill and the lane way is 1/4 mile long but you have a clear view of the entrance. Anywho, these people lined up along the fence and I could see flashes going off!! They had no idea they were being watched!!!! The sheep thought it was me (they aren't too bright) and started running for the fence thinking it was meal time!!!!! The flashes were going off at an alarming rate, they were there for a good while. FarmerBoy told me that I should have brought down the bottles and had them do some bottle feeding for us!!!!

We often have guests in the B&B going out to feed baby lambs, my husband rounds them up (the guests!!) and brings them right out to the field. My daughter is the best, she took a group of Italian tourists (at the age of 7) out to the field to introduce them to our pet lambs -- she was talking away to the people and not one of them spoke any English!!! LOL I hope my kids remember all of this when the are older...
Speaking of which, I think they need a lesson in snowman building!!!!!! It looked like the leaning tower of Pisa!!!!!

Have a good one, I need to go and make icing for a special little girl's birthday cake.

Keep smiling!

Snow in Ireland!!

2009-02-07T12:10:00.001Z

Yes, you heard me right -- we have had a good deal of snow this week!! We probably won't see this much stuff for another 20 years so I spent some time taking photos and encouraging the kids to play away in it.

The first photo is around 12:00 on Monday, after which I received a phone call to pick up the kiddos at school. The second picture was taken later in the afternoon, it was piling up fast. Now, just so that you understand how serious this could have been, we don't have snow plows or trucks for spreading salt or grit!!!!! The council grits the roads with sand but mostly the main roads which leaves most of the poplulation stranded in the coutryside. The backroads were frightening, really frightening!

My children don't really remember snow, the oldest kinda does or so he says. They were so overjoyed that they could actually play in the snow before it melted and when school was called off for Tuesday, holy cow you though we had won the lottery!!!

I would like to add however that it was not fun going out and bottlefeeding some of our lambs. Some of the little creatures had sought shelter in the ditch, this meant that FarmerBoy and I as well as the kids had to climb through the briars looking for them. Two of the more delicate lambs died. We speculate that they just weren't strong enough for the cold and wind. By right they should have been in the sheds but FarmerBoy has been helping out other family members and was not able to get home before dark to move them in.
The next morning was gorgeous, bright and sunny and my three darlings pulled out a sled and plastic bags (Feed Bags) and set about hitting the slopes on one of our fields.

I am hoping to get some quilting done this weekend, I have been working on one of my old projects and am planning on getting some BOMs done. I also want to get one of my quilts pinned for machine quilting. So many things to do and so little time!!!

I have been a very bad blogger the past two weeks, I have to get back to doing this more regularly. Maybe I should keep a small notebook and jot down ideas for blog posts. I often find that I don't know what to blog about. Some weeks are filled with family and farm activity and then some weeks I get to do alot of quilting!!!

I have more great photos to share with you which I will do in the coming days!!

Bye everyone and keep smiling!!!!

Retreat Irish Style!

2009-02-01T19:43:00.000Z

What a weekend!! A group of 10 women gathered here in my home from Friday evening until this afternoon for a weekend of sewing and chatting! I had the pleasure of working with two new quilters who are working on their very first projects and it is a great deal of fun to see the sense of achievement with a beginner!!! These photos were taken earlier on Saturday before the rest of the group arrived from Clare/Tipperary.

These gals put in some serious sewing time, I even heard that a few came close to seeing the sun rise this Sunday morning!!! Yikes...

Plentiful food, good wine, Margaritas (thank you Cathi!!!) and a viewing of Mama Mia!!! What more could you ask for?!

I have to say a big thank you to my DH and children for allowing me to do this! My children are very good at not only entertaining themselves and guests but for also being so helpful. DS1 made breakfast for everyone on Sunday morning, Pancakes I might add, while I slept in. He also was great about making pots of tea and pitching in with the kitchen!!

DS2 was his usual entertaining self regaling any willing participant to his "imagine if you" stories -- you really needed to be there to understand that one just ask Laura and Michelle!!!

Of course nothing would be complete without my DD pitching in. She sat with Jessie and encouraged her with her quilting. Jessie is idolized by my children because she is always prying them with delicious treats!!! On her recent trip to Minnesota for Christmas she loaded up on tootsie rolls for them -- my picture on the mantle will soon be replaced by hers!!!!! In fact Jessie's fabric is the second picture, she calls it her Mary Tyler Moore fabric -- it reminds her of the decor in MTM's apartment!!

A very big thank you to Alanna for pitching in and being an enourmous help to me!!! Alanna and Jessie were my students for the weekend. Alanna picked a project out but when we went to start we realized how difficult it was going to be for her. I know it will be slow going but she will be thrilled with the end result.

Well, I am going to sign off because I honestly can't keep my eyes open and I need to get the uniforms washed for school tomorrow and my DH wants to sit and watch a movie. I am sure you will be able to read all about the retreat from Sherry and Cathi who were present and are also bloggers

Thank you all for participating especially the women who came (Laura, Michelle and Allison) not knowing anyone and jumped right in with Sherry, Cathi, Rebecca and Linda. All the best and looking forward to another gathering!!!

Just Another Day

2009-01-29T10:13:00.000Z

Not much to share with you this past week, we have been very busy lambing and assorted family duties!

FarmerBoy is out there feeding the ewes and their lambs, this is the view from my little sewing nook. The weather is lousy hence the rain on the window but you can kinda make out the lambs and their mudders.

This weekend is the the quilting retreat here at our house, including myself there will be 13 people participating. I will fill you in on the details on Monday!

Gotta run, too much to do today and not enough time to chat. All the best!

Keep Smiling!

Today was a Special Day!

2009-01-21T00:40:00.001Z

Today, 20 January 2009 was a special day! At 1:00pm Irish time, 8:00am Washington DC time, I turned on the computer and found the CBS (large tv station in the US) website and settled in for a day of watching the Presidential Inauguration of the USA.

Why was it so special? This is going to be the only time I let my politics show on this blog, and I am doing it for a reason. I was overjoyed that Barack Obama was elected; I have been telling my children all about him and his life; I have explained to them who Martin Luther King Jr. was and what he stood for; they know the story of Rosa Parks; DS1 is reading Muhammed Ali's new book and loving it; and they know that 45 years ago Barack Obama and his family would not be allowed to dine in restaurants in certain parts of America! When they came home from school their dinner was ready and we sat on the sofa and watched this historic event. They understand the significance of his election and for the first time, one of my children said, "I 'm proud that we're Americans".

Last night on tv there was an American law professor, who teaches at NUI Galway, that summed up what it has been like to be an American living abroad for the past 8 years. It hasn't always been pleasant. I probably have felt it more so than other Americans because I am in the hospitality business and would have people from all over the world staying at my home. The amount of American bashing that I have had to listen to both personally from guests, the community I live in and the media has been difficult at times. I keep my mouth shut and rant to my husband!!!! Even my children have been subjected to the most awful remarks at school. It wouldn't happen every day and maybe you would go weeks without a negative word, but every so often it would happen. ****And just so that you know that I do keep my sense of humor with some situations - I have on one or two occasions where I didn't feel like debating with someone, told them I was Canadian!!!!!!! LOL So to all you Canadian readers I thank you!!!

President Obama has a heavy load to carry right now and I know that he is the right man for the right job. So, today was a special day and I will secretly admit an emotional day, but the tears that were shed today were tears of hope and joy not anguish and sorrow!

I am going to go put my soapbox away and I hope that I didn't offend anyone, but I really felt the need to share!!!!

Block 1 Revision!

2009-01-19T16:01:00.000Z

Sorry, I had to post a picture of block 1 with her eyes and mouth drawn on as well as the vine that holds the leaves! I have to press it although in person the block doesn't look this puckered, maybe this picture is before I did the final pressing. My mind is a fog, I just can't remember.

Tonight is a big night for us! We are enrolling our oldest son in secondary school, high school to some of you!!!! I can't believe my baby is going to secondary school. And the scary part is he is almost as tall as me which by the way is 5'11". It seems like only yesterday we were taking him to school for the first time... good god the years are flying by.

Take care and keep smiling!!!

Tisket A Tasket Block 1

2009-01-17T22:17:00.000Z

I have been rehearsing fabrics for the Bunny Hill BOM and this is what I made up tonight. My DS#2 when asked said that there should be blue in the block because January is blue!!! OK! I have some simplicity fat quarters and the perfect print for a basket and it's blue...

I have a stack of Lakehouse Fabrics charm packs so I thought what the heck, pull out a couple of those and here we are. I used polka dot fabric for my snowwoman and my children don't like it. I don't think I do either LOL. The more I look at it the more I am beginning to wonder if there might just be too many polka dots. I think I will leave it for now and blanket stitch around the pieces and finish up the embroidery. All of the pieces, with the exception of the basket were cut from charm squares and I had two charm squares in my hand for the basket and that would have worked as well.

Once he has his eyes and mouth he will look much better!!!!

We had horrendous weather here in the Southeast of Ireland today. The rain was unreal and the wind was really rough, my poor baby lambs are out in the field hiding in the hedges trying to keep warm. Poor things!

All the best to everyone!

Mud Mask Anyone!

2009-01-16T19:36:00.000Z

Oh my, oh my it has been a very long week!!!! I so wanted to sit and blog but it just wasn't going to happen.

I'm in the beginning stages of a new quilt, a Thimbleberries quarterly club quilt from last year which like everything else has been sitting in my pile! I also have been looking through my stash for fabrics for my Bunny Hill BOM!! See below if you have no idea what I am talking about!

Retreat update!!!! I have been putting together a quilt retreat for the 30, 31 January & 1 February. Our total as of tonight is 11 participants, and I am growing concerned that I might run out of space LOL!!!!! I had no idea that this would end up being such a hit. I would however like to thank Cathi for rounding up 3 gals from her quilting circle over there in the West of Ireland!!! I joked with Cathi that I might need to ask for the parish hall if this keeps growing. I think this will have to be an annual event, maybe a get together in the Fall is needed. I wish all of you could join us here in Ireland, our weather may be wet and grey but it would feel downright tropical to you gals over there in Western Canada!!! You poor things but a great reason to stay inside and quilt.

I will have more over the weekend now that we are decompressing from a very hectic week. I wanted to leave you with these delightful pictures, My everyday life in Ireland!!!!

The first picture is the troughs with sheep meal and this was taken up in the farm yard. The building facing the camera is the home that FarmerBoy's grandmother was born in. It was once thatched and in fact the thatch is under the sheet metal roof. You can see it when you go into the house, although most of it is on the floor now. This house is at least 200 years old and probably older, I'm just not sure.
This lovely picture is of my feet in the mud. I spend a tremendous amount of time sloshing around in this mud. When I see Wellies advertised in pretty colors with flowers and other cutsey patterns all I can think of is how unpractical that would be!!!! Can you imagine Martha Stewart sloshing around in this stuff with her pink and green wellies?? There are times when the mud is so deep that it gets difficult to pull your foot out and the boot can even come off the foot... lets have a collective YUCK!!!!

So, when you're sitting in your nice dry home and your reading this I may just be tromping around trying to catch a very pregnant Ewe all the while hoping that I don't slip and fall face first in this!!!!!!!! Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Long Weekend!

2009-01-12T10:20:00.001Z

Good Morning everyone!! I hope you all had a good weekend, I know that I did. What did I do you ask? Nothing really, I finished another quilt that had been languishing in my pile!! What a great accomplishment, this was not fun but the results are worth it.

There are twelve blocks in this quilt, each block consists of 25 3 1/2" squares. Now some of these 3 1/2" squares are made up of a HST(half square triangle) and 2 QST (quarter square triangles). Then there are squares that are made up of 4 QSTs. 47 pieces in one block. The back of the quilt is really more impressive than the front, Yikes. Let's just say the pressing of this baby was interesting and the pattern will be filed away for a very, very, very long time!

As of last night we have 22 lambs here on the farm, however sadly this morning we found a lamb that died in the middle of the field so that brings the number down to 21. FarmerBoy and I were out last night until 2am taking care of a ewe that was having difficulty. I am so bone tired this morning that I can hardly see straight.

My package hasn't arrived with my backing fabrics yet. Hopefully this week I will receive delivery and can get some of the quilts quilted. I have 4 quilts hanging on hangers as you can see and they are all ready for quilting. On to my next project, a UFO from the stack. Although I think I am going to add a new BOM to my "to do" list.

I am a big fan of Anne Sutton, the very creative lady of Bunny Hill Designs, and she is offering a BOM for FREE over on her blog!!!! I have two of her projects, both BOM's in my pile that are half finished, and that are so adorable that I am really committed to getting them done this year. So if you enjoy doing Applique and would like a fabulous FREE project then pop on over to Bunny Tales and see what Anne is up to. Have a great start to the week and keep smiling!

January Blues!

2009-01-08T15:56:00.000Z

When the January Blues set in, I just pull out fabric that reminds me of summer, especially fabric that reminds me of clothes my mother used to make for me as a young whipper snapper! I was feeling rather nostalgic this past weekend; I celebrated my 45th birthday on Tuesday and I needed to revisit my youth. I bought this kit from my favorite online source, The FatQuarter Shop, last summer when it went on sale. This is Swell by Urban Chiks and is a Moda University quilt pattern.

I fell in love with the fabrics but now I remember why I put it away last summer, the piecing of it is driving me crazy. Maybe it's my middle age failing eyesight LOL, who knows!

The top two blocks were done last summer and I just completed the bottom one. I have another block completed and I need to hopefully sew it onto this row tonight. The quilt is 4 blocks by 4 blocks. I think when I'm done it will look lovely but the piecing is overwhelming me right now. However, I won't quit until this is finished.

I have vowed to finish all my half started projects this winter, there are too many containers hanging about my work space filled with projects like this cutie over there.

Now onto other business! I have had a wonderful response to my Retreat invitation, in fact if I receive any more interest I am going to have to ask if I can use some of the tables from the community center and the overflow will have to bunk down at the other B&B in the village!!!

We also have a nice mixture of Irish, American and Australian women attending. There are women that are coming that don't know anyone else, women bringing a friend and there will be a good balance of beginner to advanced. I congratulate all of you for being so quick and so excited at the prospect to meet other like minded souls and hopefully learn and share with others!!! YOU ROCK LADIES!!!!! My greatest hope is that everyone enjoys themselves and hopefully we can set a trend.

Life is very busy here in my house right now, lambing lambing lambing..... We are also in the process of having a new website designed by Cada Media in Gorey. We are moving forward with our new venture, Cycling and Walking Holidays here in the beautiful Southeast corner of Ireland (how was that for a shameless plug?!!!). Once that is complete we have to start planning our vegetable garden and get the sowing of seeds mapped out on the calendar. Organization people...it pays to be a type A personality!!!

All the Best and if you have any last minute interest in joining us for our Quilt Retreat please email me for the dates and info!!!

Bye!

A Finish and a Question!!!!

2009-01-06T16:30:00.001Z

Regular readers will recognize these two quilts! I have been working on them forever, and now all I have to do is quilt and bind them. They will be enjoyed by two little twin girls named Ciara and Maeve!! I like Ciara's the best, the black fabric gives the quilt some extra punch not to mention that I did the borders wrong!!! What can I say, I was tired and when I hung them up I thought it looked kinda cool so I didn't bother to do any ripping!! I designed these quilts and as far as I am concerned it is my artistic interpretation to do as I please!!!

Do you like my new take on hanging quilts?? I saw someone else do that and I thought what a great idea, no more asking family members to hold up my artwork.

So, here is my QUESTION.... If you live in Ireland you might want to give this some thought...

Today, Cathi of Celtic Knots and I exchanged a few emails and I have been toying with this idea for a few weeks so I will throw the invite out there. I would love to have a quilt/craft retreat at my house sometime in February. I am more than willing to do it over a weekend so that our DHs can mind the children and afford you a weekend away. There will be no cost involved, just a contribution of some sort of food or beverage item that can be shared!! Since I own a B&B and have plenty of bedrooms, those of you gals traveling from the 4 corners of Ireland can stay either Friday or Saturday or both nights if need be. We had a retreat here last year and we all had a great time. Let me know what you all think and for those of you that are reading my blog and live in Ireland but have never commented please don't be shy and send me an email. If you would like to come and you have a quilty friend, just bring her along. I will contact the usual suspects and see if we can come up with some idea of a good weekend.
Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed didn't they??!!!! I don't think he likes being photographed, neither do I, that's why I always have the camera!!!!! LOL

Old McDonald Had a Farm

2009-01-05T19:59:00.002Z

Pity these poor children!!! No really DON'T....
Things are speeding up here on the Farm, and although it can be fun it is certainly hard work. We have a three lambs that need supplemental feedings, mostly because the mothers are not producing enough milk and we have had mostly twin births so it puts a strain on the mothers. By right you should be giving the ewes extra meal but our winter grass has been good and frankly you can't afford to buy the grain. The sheep are okay, it just means my poor children have to do some extra work, AAAWWWWWW!

The boys are heading up the field with the morning bottles and the little lambs know they're coming! They are sooooo cute. We were going up the fields to round the sheep up for routine dosing and inspection.

We check their feet and trim hooves if need be. The sheep are brought into the farmyard and placed in a pen. All five of us climb into the pen and the dosing begins, everyone has a job. FarmerBoy catches the ewes, I load the medication into the syringes, DS1 paints a dot onto their back, DS2 regals us with good humor and corny jokes and DD pouts. She doesn't really pout the whole day, just the first hour or so - not really a morning kinda gal!!

I have two more quilts finished and will do a show and tell tomorrow. They are quilts that I have showed before, they just needed borders and the applique finished up. Keep Smiling and thanks for stopping by!

One Down Many More to Go!!

2009-01-01T20:57:00.000Z

I wasted no time today finishing up this quilt top!! Last night I posted about this and how I was uninspired by it and never bothered to finish. Today was overcast and miserable, the perfect day to stay inside and get some quilting done.

I set about ironing the remaining fabrics for the borders, cut up the 4 7/8 squares of yellow and assorted leftovers for the pieced border. Did some quick chain pieceing and bada-bing I am finished! There is one problem and that is that I don't have enough backing material. I need three yards and preferably I would like '30s print, I ordered some off the FatQuarter Shop last night. This little gem will have to wait until next week, once the fabric arrives I will get it pinned and ready for my machine quilting exercise!!!

I am so glad that I finished this, it's really cute and to be honest it was silly of me to just toss it aside. While finishing up the pieced border, FarmerBoy walked by my sewing area and without prompting (I usually ask 20 times what he thinks, knowing full well he will always tell me how beautiful my work is and how talented I amLOL!!!!) said that we should hang it at the top of the stairs "it's so cheerful".

I am off to clean up my sewing area and then my little sidekick and I are going to watch Mama Mia for the 40th time!!! I just need to find my sequined bellbottomed jumpsuit and platform shoes!!

Happy sewing!

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T20:43:00.000Z

Tonight, New Year's Eve finds us at home having a wonderful chicken curry dinner and playing games with the 3 musketeers! I have just completed a few little projects.

First, over there on the left is Block 7 on the Designer Mystery Block of the Month from the FatQuarter Shop . It arrived this morning and I took a break this afternoon from cleaning and cut all the fabric up!!! This evening I sat down and put it all together, I can't wait to see this completed which reminds me that I need to start cutting up the finishing kit.

Now for my second project, I have a flimsy that has been sitting in the pile for 2 1/2 years just waiting patiently to be completed. It is all 1930's reproduction fabrics, very easy pattern as you can see. I grew disinterested in it and put it away hoping that I would one day feel inspired to finish. Well, I have been practicing my machine quilting for the past two weeks. First I did some searching online and watched a number of very good instruction videos and then started practicing on paper like the instructors tell you do!!
I have now graduated to working with fabric. On one of the videos by Pat Sloan, she recommends using a small project and quilt several patterns on it, one in each block...

What a perfect use for this little quilt, I am going to put some borders on it and then prep it for quilting. In each block I am going to machine quilt all the little patterns that I have been practicing!! After it is finished I am going to hang it in my sewing area and use it as a reference (this will be interesting, if you knew me you would be laughing by now...) Wish me luck!! LOL This is the one area of quilting that I fear the most and need serious help in!!!

Wishing all of you a Happy New Year and many blessings for 2009!!!

Intro to South Wexford Tour

2008-12-29T11:18:00.003Z

I wanted to share the following slideshow with you. This will probably be the last one that I share since it is not quilt related and you are all probably finding this boring. I have a few quilt projects that I am going to start working on as well as finishing up some old ones. So God willing I will have a few quilty posts coming up over the next few days!!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here in Wexford, my little sidekick and I decided to go and map out the last of our cycling routes (this just happens to be the longest one!!) and get some photos for our new website that hopefully will be launched by mid January. This is my favorite area of Wexford, maybe because it reminds me of Cape Cod. The Thatched houses that you see are in the village of Kilmore Quay, a small fishing village in South Wexford. It is the only remaining village in Ireland with a high proportion of thatched houses. I photographed a few for you but trust me there are lots!!! You start getting a little embarrassed taking photos of people's houses when you know that they can see you out the windows. I know that they are used to it but still!!!!

Wexford has a very rich history that stretches back to the Gaelic Kings and yet is the least promoted County in tourism terms. Wexford's rich agricultural heritage meant that it didn't need tourism dollars and therefore the historical sites are very quiet with few tourists. There is more history here than any other area of Ireland yet you would never know it!!! This has been a fun adventure for me having read a number of history books on Ireland and in particular Wexford.

Tour of South Wexford

2008-12-29T11:17:00.001Z

Intro - Wexford Coastal Route!!!

2008-12-27T19:43:00.002Z

We have spent the past two days roaming the back roads along the coast of Wexford. We are in the process of mapping out bike routes for our guests. Making every effort to balance routes with great views and places to visit as well as keeping to the safest roads. Usually FarmerBoy and I do this on our own when the children are in school, bringing them along reminded me why we do this!!!! We had a huge Breakfast; Blueberry pancakes, rashers(bacon) and sausages. Within the hour the voices in the back seat started to rumble about hunger, I thought I was going to blow a gasket!!!!!! Funny, the smallest was the biggest complainer and yet when we got home she ate like a bird....I think I'm going to go hide in a corner for the rest of the evening!!!!

Wexford Coastal Tour!!!!

2008-12-27T19:37:00.001Z

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-23T16:49:00.002Z

I came across this on Jan's blog and thought it would be a fun post to do before Christmas. FarmerBoy and I discussed some of these questions and the children started asking us about what Christmas was like when we were children. My husband's answers were very different from mine especially since we grew up in two different cultures in different countries.

Wishing all of you and your families a very Merry Christmas from all of us here on the Farm!!

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate, haven’t had egg nog in years in fact if I did want some I would have to make it myself. No egg nog in the dairy section here in Ireland!

Does Santa wrap presents or set them under the tree? Well this is a tricky one!! Sometimes Santa wraps and sometimes he doesn’t!!! Depends on the gift!!!

Colored lights on tree or white? I love white lights but have been overruled by FarmerBoy and the children who all prefer colored lights. I have garland swags over the fireplace and those have white lights!!

When do you put your decorations up? December 8 is the big day in this house and they come down on January 6!!

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? I love stuffing and cranberries, it was a tie between the two.

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? In third or fourth grade, the girl who lived across the street from us told me and when I disagreed with her she confirmed it with her mother while I was standing there. I never forgot that.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Most definitely Christmas morning, even if we are awakened at 5:00 am!!!!

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I have ornaments that I have been collecting for 20 years and there are a few that were given to me by my mother that have been in the family for many years. I have a nice collection of handblown glass ornaments as well as ornaments collected from my travels.

Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love snow but we don’t get any in Ireland, or at least where we live in Ireland. I grew up ice skating on frozen ponds and downhill skiing, I miss the white stuff!!!!

Can you ice skate? Yes indeed I can, I taught my own children last year!!!

Do you remember your favorite gift? A Barbie Town house with an elevator. God I loved that house and played with it for hours!!

What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Family and time spent together.

What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pecan Pie with whipped cream, real whipped cream!

What is your favorite tradition? Baking Christmas cookies which we did on Sunday. Also having a really nice dinner on Christmas Eve and then we go to the 7:30 Mass at a little church in our parish that is out in the middle of nowhere. We usually do alot of hillwalking during Christmas and it is becoming more and more of a tradition.

Which do you prefer, Giving or Receiving? Now honestly, what self respecting adult would say receiving LOL!!!! Giving of course, Christmas is all about children. When we lived in the United States we bought more gifts for the Toys for Tots Campaign and families that were on the Giving Tree at our church and office but they don't do that here -- I really miss that type of community spirit.

What is your favorite Christmas Song? Silent Night. There are sooo many, Silent Night was the first song that entered my mind when I read this question.

Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? I used to love candy canes but they don’t have them over here or at least where I shop they don’t carry them. I like them but have learned to live without as usual!

Ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes, several years ago we received an over abundance of Christmas tins of chocolates and when people would stop by we simply gave them the tin that was left by the previous guest!!!! It was embarrassing to have people show up and they would give you a bottle of wine or chocolates -- so I was forced to improvise!!!

Christmas Quilt update No. 3

2008-12-18T07:11:00.000Z

Moving quite quickly on this gem of a quilt!! First let me just say that this has been very quick and not exactly the most interesting quilt. I am more of a traditionalist when it comes to my work, I love working on quilts that are challenging and intricate -- this one does not fall into that category.

I like it for its practical purpose but it is not a beauty!!!!

I was thinking about Christmases from my childhood and I realized that some of the little knick knacks that I remember as a child were just that, little knick knacks that were probably purchased at the five and dime yet they were so special and when you see them now you grow all sentimental because they remind you of your childhood and the excitement of Christmas. I have spent years collecting beautiful and expensive tree ornaments, yet it is the old beat up ones that I love the most. Although this quilt was not very difficult and lacks visual appeal, I can guarantee you that in 40 years time my children will be fighting over who inherits it LOL!!!!!

Today I am going to finish up the back, most of it was done last night, and then add some borders. Hopefully tomorrow I can put the layers together and pin it. This will most certainly be done by Christmas. I figured out the final cost of this quilt will be around $60 or less since I won't be using all of the 3 yards of fabric for the borders. And I am happy to report that there was little to no scraps left over, the entire Jelly roll and Layer cake were used. Waste not, Want not.....!!!!

Oh and before I forget, my DD was out in the field visiting Baby and her twins several times yesterday afternoon!!!! She is over the moon, I hope she doesn't get to attached to them. Knowing her she will convince FarmerBoy to change out the Rams and keep Baby's little ones for breeding as well. Before you know it we will have a pet farm!!!!!

Bye and keep smiling!!!!

Baby has two Babies!!!!!

2008-12-17T12:43:00.000Z

You must be thinking, this woman has way too much time on her hands???!!!

I have the pleasure of announcing that the first of our lambs arrived this morning!!! And to make the moment even more special, the twin lambs are the offspring of my daughter's pet ewe! Her name is Baby, she was orphaned at birth and we hand reared her. The year baby was born we had 7 pet lambs and she was the only girl lamb or for you farm gals out there a ewe lamb. Our children were allowed to pick a lamb and they would receive the financial benefits when the lamb was sold but only if the bottle fed and cared for them. My little girl of course picked the only girl lamb and the boys picked ram lambs or for you city girls - boy lambs!!

When the lambs were sold there were alot of tears, hysteria and mayhem. FarmerBoy had to actually bring one of the boy lambs back from the factory because one son was so upset. All the farmers were having a good chuckle about the pickle he was in, probably were there once themselves. The hardest lesson to teach children on a farm is that the animals are raised for a purpose. That is why we take such good care of them, they are part of our livelihood.

Our daughter is the smart one in the group, she kept baby for breeding. She received no financial reward that summer but FarmerBoy promised that one day she will reap many rewards. Last year Baby lost her lamb at birth, FarmerBoy and I were on the verge of tears that night. We had to do surgery on her out in the field at night with lamps. It was soo sad.... Now look, here they are!!!!!

DD will be home from school soon and once she hears that Baby had twins you can bet she will be out there chatting away to them before sundown.
They are soooo cute, not the smartest animals but cute.
You can tell that Baby was a pet, she let me get so close to her and her children and never once got anxious.

Bye and keep smiling!!!!!

Christmas quilt update!!!

2008-12-17T09:14:00.000Z

This has been my challenge! I am making a quickie Christmas quilt, not an heirloom and knowing my children there will be food stains, something that will be cute but very utilitarian!!!

I bought a jelly roll and layer cake of Mary Engelbreit's Isn't Christmas Jolly? fabric while in the states. I tossed in a coordinated panel and three yards of fabric, all on sale making this even more enjoyable!!!!! I have been struggling with what to do with it, tick tock Christmas is coming and another project is sitting left undone. As my daughter says easy peasy lemon squeezey, keep it simple. I cut the layer cake up into 4 1/2" squares, the jelly roll was cut up into 8 1/2" strips and 4 1/2" strips. Split the squares into two separate piles. Take one pile of squares and coordinate with 2 41/2" strips to each square and sew to opposite sides of said square!! Next pile do the same and then add the 8 1/2" strips to the 2 remaining opposite sides of the square. Lay them out and aim for a 52 1/2" strip.

Now I have to figure out the placement of the panel. I am making this quilt reversible, not using backing. I have enough blocks to do the front and back because I am using the panel in the middle of the front. I should have enough yardage to do a border on both sides and a bias binding. I am flying by the seat of my pants on this project so hopefully it will turn out alright!!!!

It is cold and wet here in my part of Ireland right now, a perfect day for quilting. I want to light a fire before the children get home from school but I am too lazy to go out side and fill my coal bucket.... I wonder where FarmerBoy is?????? Funny how he shows up whenever I'm cooking lunch and then very quietly disappears again, hmmm!!!! Maybe if I burn my cinnamon candle he will reappear looking for dessert -- then beg and plead with him to go outside and get my coal!!! Or maybe I should appeal to his male ego and play the meek and mild damsel in distress, throw in a few whimpers (what???? my daughter does it all the time and she has him wrapped around her little finger!!!!), maybe that will work!!!!

Oh and by the way, those are FarmerBoy's shoes in the window in the last picture. We really do run a first class operation here contrary to what you might see in some of these pictures!!!!!

Bye and keep smiling!!!

Back in the Saddle!!!

2008-12-15T09:36:00.000Z

Good Morning!!!! After taking 3 prescription medications over the past several days, I am glad to say that I am almost back in the saddle!

On this bitter cold December morning I am working on a Christmas quilt, my friend Rosie is warming up the fabric for me!! I picked up this Mary Engelbreit Christmas Fabric while in the States in October. Jelly Roll and Layer Cake.

I am doing something very quick and requires very little thinking. Last night I cut it all up and started chain piecing at lightening speed. I want something so simple that I can get it pieced, quilted and bound before the end of the week so that it can be enjoyed during Christmas.

Over here in Ireland everything shuts down during the week between Christmas and New Years, with of course the exception of most stores. Starting on Christmas eve and running until New Years there are nonstop movies on the telly and we tend to just hang out for the week watching movies going for walks either up in the mountains or along the coastline (lucky us we have the best of everything!!)

Food also plays a huge role!!! Lots of Turkey and ham, Christmas cake which is a really heavy fruit cake with marzipan icing, Christmas pudding with custard and candy... lots of cadbury chocolate!

My children and I are going to start making our traditional Christmas cookies later this week. I am becoming quite well known for my cookies, it is not a tradition here which is nice because giving them as gifts makes it all the more special.

I hope you are all getting on well with your Christmas preparations and don't get too stressed -- we certainly don't in this house!!!!

All the best and keep smiling!

Sick Note

2008-12-11T18:44:00.000Z

I am really trying to make an effort at being a good blogger!!! However, I am so sick right now that I am filled with meds and have been ordered to stay in bed. That is not a problem since the medications are making me sleepy! FarmerBoy insisted that I go to the doctor this morning since I now have a bad fever and was up coughing all night. According to the Doc I am one step away from being hospitalized. Oh dear!!!!!

I am leaving you with this picture of our sheep and the fields behind our home, lovely isn't it.....

Hopefully I will be back soon with some more quilty projects that are sitting on my desk!

Bye and keep smiling!!!!

Intro to My Neighborhood!!!

2008-12-06T15:23:00.000Z

Please note that I tried for hours to get the slide show imbedded in this message and I just could not get it to do what I wanted it to do!!!!!! Soooo, the slide show that accompanies this posting is below in the previous post!!!!

FarmerBoy and I have been going back and forth for about 2 years on how we should proceed with our Bed & Breakfast. Should I give it up and get a job? Should we expand it in a different direction offering something more than just B&B??? What to do, What to do????

Well, these past few months the questions seem to be answering themselves. We are outdoors type people, we love walking the beaches and mountains that surround us. Our farm provides us with ample outdoor time and all of us enjoy spending time together either working or simply cycling/hill walking. When FarmerBoy lost his job in October and the downturn in the economy was going to prove difficult for me to get work we decided that it was either now or never to change our lives for the better. We have met with a few people and have spent time talking to people in the know and we are going to take a leap of faith and just do it!!!!!

We are in the process of starting up a Cycling and Hill Walking Holiday here in the Sunny Southeast of Ireland. We have a gorgeous home and we enjoy entertaining guests so why not combine our love of the outdoors and our hospitality business!!!! Sounds good in theory, but will it work???? Today I took my camera along as we rambled about up in the Blackstairs Mountains, we chose the car since I have a fabulous cold that won't give up!!

Here are some photographs of one of our cycling routes, you can see from the photos how quickly the weather can change. I am working with someone on developing a new website, one with lots of bells and whistles!!!!! My mission is to get loads and loads of photos of where we walk and cycle so that our future guests can be wowed by the spectacular beauty of the Wexford, Wicklow and Carlow areas. Wexford and Carlow are seriously overlooked by tourists since they are heavy agricultural areas, but the plus side to that is there are no tourist traps and you see the real Ireland!!!!! I should have to finished quilts to show you tomorrow or Sunday! Bye and keep smiling!!!!

Welcome to My Neighborhood

2008-12-06T15:20:00.001Z

Baby Quilt Finished!

2008-12-06T00:21:00.000Z

This little quilt has been sitting on my desk for months waiting for one simple thing!!! The binding!! I wasn't terribly pressed to get it done because I hadn't seen the mom for a while although I knew that I would see her soon. You know the kind of friendship that just pops up here and there, no pressure, just a happy go lucky type of friendship.

I was under severe pressure tonight to get this done (seeing the friend tomorrow), I sewed that little binding on so fast and then instead of hand stitching it down the back I flipped it over and did it by machine.....and boy did I botch it up!!!! Oh well, there is no turning back now. I know that she is going to love it and I know it will be well loved.

The fabric is a collection of Lakehouse Fabric and the pattern was from a McCall's Quilting Magazine and I don't have it in front of me so I'm not sure what issue.

I have sewed the binding on the last quilt that I showed you and I will be hand stitching that Sunday evening.

It is very late and I must get my beauty sleep, much to do tomorrow and hopefully I will have some more to share!!

Bye and keep smiling!!!!

At last a Binding!

2008-12-03T20:29:00.000Z

My favorite stage in making a quilt is the binding. I have just received this quilt back from being longarm quilted and now I am cutting strips for the binding. I am using the red that you see in the quilt blocks for the binding. I love this fabric and I have made two quilts and a wall hanging from all the fat quarters and yardage that I collected.

I must say that I am particularly proud of this quilt. I designed it myself and spent a great deal of time coming up with the final fabric choices. It will be appearing in the next issue of Irish Quilting Magazine, the February issue, with the pattern and I 'm sure that the picture will be much better than this!!

I have been very sick the past week, in fact FarmerBoy is worried that I might end up with pneumonia. Hopefully it will pass within the next couple of days. Anywho, my little quilt over there might just be entered into a quilt contest at the local agricultural show this summer - I'm not really into competition but it might be fun to enter the local show.

Lots going on here at the farm. We will be lambing pretty soon and since FarmerBoy no longer has a job, it looks like it will be a bit easier for me this winter. We are very busy writing a business plan which involves our B&B and cycling and hill walking. Since we are dependent on tourism and that is going to take a huge hit this coming summer I pray that we manage to get enough business to help get us through next winter. FarmerBoy and I are doing what we do best and that is keeping our heads down and plowing ahead, thankfully we have each other to lean on and that makes all the difference.

Bye and keep smiling!!!!

Getting closer to a finish!!!

2008-11-29T12:26:00.000Z

I have no idea what just happened, but I just finished a post and it disappeared!!! Man that makes me mad!!!!!!

Anywho, my fine assistants were outside this morning inspecting all the frost. It is bitter cold here right now, no where near as cold as when I was growing up in New England but cold enough. We don't use our central heating unless absolutely necessary (you can see your breath upstairs it is so cold!!!!), rather we use our fireplaces to heat our family room/kitchen. A fire is started first thing in the morning and we keep it going all day. There is nothing more cheerful than a roaring fire on a cold winter day.

I worked diligently on Ciara's quilt and have just one butterfly to applique on the upper right corner of the quilt. While standing at a distance from the quilt I noticed that you can't see the applique because the fabric is so intense!!! Oh dear, we will just have to live with that. The wee ones won't mind!

I was thinking last night that you might be able to make one of these quilts with a layer cake. I used 21 Fat Quarters and the I was able to get two quilts from that amount so a layer cake might just do it. If that is the case then that would be a fairly inexpensive option for making a quick gift for someone. Of course you would need to be careful cutting since you would need every inch of fabric. I came up with this quick pattern because I wanted something that would show off the adorable fabrics and that would resemble a crazy patchwork quilt that appeared to have little pattern. I am not sure if I achieved what I set out to do but then that is what quilting is all about. The journey is more interesting and fun then the final result. I am usually so tired of the fabric by the time I finish with something that I don't always enjoy the final result until some time has passed.

Here is a close up of Ciara's name appliqued. Now I have to cut the borders and get them sewn on, machine quilt it and last but not least the binding... I am setting a goal to have all of this done by next weekend (personally I think that is a bit ambitious). Let's see what happens!

I am off to do some housework, if you saw the beloved boys bedrooms you would recommend that I use a shovel and wheelbarrow -- disgusting is being kind!!!!!

Bye and keep smiling!

Block of the Month

2008-11-27T10:04:00.000Z

The Block of Month that I've been working on is pictured over there to the left!!! The middle block in the second row is the only problem but I think I might be able to solve the problem.

I have mentioned this BOM before, it is the Mystery Designer BOM with the Fat Quarter Shop. The fabric is Peace on Earth. I have another 6 months left and I am keeping up with this club unlike some of my Applique BOMs.

Here is the block that arrived the other day and I put it together last night!! This is going to be a beautiful quilt when it is done. If I get a chance this weekend I might pull out the Finishing kit and see about doing some cutting.

Off to my quilt club/gathering tonight. Maybe I will take my camera along for some photos, although I don't think the ladies will want to be photographed but some of their quilts probably won't object!!!!!

Bye and keep smiling!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

2008-11-26T15:37:00.000Z

From me and all my friends here on the Farm, to all our family and friends in the United States - Have a Great Thanksgiving!!!! This has to be the toughest day of the year for all us ex-pats, it will be just another day but I and my family will be talking about all that we are thankful for!!!!!!
These pictures are truly disgraceful but then I am always on the other side of the camera!!!!!!! Tsk, tsk, tsk... I feel a diet coming on!!!!

Baby Quilt Start

2008-11-26T15:18:00.000Z

Today I decided to make a start on little Ciara's quilt! I have all the small squares all sewn together and matched up with the other various squares to make up the first 1/4 of the quilt.

Tonight I will piece all of these pieces together and hopefully by the end of the week I should have the quilt top finished. After that I will begin to work a little magic in the applique department!!!!

So what do you think of the black??? I think this is going to be very cool for a little girl. It is probably a bit much for a new born baby but then babies grow very fast and this will be too cute for a little girl.... at least I hope so.

Sometimes it can be difficult making a quilt for someone else, you're never quite sure if you have really picked the colors that they will like. And worse case scenario, they may not like quilts and it gets tossed into the linen press....
Here is the right side of the quilt. I will update you as soon as I get the middle section done. I think the women in my quilt group were right when they recommended that I mix in some of the pink and orange.

Bye and keep smiling!!!!!

Quilt for Ciara

2008-11-24T11:47:00.000Z

Here is a peek at the next quilt. A couple of weeks ago I showed you a quilt I did for FarmerBoy's grandneice!!! Yes, his nephew had twin girls and I decided that it would be nice to give them each a quilt. The first quilt was pink and orange. The fabric is Lakehouse by Holly Holderman, it came in two colorways which was perfect for this project.

Little Ciara is going to have the purple and black!!!!! Yikes, did I say black!!!!!
I took the fabric to my quilting group and got the opinions of many women and we all decided that it would be stunning but I do need to add some of the pink and orange to lighten it up. So here is the result of my cutting.

I designed this quilt myself and it is super easy, just a lot of cutting and you can add some appplique to spice it up and draw your eye. This is going to be really pretty and the best part is that I will have enough for a third and fourth quilt for my little sidekick's room!!! Not bad for about 40 fat quarters...

The only problem that occurred while organizing this was typical of my stupidity!!! I had everything laid out on my big cutting mat which was sitting on my bed. I organized all of the different sizes and colors into piles for separate quilts -- keeping everything balanced. I would like to mention at this point that I have an antique four poster bed that is very high. I picked up the mat and started to turn so that I could put it in a safe spot and that is when the corner of the mat hit one of the posts, the mat bent downward and off slid all the fabric!!!!!!!! I could be heard in three counties, the language being rather colorful to say the least....... Now I have to sit down and reorganize it again!!!

I am hoping to get this done soon since I have so many quilts that need doing and some have deadlines. I also have a few patterns that need writing up and I haven't even given any thought to Christmas yet. I need more hours in my day....

Bye and keep smiling!!!!

Holiday Update!!

2008-11-19T12:19:00.000Z

Well, our trip is behind us and we had a great time!!! Here are just a few pictures of a walk on one of the local beaches near the home where I grew up!!! This particular beach is bordered by a private golf course.

Connecticut is a beautiful state and if you ever have a chance to visit it you really should.

This was a very difficult trip for me personnally, the night before I left my husband was informed that his job was being made redundant. I held off from telling the children, no need to ruin their holiday. I however was really torn, part of me didn't want to go -- how can you justify an expensive holiday when your financial rug has been pulled out from underneath you. So off we went and tried to enjoy ourselves as best as possible.

The children had 12 days of eating all sorts of fabulous foods that are not available here in Ireland. Freshly pressed apple cider, DS#1 drank an entire bottle (about 1 litre) in one sitting!!!! Ice Cream sundays with sliced bananas, cookies, candy, pizza and of course Root beer!!!!! My mother opened her big mouth one night and told them about how their great grandmother used to love root beer floats. Well, you know what happened next don't you??!!!! Vanilla ice cream was bought and that evening after dinner we were making root beer floats!!! For those of you that don't know what I am talking about, here is the recipe. Two scoops of vanilla ice cream in a nice tall drinking glass and then pour root beer soda over it!!!!

We had a 12 day food feast!!!! My three kiddos were also in love with foot long hot-dogs, they just could not have enough of those.

The three kiddos were totally over the moon about Halloween, we brought back about 10kg of candy - disgusting but good!!! Another observation that they made was how friendly everyone is! They were a bit taken aback one day when a man opened the door for us has we approached a shop door, he held the door open and said hello and was very friendly and then he went on toward his car. DS#1 turned and said to me, "why are people so friendly here?". I don't like to run down the country I live in, I am a guest here after all, but there is a friendliness and politeness that exists in the US that you don't even come close to over here. People you don't even know talk to you for no reason when you are out and about. When you are shopping and the order has been rung up, the clerk smiles and tells you the total, and when all is finished they say thank you and wish you a pleasant day!!! I know that Americans are made fun of "have a nice day"!!! but to be honest with you it is really nice to have someone treat you with friendliness after you have just spent money in their establishment rather than the treatment you get over here. I shop here and they don't even tell you the total, you don't even get a smile or a hello and god forbide NO ONE ever says thank you!!! Sorry for that little tirade but it was especially noticeable on this trip.

Anyhoo, we are back home and Farmerboy was sooo delighted to have us back. He was very lonely and the pets just weren't cutting it as companions. They are not very good conversationalists!!!

I did do some quilty shopping!!!! Nothing very exciting, just alot of necessary instruments. I bought alot of rulers of various sizes, needles, thread (a massive amount of thread!!!) and of course fabric. I didn't buy as much fabric as I had originally planned but enough bits and pieces to make the coming winter enjoyable.

I have a pattern complete for the next issue of Irish Quilting Magazine and a few more in the works. I am enjoying coming up with my own creations versus using patterns, a nice challenge!! I do however have a few BoMs and kits that I do need to finish up and/or start.

As I write this I am feeling very nostalgic for home especially since next week is Thanksgiving. Even though the next few months are going to be very difficult for us financially, I am very thankful that I have such a wonderful family. Three great kids and a wonderful husband. We always pull together in times of difficulty and we have plans for the farm that involve eco-tourism and cycling/walking so the future is looking good. I just hope people continue to come to Ireland for their holidays.

Bye and keep smiling!!!

The Colors of New England

2008-10-27T00:28:00.000Z

When you live so far from home, you often forget the little things. Here are two pictures that I took the other day while my little sidekick and I went out for a walk. Oh, how I miss New England in the Autumn!!! The colors are soooo beautiful and I love the crisp morning air. These pictures don't do justice to this part of the world but just let your imagination fill in the blanks!!!

We have been busy and yes I have managed to do some fun quilt supply purchasing!!!!!! Remember FarmerBoy is at home and not here to remind me of the budget!!!!!

My children have fallen in love with Apple Cider (not the hard stuff!!) and my DS#1 has eaten half of a pumpkin pie!!!! His grandmother was horrified that he was able to manage it all. He has also become enamored with American style football, sitting with his grandfather watching games all weekend.

I will keep you posted!!!

Keep Smiling and I will have more tomorrow!

Bon Voyage!!

2008-10-20T18:56:00.000+01:00

Bon Voyage folks!!!! I am off to see the parents in Connecticut and do some leaf peeping!!! My three travel companions are counting down the hours now, the countdown has been going on for about 30 days. To say I am relieved that the day is finally here is two fold, a bit of rest and no more count downs!!!!

Here is a picture of the three amigos on top of our local castle, yes you heard me correctly!!! Ferns Castle sits in our village and is directly behind the school. When the weather is nice and the children have earned a break their teachers take them on a tour of the castle, How fun is that!!!! Ferns Castle is one of the most historic sites in Ireland and it is what you call a hidden treasure. I could go on and on about the history of area and the significance of Ferns to Gaelic Ireland, but this is a blog about quilting so I won't go there!!! If you are travelling to Ireland be sure to put this on your itinerary and book your B&B with me and I will give you all the local details!!!! I will update you all on my trip to the States when I get back and I am sure that I will have loads of goodies to share with you!!!!!!

Have a great two weeks people!!!!

WARNING!!!!!

2008-10-16T10:34:00.000+01:00

Warning!!!!! Do Not Cut Fabric While Watching A Movie!!!!!!

As you can see over there to the left, I do actually quilt even though I don't always show you what I am working on! I have a few things brewing but I can't reveal them, this however is a BoM (block of the month) that I am doing with the Fat Quarter Shop. It is the Designer Mystery Block of the Month using Peace on Earth Fabric by Three Sisters for Moda. God that is a mouthful!!!!!

The first 4 blocks went easy peasy, last night I found my mojo and was working away while watching the movie Atonement on my laptop (great movie!!). Well, I was not really paying attention and I may have been slightly careless with the cutting which means that the block is not quite up to snuff!!!!!! Every block measures 12.5", but not that one!!! What am I going to do??? Should I look for some fabric while in the US???? Should I leave it and try to stretch it when I go to put the whole thing together??? The block is coming in at 12 - 12 1/4 (mostly the latter), not my best work.....

I pledge to never watch tv or any other media while cutting again, tsk tsk tsk!!!!

Bye and keep smiling!!!!!

Slàinte!!!!!

2008-10-15T16:20:00.000+01:00

Okay everyone, I want you all to listen up!!!!! (I sound like a mom don't I!!!!) A very good friend of mine (some of you have been reading her blog) Sherry is nearing the finish line and is about to launch the first issue of Irish Quilting!!!! Sherry has been working feverishly over the past few months and the end is in sight, all of us who know her are sooo excited for her, she is presenting us quilters here in Ireland with a venue to display our work and a resource for future quilters on this Emerald Isle. The photography will take your breath away, the quilts are travelling all over this beautiful Island to be photographed in some of our most scenic areas. So please, please, please watch out for it and buy yourself a copy!!!!!

Before I head off to visit my family for a couple of days, I wanted to give a verry public shout out to Sherry and thank her for allowing my two quilts to be included in her magazine. There are stories behind both of those quilts and how they came in to being and then showing up in Irish Quilting. I was chatting with Sherry today and we both had a right chuckle over her anxiety and excitement for the next two weeks and my disgracefully high credit card bill which of course is all quilt related, the UPS man has been making alot of deliveries to my parents house lately!!!!!!! Let's just say the children's piggy banks are going to be surprisingly empty by the end of the day!!!!!! The excitement in Sherry's voice was palpable!!!!!

There are many talented patchwork quilters here in Ireland. When I first moved here (almost eight years ago) I looked for quilt shops or even fabric shops, thinking it would be a nice way to meet other women and get better settled. There was nothing...... I forged ahead and we built our home and set up doing Bed & breakfast. I started reading blogs about quilting and searching out online suppliers of fabric and notions that would ship overseas. There was nothing here in Ireland. There were no groups advertised, no where to take classes and worse no where to buy fabric. This is how I met Sherry!!!! You have to work very hard overhere to get involved in quilting, it is an underground activity that desperately wants to move above ground. Everything is word of mouth and it can take forever before you speak to the one person who knows somebody who has a cousin that does quilting!!!!! I hope that this magazine will help showcase some of the very talented Irish women on this Island!!!!!!

So, Cheers Sherry, to you from the bottom of my heart:

Slàinte agus go raibh mìle maith agat!!!!

***** Please note that my accent mark is backwords and I couldn't find the proper one on the keyboard, many apologies to those of you who speak Irish and who will notice my mistake!!!! My children pointed it out immediately, these children never stop ganging up on me!!!!!!

Just Another Weekend!

2008-10-12T14:58:00.000+01:00

First I would like to show you the gorgeous sunset we had last night, all three of my children were outside mesmerized by the color of the sky! I just had to take some photos to share. This past weekend was the end of a very busy 6 weeks. I had more business in the past 6 weeks than June and July combined!!! Not really but pretty close.... The tourist season is winding down and exhaustion has set in. Last night there were no guests in the house and I was extremely grateful for that. I have alot of work ahead of me this week in an effort to get this house back to proper order!!!

The bottom picture is what a small corner of my sunroom looks like right now. The pile of sheets need to be folded and pressed, these are the guest sheets that have accumulated over the past few days!!!! Yes I said days not weeks!!!!! In amongst the sheets is a baby quilt that is waiting to be bound and given to the new mother (well, she was a new mother 6 months ago -- I'm slightly behind!!!). On the table is laptop, magazines (quilting of course), my DS#1 Egyptian project and my sewing machine and basket of tools. I have no guests on my calendar and plan on spending the next week catching up on all my jobs.
I might even finish up a quilt or two or at least give it my best!

All the best and keep smiling!!!!

Memory Lane

2008-10-08T14:40:00.000+01:00

I thought for today I would take a trip down memory lane!!! You see I am heading off to the US of A very soon and these quilts are going with us to their new homes.
The first quilt over there on the left is for my mother and father. It was done with Roman holiday fabric from Moda and was a kit from the Fat Quarter Shop last Christmas. All of my quilty pals say that it is not very Christmas and could be used year round. I am sure they will enjoy it and if they don't then I will take it back!!!!! Don't put it past me!!!

These two quilts are going to be winging their way across the US to the beautiful Pacific Northwest. The light color quilt was one of the first quilts I showed on this blog way back in January. Hopefully my neice will enjoy this quilt and will look pretty in her room. And if not then I will take it back.... I mean business people!!!!!!!!

The Thimbleberries quilt with the trees will be hopefully gracing the back of my sister's sofa in her living room. They live in Washinton state, close to the Canadian border near Vancouver, the thimbleberries will fit in with their enviroment perfectly!!!!! If not then you know that I will take it back!!!!

I love my quilts and grow very attached to them so I only like sharing with people that I am pretty sure will appreciate them!!!

We are all very excited about our trip to the states, the only sad bit is that FarmerBoy has to stay at home and take care of the animals. He has no more holiday time left this year and what few days he does have needs to be saved for Christmas. It will be tough not having my shopping monitor with me, ohhhhh myyyyy what shall I do!!!!!

My children are sooooo excited to see their grandparents and indulge in some purely American food. This holiday will be all about the food!!!!! Their first request was to ask my mother to have root beer and some of that really good danish. They also want to go to the Donut Inn for chocolate donuts on the first morning, do ya think we might have a problem with hyperactivity later in the day or a serious sugar crash!!! Yikes!!!! High on their list is pizza, hot dogs (the real ones not like the Irish ones), cheddar cheese popcorn and last but not least Candy Corn!!!!! They can thank me for that one, I can't wait to get my hands on some Brachs Candy Corn, it's all I can think about.

High on their list of activities is a walk at the woods, go to the playground at the beach (personally they are a little to old for this but I will indulge them so that they move on), ice skating rink and last but not least Toys r Us. They left the US when the oldest was 5 and the youngest wasn't quite 2, whenever they go to visit they are overwhelmed with the sizes of the stores and the amount of choices available. We are looking forward to a great holiday. It has been two years and our visit is long overdue!
Bye and keep smiling!!!!!!

Come Visit my Workshop!!!!!

2008-10-02T12:49:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my little nest! This is where the magic happens, or rather where I wished it happened!!! One of the greatest aspects of blogging is that you get a glimpse of other people's lives. I love it when other quilters show off their space and talk about their studios or work areas. This is mine!!!!!

When we had dormer windows put in late last spring, we gained a little extra space and some much needed sunlight. I was "allowed" to claim one of the dormers for myself. Now this little work area is just outside my bedroom door in the hallway. It's not much, but it's all mine....

Next to my desk is a plastic 3 drawer storage unit for my Fat Quarters!!! How convenient that I don't need to get up out of my chair (which by the way is falling apart). Sorry about the sunlight, I usually work with sunglasses on!!!!
I have moved slightly so that you can see the other little nook!!! Behind the fabulous Fat Quarter custom cabinet is my collection of plastic containers and assorted hold all's! Large basket for assorted stuff like glue, some rulers, threads and anything else that can fit. There are two small plastic containers with all of my threads. Keeping watch over all of this is Woody from the infamous Toy Story Saga (he is in for repairs but we pretend he is the guard). Woody is sitting on a plastic container that holds some projects that are in line to be worked on and the plastic container that the basket is sitting on is for my stash. The bottom container is filled with stash!!!! Farmerboy thinks it's old baby clothes....shhhh!!

This little attractive arrangement is for stash, charm square and jelly roll collections and scraps. The purple baskets have my Thimbleberries stash and other assorted fabrics. I have two types of stash, both are equally unhealthy!!!! I buy fabric online when it is on sale and this is randomly purchased, I try to purchase a variety of colors, textures and print sizes. I also collect fabrics from a certain collection or designer. For example, I love Three Sisters designs from Moda. I have a nice litte stash of their fabrics as well as April Cornell fabrics. I am a huge fan of Lakehouse fabrics and enjoy collecting that year in and year out.

My space is small and cramped, but it is all mine and sure beats the kitchen table where I have been for quite some time. Someday when all my chicks have flown the nest I will have a spare room to set up in and I am sure I will be missing the little chicks more than enjoying my bigger space. So I am happy and grateful for my little hole in the wall!!!!!
Plus this is my view!!!!!!!!!! Can't beat that!!!!!!

Have a good one and keep smiling!!!!!

Slowly but surely!

2008-10-01T10:13:00.000+01:00

Slowly but surely I make progress on this adorable gift. Yesterday I showed you a small glimpse of this quilt and today I would like to share the applique that I did late last night. Applique can be a bit daunting for me, it's the stitching that makes me tremble not the fusing!!!

I have to do the three borders and then I will get it quilted. Once all of that is done I can start working on the second one.

Have a good one and Keep smiling!!!!

A Little Something!!

2008-09-30T12:59:00.000+01:00

I have been working on so many different things lately, both quilty and otherwise! I have designed this little number for FarmerBoy's Grandniece! FarmerBoy comes from a big family and one of his nephews is the proud father of twin girls. I purchased Lakehouse fabric in two colorways, Pink/Orange and Purple/Black in order to make quilts for the new additions. The quilts will have some applique and are going to be twin size. I know that they are not your typical baby quilts but I didn't want them to have cot size quilts but rather something they can grown into!!!!

My second bit of news is that I am now a card carrying member of the IPS, the Irish Patchwork Society!!! Sherry asked me to join her on her visit to my local chapter in New Ross. How could I deny her the pleasure of my company?! She also introduced me to a former neighbor of hers who coordinates a Thursday evening quilting bee in one of the local community halls. So I joined the ladies in Bree last Thursday and was sooo delighted that I went, it is nice to get out and meet other quilters. I plan on attending every Thursday.

Hopefully I will have the Purple and Black combo ready soon and will share a photo of that. The kiddos are going to be home soon so I need to finish up my sewing and get ready for a little homework time!!!!!

Keep Smiling!

Where does the time go?

2008-09-21T13:55:00.000+01:00

I honestly don't know where the time goes, I want to be a good blogger and I have the best of intentions but somehow I always get waylaid by LIFE!!! I am juggling so many things right now and time just seems to slip away. I have been working on learning EQ6, the quilt design program. I have designed a few quilts (on paper) and actually made a few. We are also going to make some changes in our hospitality business. Presently we are a registered B&B but the tourism business is sliding downward and business was so bad this past summer I was all set to close up shop and start looking for a job. The job market is now the pits and so what do I do??!!!! Well, a few of my friends (quilty friends) have suggested that I start offering quilt and other craft retreats. We are working on improving our B&B website and including retreat information. I need to do some advertising and make some alterations here in the house, minimal. I will keep you all posted as we progress. Hopefully things will settle down soon!

I hope Sherry doesn't get to cross with me but I just wanted to show off a little project that I have just finished for the upcoming premiere issue of Irish Quilting!!!!! A lap quilt that I designed using the Portugal line of fabric from Moda.

It was a bit of a challenge on several levels. First it was a rush job, two week turnaround. Now for some of you that would be a piece of cake but I am also running a Bed and Breakfast single handedly and have been really busy for the past two weeks. I have three children who are involved in sports, music, the Christmas Panto that the local drama society is doing and various other clubs. My children can't pass a sign up sheet without putting down their names!!!!!! Sooooo, two weeks is daunting to say the least. The second challenge was that it had to be done with a charm square and jelly roll and a few yards of fabric. I was not allowed to touch my stash nor was I allowed to purchase or use any of my own Portugal stash!!!! Kinda of like that show where you show up with 3-5 weird food items and a professional chef makes a fabulous meal with it!

I had a few designs that I wanted to try out but the calculations weren't working for me so I had to come up with something new. This line of fabric is really beautiful and I was enjoying myself up until it was time to machine quilt it. Machine quilting is not one of the things I do best. In fact I stink at it and it really shows!!!!! I have a few quilt tops sitting here that need to be quilting and I am gritting my teeth.

I often wonder if a Gracie frame would make my life more enjoyable. I have been hemming and hawing over whether I should purchase one. Does anyone have an opinion on the Gracie frames, the one that you load your own machine onto??? Let me know?
Now onto the usual family business. Over there on the left is our lovely Tom Cat! I am pleased to introduce to you Sammy, aka Samuel Beckett. Sammy is a very pretty kitty and he knows it, he lounges around the sitting room all day long and then spends the night prowling around the fields and farmyard. We have seen lounging about on back country lanes near the neighbors house and sitting high up on the bales of straw in the barn. Sammy has the life and he knows it.
This is Sheila the wonder dog. Sheila loves going in the car and insists on sitting in the front seat as the navigator. Last October she went off with FarmerBoy and didn't come home that night!!! She had gotten out of the car and wandered off, totally not like her. FarmerBoy got in the car and didn't notice her abscence and drove the 12 miles home. Two to three weeks later on Halloween night we received a phone call from the SPCA and Sheila had been found just a few miles from our house. She found a family to take care of her while she made her way home. The family lived several houses away from the children's piano teacher, so Sheila is alot smarter than we ever gave her credit for.

Sheila was our first pet when we moved here to Ireland, she holds a very special place in our hearts!!!

A Boy's Best Friend

2008-08-25T13:32:00.000+01:00

Having grown up with Newfoundland dogs, I couldn't imagine not having some four legged friends in my life! Here is a beautiful picture of middle son and his beloved Sophie. Sophie was abandoned a couple of years ago on a very busy road and made her way up our long laneway. She was in a horrific state and terribly malnourished. She has found a very loving home here on our farm and more importantly she has found her best friend. Middle son and Sophie just adore one another, soulmates.

There is no greater way to teach a child unconditional love than with a pet. Both Farmer Boy and I grew up with pets and so too will our children. It has taught them kindness, patience, loyalty and above all it is better to share your journey in life with a special friend than go it alone. Now if only Farmer Boy would let me get a donkey or two, I really want a donkey!!!!

Summer Holidays are Over!!

2008-08-24T23:28:00.000+01:00

It has been a long time since I last blogged, in fact I just discovered that it was May!!! Yikes, time flies when your having fun. Anywho, I would like to say that I have been busy with my Bed & Breakfast but sadly the tourism industry has been brought to it's knees this year -- my business was down 50%. We had rain every single day here in Ireland, and I mean EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! I had a lovely couple sitting in my dining room one morning, it was pouring outside, calling their airline begging to get on the next flight out. I asked them to take me with them but it was not to be!!

The poor farmers are watching their barley and wheat turn to porridge in the fields, there will be major losses this year. The children are heading back to school a week from tomorrow and they never made it to the beach once this summer. Sooooo, instead of sunning myself this summer and seeing as though I had no guests to entertain, I actually did quite alot of quilting.

Do any of you remember these star blocks??? I used Allspice fabric in a pattern from Heather Mulder Peterson's book - Fat Quarter Cottage (I think). There is a friend of mine up the road in Wicklow who is doing the same pattern with Allspice but with a slightly different color scheme. She has fallen far behind and needs to set a goal of one or two star blocks per night!!!! You know who you are!!!!!
When I started this pattern I thought I would never see the end of it, but I persevered and the end result is at the bottom of this post. I have many things to share over the coming weeks, hopefully I will get back into the swing of things now that school is starting back.

I love this fabric, I love it soo much that it sat in my stash for nine months because I couldn't bear to cut it up. Honestly I think quilters are crazy people!!!! My stash continues to grow and farmer boy is growing very suspicious of the plastic containers that keep appearing in my sewing corner!!!! I am preparing for another famine, a fabric famine!!!!!
Here she is in all her glory!!!! My beautiful quilt is in Rebecca's hands now (my longarm professional friend), it will hopefully be on my bed for Christmas!!! Rebecca is going to long arm this beauty in November, we both have a long list of projects that are of a greater priority so my quilt will have to wait until Rebecca can give it her full attention!!!!

By the way those are my three monkeys over there and our Austrian student Michaela. I taught Michaela how to quilt this summer, I will post a picture of her quilt in the coming days!!!!

I have lots to share and hope you will be back soon!!!!

Keep smiling!

My Beauty!!!

2008-05-27T10:05:00.000+01:00

Sherry and I have a friend named Rebecca. Rebecca is from Australia and is a beautiful quilter, she has purchased a long arm machine and is practicing before she heads off to a Long Arm Summer School. I gave her my "Simplicity" quilt to practice on and look at the pictures. I can't wait to put the binding on!!!

Rebecca did a gorgeous job. Thank you Rebecca!!!

On the homefront there is nothing much going on. The sheep are fairly self sufficient right now, although they will be sheered soon and I will certainly be there to take pictures! The children are all involved in their activities and are anxiously awaiting their summer holidays.

Summer is a far cry away, it is still very cold here and we have had gale force winds since Saturday. The weather is wet and miserable, it feels like October. This did not stop us from having a party here at our house this past weekend and all the usual suspects were there. The comments I have received from everyone is how pleasant and friendly everyone is. The circle grows bigger and bigger and all are welcome. I think the reason we all get on so well is that we are all expats and have a shared experience of being on the outside looking in.
So that is all folks, enjoy these pictures and hopefully I will have more to show soon!

Bye and keep smiling!

Stars and Plumbers!

2008-05-17T17:09:00.000+01:00

This is what I have been doing on the quilting scene lately!!! I have made three sets of each of the color combinations you see here. The quilt that I am working on requires 44 stars. I have enough fabric cut to make close to 180 stars, I am not going to be doing this on my own so don't fret. This is going to be one purdy quilt, I am using the Allspice Fat Quarter bundle and yardage that has been sitting in my stash for not quite a year but getting close to it!!

I have also added a playlist over there on my sidebar with a beautiful song that I fell in love with when I first heard it over on Liberty Star Farm . Hauntingly gorgeous!!

Now, let me tell you what my day has been like. I need to share and I hate to whine but FarmerBoy isn't here so this is my only outlet today. This morning I had a house full of guests and while they were all eating breakfast I was cleaning the kitchen. To properly clean a greasy kitchen you need hot water, really hot water! Guess what? There was no hot water, nada - none to speak of. Could all those guests have used up all that hot water, no way!!!

The boiler isn't working, on a saturday and FarmerBoy is unreachable doing his FarmerBoy thing! I called my ever so faithful plumber and put on my sweetest voice, "Please, Please Please come and fix my boiler...."! Guess where he is??? In the southern most part of our county, playing 18 holes of golf...... Crap!!! What am I going to do?????

I have a house full of people tonight, no hot water and a massive headache from the stress of it all!!!! So what do I do? I ignore all the problems and I play with my blog and catch up on all my favorite blogs!!!! Thank you for listening, I feel so much better now!

There are a couple more close up pictures of my stars, I think when I am finished here I am going to start working on more stars. Why worry about something that I can do nothing about and when the going gets tough the tough get sewing!!!! LOL

I love these two as well as the brown floral above with the small print background.

Thankfully all of my guests are Irish and I will simply offer them a discount and use of my electric hot shower (which by the way I have to go clean). They are here for the motorcross races, all men and we all know that men can be very easy peasy about stuff!!!! Heck, if I look pathetic enough maybe one of them will look at my boiler. That sounds kinda of, wait I hear a truck....could it be, YES its the plumber!!!!!!!

What a great guy, he fixed the boiler. Yippee, we have hot water!!!!! He is my hero!!!!!

So long!!!!

Finally - A quilt!

2008-05-03T17:02:00.000+01:00

I bet you all thought I had forgotten what this blog is all about!!! I really want to focus more on the quilting than the family but sometimes they don't let me quilt. So my revenge is to talk about them and they don't always appreciate that. (Evil laughter ringing through my empty house)

This first picture does not do this fabric justice. The fabric is "Simplicity" by 3 Sisters From Moda. I can't get enough of it, I want more and more and more. It is the sweetest fabric and so delicate and cheerful, it brings a smile to my face just working with it.

I also think I have mastered the whole charm square dilemma, a charm square is a 5" precut square and you usually get one square for each of the fabrics in the designers line. So in this fabric line I received 48 or 50 charm squares. The charm square are cut with a pinking scissor or whatever they use in the factory. I sewed the four squares together and then trimmed them down and it worked a "charm"!!!!

The border will hopefully get down tonight and will be ready to be quilted. The pattern is Legacy "Butter Charm and Jelly" (I have to double check that). I have another quilt all cut up and ready to piece. Another cute fabric from Moda, Swell by Urban Chicks. Hopefully I will have that ready to show you soon or maybe not, it all depends on how demanding the guests are!!!!

Bye for now and hoping to be back soon!!!

The Sound of Silence!!!

2008-05-03T16:43:00.000+01:00

I know that I have been a very bad blogger, life just somehow keeps getting in the way. Silence has decended on my home, no guests for the past several days. I have one more free night and then I start all over and go straight through until the end of the month. This time of year is very difficult, working 18 hours a day and caring for the family takes first priority and then everything falls where it falls!! The other night we all went for a walk in the woods behind where we live, the kiddos wanted to show me two things. First the Blue Bells!!!!! The entire wood is carpeted with blue bells, the scent is incredible. The second item on their list was a swimming hole, actually it's a stream. I look at my children sometimes and realize that they are real country kids, they can't wait until it's hot enough to go swimming in the stream!!! Even FarmerBoy is looking forward to it.

Here is the gang rambling along the path, the local gun club keeps these trails cleared. We all benefit from their hard work, a woman and her horse were out treking and stopped to talk with us. This of course led to a long conversation with our little princess!!! She is desperate for a pony, "everyone has a pony, why can't I"!! FarmerBoy argues with her but she manages to come up with a solution to every obstacle. We have land for grazing, we have barns (just need to build a stall in the barn) and of course she promises to take care of it day and night. Yeah right. Mommy and Daddy will be out their shoveling you know what everyday. Little miss muffit can't feed the dogs and cat without an emotional breakdown!!!!!!! I pacified her by making a promise to take her riding and the two of us will take some lessons together, then and only then will I make a decision. FarmerBoy and I would love to get a pony and horse, I really want a donkey but that is another discussion for another day! We don't think she is ready for the responsibility, time will tell.

If there is anyone out there who is preparing to travel to Ireland within the next couple of weeks, please do me a favor!!! Bring warm weather with you, it is really cold here -- I mean really cold!!

I have quilt pictures to show you but I just noticed that they are missing, I will do another post.

Bye!

Overtired, Overworked and Seriously Underpaid!!

2008-04-27T17:12:00.000+01:00

I have not had a moment's peace in several weeks. Between paying guests and children's activities I have been run ragged. I have been ordering fabric and patterns in the hope that as soon as my student helper arrives from Austria I will have a bit more leisure time!!!

We are growing very concerned about the tourist season, we need the income that I make from Bed and Breakfast to help us get through the winter and the past two winters have been difficult. We (farmer boy and I) have decided that the B&B will close this September and I will return to the workforce (the one outside the home!!!!), it is becoming increasingly difficult to earn a wage and the children are suffering because of the demands on my time. I am soooo excited to be reentering the real world and taking some courses to update my skills, even the children are happy! Of course I promised them a big holiday to Disney World Florida if they pitch in and do their fair share, actually I'm the one who wants to go to Disney and it would be cruel to leave them behind!!! Farmer Boy and I are huge fans of the waterparks, I kid you not we are overgrown children when it comes to water and Disney!!!

Many apologies for not writing, I have been toiling away and barely had enough time to read my emails. I am trying to work out a system this week of cutting fabric for patterns and then putting them in ziplock bags for safekeeping. This hopefully will make it easier to just pick up some piecing when I have a free moment, NOT!!!

So Long and keep smiling!

Sugar n' spice!

2008-04-05T16:17:00.000+01:00

Sugar n' spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of. Our little princess played in her first Camogie match today. She is the little angel all in white with the blue helmut, I tried to center her in each photograph. Just click on the photo to get a better glimpse. What an exciting sport and these under 10 year old girls are no exception. There are no mamby pambies out here on this field. They go after every ball and are aggresive and play like true champions, and yes those are sticks in their hands, or as we call them hurleys.

In Ireland, the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) is the glue that holds every parish together. It is particularly strong out here in the coutryside amongst the Farm boys (and girls). Hurling is the fastest field sport in the world and is very exciting to watch. The hurleys are made from Ash trees and hurt when you get hit with one (the stick not the tree). I wanted to publicly say that there was not one tear shed during this game, however I have been to a few boys' matches where there was alot of crying taking place.

The children play hurling and gaelic football in school as part of their physical education program and then play for the local club from end of March to October. It is a nice way to get to know people in your community as well as get all the local gossip (something the Irish are never short of !!!!) What's funny about going to a girls match versus a boys match is the way the girls interact with one another. When you arrive at the pitch (field) there is alot of hugging and holding hands and fixing hair with the girls. The socks have to be just so and the shirt tucked in just right, I'm sure many of you can relate. With the boys it is a whole different can of beans! The boys will wear dirty uniforms for starters, they don't care what they look like. Thank God for mommy's!!!! The boys also like to test out the strength of the helmuts or shin guards by hitting their friends really hard in those areas with their hurleys to see if the equipment is really doing a proper job. Boys also don't talk to one another as animatedly as girls, they barely say hello and then they talk while kicking rocks all the while making sure you can't hear LOL!!!!!! Girls are very quick to ask if there teammate is okay if they fall or get hit or even an opponent for that matter. Boys will actually taunt one another and if an opponent does something dirty then threats are made.
I also want to note that it was bitter, bitter cold today and the wind was unreal while standing watching this match and I stood with friends on the sidelines the whole time. Farmer Boy and DS2 at half time went and watched the second half from the car. Big Babies!!!!! When my daughter asked where her daddy was I said that he was in the car because he was cold, she shook her head. GIRL POWER or as she says, "Girls rule, boys drool"!!!!!! Please give me strength......

Keep smiling and see you soon!

Finally Something Quilty!!!

2008-03-24T14:49:00.000Z

Finally, I have something quilty to show off. I have been cleaning up a number of projects that I have actually shown before but I thought I would show you one of them. First of all, my lovely assistants are holding up my Thimbleberries quarterly kit. I enjoyed this quilt but I am astonished at the finished size and the fact that this is supposed to be a wall hanging. Farmer Boy and I were laughing at the size of the wall you would need to hang this!!! It is quite large. The children are standing on the sofa and they even commented on how big it was!!

The last time you saw this the borders were missing and it had not been quilted. Here it is all finished and the binding sewn down by hand! Yee Haw!!!

They insisted on a closeup, when the flash goes off they drop the quilt on the floor and race over to see themselves on the camera. Talk about vain!!! LOL And they have been eating chocolate eggs so I am sure there is chocolate on my quilt!!

I used this quilt to try to expand on my machine quilting skills which desperately need some expanding. I am tired of the meandering stitch and spent some time trying other designs - the kind you make up in your head while you are doing it!!!!!!
I started this the other day and had to put it on hold, full up with paying guests for two nights, it is a kit that Farmer Boy bought me for Christmas. It is the Roman Holiday print by Moda, Charm squares. Very easy to do and goes together very fast. I have a couple of complaints regarding this quilt and my dear friends I would like you to bear with me.

My first complaint is that if you were a beginner and had purchased this quilt you would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle half way through this kit. The directions were fairly non-existant when it came to putting the rows together. The yellow half-square triangles were the first thing I noticed, they didn't give you proper directions to cut enough. I had to go back and cut more when I realized the mistake and of course I cursed myself first and then reread the cutting instructions and low and behold it was not my error!!! Also, piecing the blocks together for this style of quilt is tricky for a beginner because you are sewing the rows together on the diagonal and if I hadn't done something similar to this before then I would have been really confused.

The next complaint is the finished size. The width on one side is a half an inch wider than the opposite side. The whole thing is wonky, I have tried to square it up as best I could but it still looks alittle screwey LOL!!!! And that brings me to my next complaint which is more of an observation and question. I don't think I really like working with Charm squares, sometimes things don't seem to measure properly when I am using them. Answer me this, Do you square up your charm squares before you begin a project. Does anyone else have problems with charm squares or is it just me? My problems with the squares are not major and they are great for quick projects but I am not sure whether this is user error or design error!!! Oh well, it is a really cute lap quilt and will look great at Christmas. I will hide the wonky uneven shape, I am quite experienced at hiding mistakes LOL!!!! Now I have to finish the borders and get it quilted.

All the best and keep smiling!!!

The Bunny is Out of the Bag!!

2008-03-19T21:39:00.000Z

A very sad day in our house! Another milestone has been hit and passed, the Easter Bunny is dead.... So is the toothfairy! According to my three little darlings, a discussion has taken place in their bedrooms and they have come to the conclusion that I am the toothfairy as well as the Easter Bunny. However, there is no way that I am Santa Claus. According to DS #1 I am too cheap to be Santa, I would never in a million years give them all the wonderful gifts that they receive on Christmas. Should I be slightly insulted by this, I'm not sure, LOL!!!! The gig is up and I have been found out. So this year the little darlings put in requests for Easter. They wanted the giant Cadbury Eggs and if I could throw in some Cadbury creme eggs they would be very appreciative. Quite matter of fact.

I gave them a right lecture about not telling other children, particularly small children that I am the Easter Bunny. Especially since we are going to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday over at VerrySherry's. How annoyed would those parents be I asked them? Can you imagine the embarrassment, LOL!!!!

I would like you all to take a good look at the bicycle that FarmerBoy fixed up for me and very proudly presented it when all was done!! First of all, it is 50 years old and the tires wobble. Secondly, it is too small (I am 5'11 and this bike is for someone 5'4). There are no brakes and it squeaks something fierce.

When we made our annual camping trip to Co. Kerry this past summer, I refused to ride it. A protest of sorts, my family went off on their bikes (FarmerBoy used the one he fixed up for me) and I walked. We were staying at the caravan/campgrounds on the Muckross Road in Killarney for 8 days and the entrance to Muckross House and the Killarney National Park was just across the road. It was heaven on earth. We were also quite lucky that the weather that week was the best weather of the summer. Just outside the caravan park was a bicycle rental hut and my parents offered to rent the children bikes for the day because their bikes were in pretty bad shape (no brakes, too small - frankly dangerous). Well FarmerBoy was standing firm in his conviction that he had a wonderful bike and that there was nothing wrong with it... While standing at the hut the children were picking out NICE bikes, FarmerBoy was standing there with his 50 year old Raleigh and a group of Americans came up behind us and one of them kept staring at FarmerBoy and his pride and joy! The American said to someone in his group, "Is that what they are renting out" in a tone of absolute disbelief!!!!! We were hysterical, no that is just my husband on his precious antique! You have to see it in person to really appreciate it. There is a wire clothes hanger holding the rear fender on and the front fender rubs against the tire. Feel my pain, please!!!

I have been a very busy gal on the quilting front, but it has been mostly finishing up all of my projects. You know; adding borders, machine quilting and sewing on the bindings. I am half way through a Christmas quilt that FarmerBoy bought for me this Christmas (I bought it with his credit card and wrapped it beautifully I might add - then placed it under the Tree). I have all the blocks done and need to put it all together. Hopefully I will have something to share with you soon.

Take care and keep smiling!!!!

Monkey in the Middle

2008-03-11T16:33:00.000Z

I am a very lucky woman! I live with three great men, one is my husband and the other two are my sons. A big celebration is happening in our house because of one of these fellas. Over there on the left is Farmer Boy and my very special monkey in the middle, DS#2.

DS#2 is the typical middle child, he is between the prince (first born son) and the princess (the only girl who is also the baby). Unlike his siblings he is not an athlete and has always been the slowest at running and could never quite get his coordination together enough to throw a ball let alone catch one. His talents lay in the muscle that resides between the two ears, yes his brain. This little 9 yo will tell you that he wants to be a barrister, he thinks that the wig and black gowns that the men and women wear into court over here are just the coolest. I hope he becomes one, or anything else his heart desires because he is without a doubt smart enough. This little boy has spent many hours watching his brother and sister, watching as they won medals and were honored for their athletic achievements and in the sister's case as an Irish dancer. There have been many tears over his inability to win a medal.

Farmer Boy and I have spent many an hour explaining to him that one day his day will come. DS#2 plays the piano by ear, his piano teacher tells him that he is by far her most talented student. He taught himself to read when he was 4, school comes so easily for this little guy. But what he really wants is to be recognised for being him and he wants a damn medal to show everyone that he is talented too!!!! Well, we got a phone call today, the most exciting phone call ever!!! My little monkey in the middle has won the GOLD MEDAL for the County Wexford Boys Under 10's Art Competition!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is going to the National Competition in May!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost cried when I heard the news. It could not have happened to a more worthy child and he is on cloud 9. There will be 2 medal presentations, one from the local community and one big one for the County. My little baby is bursting with excitement, and we couldn't be any prouder!!!!! And what makes us really proud is that his siblings came out to the car after school and they were just as excited for their brother as if they had won themselves... Quick get me a tissue......

When the Cat is away the Mouse does alot of Damage!

2008-03-08T19:52:00.000Z

Well, I don't even know where to begin!! This morning I awoke at 6:30 to serve breakfast to a lovely Danish couple at 8:00 am, then I had to depart at 9:15 to deliver DS#2 to the County Wexford Art Competition. The location of the competition was southwest of Wexford town so I knew I was going to just hang out and wait for him, what I didn't know was that the children had three hours to complete their drawing!! Yikes, that is alot of time to kill especially when you know that your child is the pokiest child in the world and will use every 180 minutes!!!! Soooooo, at 1:00 pm I am headed home at last. I have an hour and a half to make us lunch and clean the kitchen and then head back out the door. DS#2 has a karate belt test at 3:00 and that is another 2 hours of sitting around watching his nibbs hi-ya the tester, over and over and over. This day is going to be horrendous and on top of it all I don't feel well (stuffy nose, achy, cough and other yucks).

Back up to the coming home at 1:00, are you ready for this???!!!! Farmer Boy, oh brother I want to smack him, is mowing the grass with DS#1 and is giving him lots of instructions. You know, Do as I say not as I do!!!! Farmer Boy came to the steep embankment behind our house and stopped his brand new toy and said to DS#1, "never try to drive down the embankment, you could overturn the mower and get seriously hurt". The ding bat then proceeded to put the mower into drive and went down the embankment, he slammed into our caravan (camper trailer/RV) the hood of the mower is damaged and the fenders on the left side of mower are cracked and hanging off!!!! He is telling me this story will trying not to laugh and waiting sheepishly for me to hit him, which I would like to. Honestly, I think its time for a trade-in!!!! LOL

P.S. DS#1 gives a very funny blow by blow account of the whole incident, I think he may actually have more sense than his father!!!

Christmas at the OK Corral!

2008-03-06T10:51:00.000Z

This is our home last night at 6 pm. Notice that it is getting dark, and the boys are still in their school uniform. Everyone had to have a turn on the new riding mower, that is except me. Remember my motto, try not to learn too many things because before long it will be your job!!!! I believe that the more demure I am, the less likely I will have to cut the grass, use the chainsaw, chop wood, and so on! Farmer Boy as usual almost killed himself, he accidently threw the gear into forward and the machine lurched forward in the trailer and the entire horse box and car banged forward. Yikes!!! Farmer Boy asked sidekick to go get him a hat (the temperature was plunging) and she returned with her grandfather's hat which of course made this picture all the more irresistable. Now the true test will be, how much nagging do you think I will have to do to get the grass cut???? Our oldest son has been assigned the job for the summer, no more free rides sonny boy. I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a matter of weeks!!!! FYI - in Ireland the grass mowing season is essentially all year round. Once or twice between November and March, then every week or 10 ten days the rest of the year.

On the quilting front, there is of course nothing new! I have made plans for an ex-pat quilty/craft day for the end of March. Quilting is not much of a hobby here or at least not like at home in the US. As a matter of fact I was poorly disappointed when I moved here over 6 years ago that there was no where to buy fabrics or yarn or anything. If you love doing crafts, Ireland is rather barren and you need to bring your stuff from somewhere else!! Another problem with this gorgeous country is that if you are an "outsider" life can be very lonely at times, I think clannish is the appropriate term LOL!!! Don't get me wrong, I love living here, but I don't have an American Club in the village where I can go visit all the other ex-pats like Farmer Boy had in the US. Our entire social circle was Irish, my beloved hubbie had no American friends in the US unless they were mine!!! Hence the ex-pat quilty/craft day!!! I have made it my mission in life to meet and find as many ex-pats as I can and form a nice supportive circle of people. My two dearest friends here in Ireland are yanks and I am so grateful that I have met them, sometimes they are the sunshine on some very dark and dreary winter days! I realize now how important it is to have that oasis. My Irish friends are wonderful, I know if I needed them they would be there in a heartbeat. But the girls from home really have walked in my shoes and I in theirs. So it is only natural that I combine the two. Now the point of this long winded paragraph is, if you are a lurker (and I know you're there I can hear you breathing - my kids say that when playing hide n' seek) and you just happen to be an ex-pat from any country and living in Ireland and you might be interested in joining us, PLEASE CONTACT ME !!!!

Take care and keep smiling!!! I'm going to go play with the lawn mower while no one is home!!!!!

Another Day, Another Potato

2008-03-05T12:41:00.000Z

Hi Everyone! I'm afraid not much going on in the quilting department, I have too many things going on here and not enough hours in the day. I would like to share with you a picture of the bag of potatoes that I buy at my local shop!! There are a few generalizations that are in fact true. The Irish do eat alot of potatoes, however that trend is changing and potato farmers are slightly nervous about their market disappearing. Some of the best potatoes I have ever eaten have been grown local to our home here in Wexford. Pasta and rice are starting to make trouble for our poor potato, not with Farmer Boy. He loves my pasta dishes and will only eat rice with chicken curry, other than that he is a potato boy. We go through this sack in about 5 days!!! This is a 10KG or 20 lb sack of spuds.

Here are a few of the locals, very curious locals. They are soooo cute and a pleasure to have around, sometimes. These are the lambs that were born in January, they are coming on well and must be enjoying the sunny weather we had yesterday. We often have visitors (B&B guests) with children around Easter time and this is a huge attraction! Because we are small timers (hobby farmers to be exact) we spend alot of time amongst our flock and the lambs will approach us to see what we are all about. Children love this, even the local children that come over for playdates love going out into the field to feed the lambs. I know my three children appreciate this, in fact they are quite proud of their abilities to handle and feed the lambs on their own. Memories that will last a lifetime.

Farmerboy and I very fortunate and we are grateful for all that we have been blessed with.

Beautiful Day until Farmer Boy revved up the chainsaw and ruined it for me LOL!!!! I was sitting in the field having a Cafe Ole moment, taking pictures and soaking up some rays when he destroyed it LOL!!!!! Honestly I wish I had a video camera, and do you think he could pick the furtherest point away? No, he decides to start on the fallen tree right near me. Now you know why I hide from him, he has been sent out today to look at riding mowers. Another toy for him play with, you'd never catch him buying a food processor though. Now that is something we could really use!!

Have a great day and keep smiling!!

Blessed are the Multi-taskers!

2008-03-03T13:25:00.000Z

Welcome to March, how does the saying go, in like a lion and out like a lamb!? It is very cold and windy here in my corner of Ireland. This morning my children were up and dressed and up the fields to get their chores done so fast. Why you ask? Because it was snowing!!! The first snow we have seen this year, something that my children say they miss most about not living in America is the snow. Truth be told, only the oldest remembers snow and I think his memory is starting to fade abit. I have been very negligent with my blogging lately, many apologies. Farmer Boy has me running in circles, couple that with guests (the paying kind) and the kids and all of their activities and you have a recipe for disaster. We are getting ready for construction to begin, we are adding 4 dormered windows to the front of our house. I can't believe they are going to strip back the roof in March, I just want to be sick I'm so nervous. Here is the table runner I finished last week, there are a couple of wonky blocks but I don't care. This is so cheerful to look at, it is the January project of the Darlene Zimmerman Clothesline Club.
It is not quite complete yet, we need someone to spill ketchup on it. One child who shall not be mentioned is addicted to ketchup and somehow manages to get it on everything. Because of the impending construction, I have had to move all my quilting supplies and fabrics downstairs into the conservatory or sun room off the kitchen. I want to start a new project but I haven't made much of an effort to do any cutting instead I watched movies all weekend during my so called free time LOL!!! I don't really watch tv, nothing on and I have to compete with the children for the television - they always win. After watching the Oscars I went out and purchased the following movies, Elizabeth the Golden Age, La Vie en Rose, and Michael Clayton. All were fantastic and highly recommend. The movie, La Vie en Rose, was particularly good.

Here is my next project, Prairie Paisley by Minick & Simpson. This is the Moda University Club quilt which I decided to purchase on the spur of the moment. The fabrics are beautiful, I am going to have to force myself to start cutting this up so I can get cracking. I am off to the Agri store right now to pick up six bags of Sheep meal and then off to the school for a craft hour with DS#2. I received an invite on Friday, no idea what they are doing. DS#2 is my artistic child, he is competing this Saturday in The Wexford County Finals Art Competition. He is so excited, I hope he does well! Well off I go again, have a good one everyone!!

Summer Inspiration

2008-02-21T18:55:00.000Z

I am really in the mood for spring and summer, can't wait for it's arrival! I thought I would show you some pictures of my garden.....NOT!!!! These are pictures from a trip that my little sidekick and I made with my parents to see Powerscourt Gardens in Co. Wicklow. Wicklow is known as the "Garden of Ireland". So for all of you who are thinking of traveling to the Emerald Isle and enjoy beautiful gardens then this is for you. I would also like to mention to all of you who like to eat LOL that there is a fabulous restaurant, Avoca, in the main building. The restaurant is too die for and an absolute must for lunch!! I personally like having soup and brown bread for lunch in order to indulge in the most scrumptious desserts you have ever had the pleasure of eating.....

These pictures were taken in August after one of the wettest summers in years. Can you imagine what they would be like if the weather had been sunnier and just a little drier!!

I only wish that my lawn looked like this, it never ever will. It looks like a lovely soft green carpet and the hydrangeas are so pretty against the wall!! Although keeping a lawn like that would require way too much maintainance so I guess I should just enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor for a change LOL!!

Table Runner Almost!

2008-02-21T12:19:00.000Z

Hello to everyone out there! I put this together Tuesday, a nice table runner which is part of the Darlene Zimmerman Clothes Line Club. It is 19.5 " by 39", just right for the kitchen table. I am going to try and finish this up tonight, we shall see. I am trying to get my flimsies finished before I start something new. Wait until you see what I have to start, yummy yummy!!!!

All the best and keep smiling!!!

Farmer Boy vs. Spiderman

2008-02-18T12:14:00.000Z

Well hello out there!! I don't really have anything quilty to show you, except for this flimsie that I did last winter and is still waiting patiently to be finished!! Sidekick and I started a project on Friday, she really wanted to make a tote bag for her Barbie dolls and accessories!!! Of course I don't do simple, no I have to take everything to the next level and only then do I realize what a mess I've made. A third of the way into the bag making Sidekick abandoned me. She was off playing with her brothers and the next thing I know she is off outside running around having a great time. I have yet to finish the bag, I am making it up as I go along so God only knows how long it will take LOL!!!!

I thought I would share a funny B&B story with you. Two years ago, I had a group of 8 men from an english speaking country arrive for a long weekend of golfing. They were here to take part in a fun golf tournament. The first night arrived and the fellas unpacked the big van and settled into their rooms, preparing to go out for dinner and a few pints!! All is well in the world. Me and Farmer Boy settled in front of the telly, children asleep and the guests out for the evening. We went to bed around 11 pm, the dogs are in the utility room in their beds and I set my clock for 6 am, early breakfast for the golfers! Are you with me so far, peace and tranquility!!! Suddenly at 2 am I wake up with a start, there in my bedroom door is a guest, he was only wearing his spiderman underwear, Farmer boy was awoken as well!!!! Farmer Boy, "Who is that, what do you want?" Spiderman SILENCE while he fumbles around looking for the light switch..... Farmer Boy leaping out of bed in his very conservative boxers, he is going to kill me for telling this story..... What do you want says Farmer Boy in his most commanding of voices. Meanwhile I am laughing because it has dawned on me what is going on. Spiderman slowly turns and walks away with Farmer Boy in hot pursuit. Spiderman returns downstairs and into his room while Farmer Boy is running down the stairs trying to simultaneously get dressed.

Farmer Boy is mad..... He returns to the bedroom and starts cursing about the incident, he is really MAD!!! He is going to protect his family from this crazy man!!!! I told him that the man is probably sleepwalking. Farmer Boy is not amused. At 2:30 am, we hear a bedroom door open, Farmer Boy jumps out of bed and runs downstairs only to hear the door close again. This goes on all night, every half hour we are awoken. This poor man was walking everywhere in the house, the dogs were let out and were running around, poor Farmer Boy had to go to work the next morning with no sleep... It was dreadful.

Turns out this man sleep walks whenever he drinks, I told them the next morning that they would have to lock him in the room at night and his roommate would have to sleep with the key. They were so apologetic, the poor man was mortified when I told him that he must know every inch of our house by now!!!! The look on his face.... To this day Farmer Boy is not amused even when I am ROFLOL about all the men running around my house in their undies - it was like something out of a Chevy Chase movie. The following night all the doors to our quarters were locked and the children slept in our room with the door locked. What an eventful weekend!!!

Farmer Boy, he's my hero ROFLOL!!!!!!

Addiction 101

2008-02-12T10:52:00.000Z

I hope that I have established that I have a serious addiction. I don't smoke, don't really drink (an occasional glass of wine, actually you need a drink after you see the prices of alcohol over here!!!), food is simple you need to eat so no addiction there. My drug of choice is fabric, in the past year I have acquired a great deal of it, I left my stash behind when we moved. It didn't amount to much and it was all really hold and yucky. So I took it upon my self to buy what I needed and then some. It doesn't help when people show off their stash on their blogs and the envy starts, fabric envy. Or you see a project that someone has completed and you just have to have the fabric and pattern. Some women like shoes or purses, I like fabric!!! Here is my recent purchase, no idea what I am going to do with these. From Free Spirit, Tanya Whelan Barefoot Roses. They were so gorgeous that I had to buy several yards of each and I have several yards that are backordered. I am looking forward to spring and these are seriously putting me in the mood. Maybe a table runner and then a quilt, I have the entire fat quarter collection as well so there is enough to make several quilts!! Farmer Boy is going to explode, I need to hide the credit card bill when it comes in LOL!!! He supports my hobby wholeheartedly and never asks how much and I want to keep it that way. We moved over here because it was his dream to come home and I simply point that out every now and again, this of course works a charm!!!!!! I have to go get some housework done, guests tonight (the paying kind, yipee). I have received a few questions from bloggers about the difference between living here and the US and recipes for Irish Foods. I am going to put together a few thoughts and give you all a low down. I will be gathering my thoughts while I clean 3 guest bathrooms, the most delightful part of my job!

Weekend project

2008-02-12T10:24:00.000Z

Here is what I accomplished over the weekend! It is the Thimbleberries quarterly project, click on the picture to get a better look. As usual I managed to mess it up. Do you see the mistake? It is the most common mistake I make, turned blocks. Two Trees are correct and two trees are miraculously growing upside down!! Even my children caught that one and caught it rather quickly I might add! Middle son looked at the quilt (he's only 9) and looked at the picture on the instructions and said, "two of your trees are going the wrong way". Then he laughed, smart alec!!! If you use this on a table it won't matter, we were going to hang on the wall in the dining area of our kitchen. Every quilt has to have a humility block and with out a doubt mine always do LOL!!!! This was an easy peasy wallquilt, now I have to do the same blocks and put them aside for the big quilt kit, I will pay better attention.

On the Farm front there is nothing much new, we have close to 50 lambs but we have lost a few to scour. A very unpleasant diahrrea(sp?) like condition, poor little babies. The weather has been pleasant, lots of sun for the past 4 days and we hope that continues. The children are looking forward to Thursday and Friday since they have those two days off for mid-term break. It won't be long until the big 2 week break at Easter!!!

Now, I need help from all you bloggers out there! I can only post one picture at a time, why is that. I upload pictures onto Flickr and then when I post I go up to the picture above click on that. I use the box on the upper right hand side, not the html one, where you paste your pictures code and then go to flickr and pick my photo. I pick large size. copy the short code, the second choice. When I pick a second photo and the orange button at the bottom of the screen half disappears and most of the time the two photos don't copy. Do I need to do something about Picassa?? I am a novice and this is driving me crazy, I only just learned about the email address for responses. I was one of those people posting comments on blogs and wondering why no one was answering LOL, now I know!!!!

Living the life of Riley

2008-02-10T21:51:00.000Z

Okay folks, I have been tagged and I want you all to know that this is my first tagging. Hopefully I won't disappoint!!

The rules of the meme are as follows:
1. When tagged, place the name of the person Helen and URL on your blog
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Write 7 things about yourself
4. Name 7 of your favorite weblogs
5. Send an email letting those bloggers know they have been tagged

Here we go!
1. Living Arrangements: Not Good (only joking), I live in Co. Wexford Ireland with my ever so charming Farmer Boy and my two gorgeous sons (11 3/4 yo and 9 yo) and my newly crowned as of Friday 8 year old sidekick daughter. Sidekick had a 6 week countdown to her birthday which started on 26 December! We live in peace and harmony on a 60 some odd acre farm which produces barley and lamb. We also operate a Bed and Breakfast in Fawlty Tower tradition, don't be mean or rude to the B&B lady or you will find a dead fly in your breakfast!!!! I'M JOKING.... I can see my mother reading this and not finding it funny...

2. Schooling: I have a BA in Economics from a wonderful Jesuit University located in New England. I spent the first two years of my university schooling in Washington DC and then transferred back up north to be closer to home.

3. Favorite Food/drink: Anything as long as I don't have to prepare it! I live in the land of meat and potatoes so I love Italian food and I have grown very fond of my chicken curry dinner. I used to be a hard core coffee drinker but I have grown more fond of tea. I love cappuccinos but finding a good one over here is a bit of a challenge. Part of my job as proprietor and B&B lady extraordinare involves cooking so I grow tired of standing in front of the stove but can't really afford to eat out (I would rather buy fabric than a meal out on the town).

4. Morning/Evening person: This is a tough one. I think I am mostly a night owl, I could go on and on for hours at night. During the tourist season I have to be up super early to get breakfast going so I go to bed early and get up bright eyed and bushytailed. During the winter I reverse my hours a bit, I stay up later and get up later.

5. Since when have you been quilting: I started quilting in 1988/89 while I was living in Vermont after college. I fell in love with the quilts hanging in the window of a store in Woodstock Vermont and that is what started me off. I am completely self-taught, I have never attended a class since I never really lived near a quilt store that offered courses that fit in with my working girl lifestyle. I was in my early twenties and had more important things to do!!!! When my first child was born I simply didn't have the space or time or desire to quilt. I took a sabbatical of sorts. When we moved to Ireland in Dec 2001 we had plans of building a home on what was an outfarm and the next thing you know we were building a B&B. Once all was running smoothly I realized that there was something missing and that I needed to get back into doing something that I had alway enjoyed, Quilting. I have a serious addiction to fabric and really love Moda fabrics, in fact I feel like a bit of a groupie LOL! I know all the designers and the names of the lines - serious trouble!!!

6. Pets: Here is one of the goof ball pets I have chosen to live here! This is Sophie our golden retriever and she was abandoned here in August 2006. She showed up and was in very bad shape, the poor thing must have been terribly abused. But as you can see here, she is living the life of Riley and has really landed on her feet.
Sophie is sound asleep, in fact the camera and flash noise woke her up. This is not a very lady like position and she sleeps like this all the time. You will also notice a shot gun by her head, that is a toy left by DS1. Please excuse the messy room, I live with children - need I say more!

We also share our home with Sheila the wonderdog, she is a terrier mixed with god knows what. I tried to download a picture but for some reason I can only download 1 picture at a time tonight. Actually most of the time I have nothing but hardship downloading pictures from flickr. What gives with that????? We also have a handsome tomcat named Sammy. Sammy lives in the house by day and stalks the farmyard by night.

7. Vacation: The United States is our vacation of choice for very obvious reasons, shopping. Nooo, to visit family of course.... We like to go camping with our caravan or camper to the West of Ireland or Co. Waterford along the coast. Anything to get away from the B&B during the summer is delightful. B&B work is 18 hour days 7 days a week for months on end, I have to block off a week and a couple of mini breaks here and there so that the children have some sort of a decent summer and I need a chance to catch my breath. It takes alot of energy to be charming you know!!!

My favorite weblogs are so vast, I am without a doubt addicted. I draw inspiration from most blogs and there are a few bloggers that both inspire and seriously amuse. I have a dark sense of humor and try to find humor in all things, if you can't laugh at yourself then you are in deep trouble. Here are just a few of my favorite blogs Nicole, Kim, Megan, Sherry, and of course last but not least Bonnie. These are just a few and there are sooooo many more I would be here all night. I have a lovely Swiss family staying with me tonight so I need to go to bed so that I am delightfully yodeling tomorrow!!!

I will have a new quilt that I just finished to show you tomorrow!!!!

All the best and keep smiling!

Quilt Club start and Traffic

2008-02-07T13:00:00.000Z

Well, last night I decided that I was not going to get behind on all the things I want to get done before the tourist season starts. At the last minute, after a alot of thinking, I joined the Thimbleberries Big Quilt Club as well as the Quarterly Club. I like Thimbleberries but I have a funny feeling that everyone who quilts goes through a Thimblerries phase!! Some of the fabrics in this collection are ok, not my taste but I can live with them. Anywho, I thought it might be fun to have a project that takes a year and the quarterly projects looked nice so what the heck!! I am going to get going on the sewing this afternoon or evening.

When I moved here to Ireland I found life very difficult, everything was so strange. I complained endlessly about the stupidest things, now I just complain about the weather and so does everybody else. However, I have a serious issue with the driving over here!!! Traffic, bad drivers, speeding (don't even get me going on that one). But honestly get a load of this group, did you ever see such pokey behavior in your life, LOL!!! The traffic they held up, all I wanted to do was get my kids to school!! My mom is going to be seriously annoyed that I published this without her knowledge, snick snicker.....

This little trip was through the Gap of Dunloe in Kerry. We decided to do the trap cars because my special side kick (the one in the green shirt) is a horse fanatic! If you ever travel to Ireland and Kerry is part of your trip, be sure not to miss this tour. We stopped and parked before you get to Kate Kearney's pub, there are two fellas with trap cars on the left hand side and they were fantastic. Alot of great stories and local knowledge. Super Duper Fun!!!!!

All the best and keep smiling!!!

Here Comes the Sun!

2008-02-06T14:00:00.000Z

Here comes the Sun, Thank the good man upstairs! I ran outside with my camera and my finished quilts and took a few snaps and then ran back inside because my eyes were in a state of shock....

I have to finish the binding on the red and white quilt. I was concerned about that one and the red being a tad overpowering but boy was I wrong on that one. Simply gorgeous and I have enough FQ's and the other fabrics to make a second one. The two twin beds in one of the Guest Bedrooms will have those on them for the summer!!!

As some of you (family and friends) know I am a B&B lady, kinda like the Dana Carvey's Church Lady from SNL!!!! My bookings are coming in fast and furious for April and have received a number of good bookings for later in the summer as well. I have alot of funny B&B stories, I will have to gather my thoughts and retell some of them, of course I will have to hid the identities of the individuals that I make fun of!!! Like the young German couple that requested an extra flat sheet and when I inquired about the bed, "isn't there one on the bed?", they said that they each like their own sheet because they like to wrap it around themselves when they sleep!!!! SAY WHAT...... I will have none of that in my house ROFLOL!!!!! A little bit of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers mixed with Hyacinth from that other funny BBC comedy that I can't think of the name for!!!!

I have guests over the next serveral nights, I have to earn some money to pay for all my fabric purchases!!!

Guess where I've been?

2008-02-04T18:07:00.001Z

Sorry about my lack of blogging, what can I say except blame them!!!! Honestly, I thought bottlefeeding and tending to little ones was over but nooooo, every spring I have the priviledge of being a new mommy again! We have been very busy, alot of new arrivals here on the farm and when you add the rain and wind to the mixture you find you're having sooo much fun LOL!!! I look at Farmer boy sometimes and I would like to smack him, boy did he sell me a load of manure. This is what I love about working with my husband, every 10 minute job turns into hours of slopping around in the farm yard with the sheep. The little darling refuses to buy a jeep, he prefers to see me laying across the hood of the car holding onto the windshield wipers while he drives across the fields. You know the extra weight on the front tires helps. Don't tell him but it is actually kinda fun except for the time I fell off when we were going around the corner. If my kids were doing this I would be giving out a stink, just because we are in our mid to late forties doesn't mean we can't have fun!! I have finished my red quilt, see previous post, as well as my thimbleberries quilt. As soon as I get broadband I will be able to load more pictures. I have been helping the U.S. economy of late, many purchases from my favourite online quilt shop (the Fat Quarter Shop) and hope to do some cutting later this week. I am getting together with some quilty peeps this Saturday so that should be fun and best of all I won't be on bottle duty!!!

Keep smiling and see you soon!!!

My Crew

2008-01-16T22:14:00.000Z

This is my crew!!! Delightful looking bunch and very well behaved most of the time. This gorgeous photo was taken last summer on the Ring of Kerry. My parents were visiting and had never been to Kerry so we spent a week with them in Killarney and we picked a gorgeous day to drive around the Ring. Ireland is a spectacular Island and has such diverse scenery, especially when you have great weather. This was one of those days!!! My darling sons have been rather annoyed that their sister, my special sidekick, has already appeared on this blog. Here you are boys!!! My children would make great models for Tourism Ireland with all that red hair. DS#1 is trying to come up with a name for he and his brother, a few of the proposals have been nixed - boys will be boys and potty humor will always amuse. I had to remind them that Grandma is reading these and she won't find that funny..... They still laugh and the conversation slowly disintegrates into nonsense. The other day DS#2 told me I was a nice chick!! What the #*!!^.. Where in the world did he learn that, however I was secretly delighted to be called a chick;-)

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day, I am meeting up with Sherry , we are going to a little quilt shop in Dublin. Actually it is not a shop front per se, a woman has a wooden cabin in her back garden filled with fabric and supplies. For all of you who live near a quilt shop, consider yourselves blessed, truly blessed. Over here we have nothing, nada. There are a few women here and there that have little businesses set up in a spare room of their home or outbuilding and that is pretty much it. The prices are outrageous here in Europe, 14 euro per meter is the average, this is about 17 US dollars per yard. Can you imagine??? I was telling Sherry that I buy all my stash and supplies in the states. Tomorrow it is going to be great to look at fabric and stuff, I can't wait!!!!

So Long and Keep Smiling

Almost There!

2008-01-16T21:51:00.000Z

Almost finished!!! This beauty has

driven me around the bend, have you ever gotten a quilt finished and found that right in the middle is a block that is turned the wrong way? That is what happened here and not only was one block turned but two! I am working on the border and hopefully will have that done on Friday.

This pattern is from McCall's Quick Quilts, June 2007. The fabric is Thimbleberries Garden Graphics, I am pleased at how it is coming along but I don't think it was that quick. I am a very precise cutter, meaning I measure every square and triangle twice. This slowed me down but the pattern requires a great deal of exactness. The next project is going to be more flexible!

I need to get broadband, yes I know you are all gasping in horror. Pathetic isn't it, I have been trying to download pictures for two hours without much success. I had a gorgeous picture of my feet completely immersed in mud and no it was not a beauty treatment. While I longingly watch the weather reports for my beloved New England and snow, we are building an Ark in our back garden! The rain has been horrendous and the wind quite frightening. Being the great Farmer's wife, snicker snicker, I have to go out and do my so called chores for farmer boy. Well, I usually try to find a hiding place with enough shelter while I pull out my Keepsake Quilters Catalog and day dream about all the goodies I am going to purchase when I go home to visit next fall. Eventually I come out of hiding and feed the sheep and count the lambs and make an attempt at being a good "two bucket woman". That's country talk for strong lass!!!!

So long for now and keep smiling!!

My Special Sidekick

2008-01-11T07:59:00.000Z

This is the view from the field behind our home. You can walk all the way up to the forrestry and look out over all the fields in the surrounding area, absolutely beautiful. Yesterday evening my very special sidekick and I had to bring the ewes and their lambs into
the yard for their evening meal of sheeps "meal". We have had some horrendous weather here, in fact I was certain that the roof was going to blow off the house on Wednesday night. Now I know how the three little pigs felt!!!! The rain was coming down in buckets or as the locals would say "lashing". Special sidekick and I got all the ladies in and the lambs, some of whom are now two weeks old and are like naughty teenagers who don't cooperate.

Once all were in the yard, we made a discovery. Here is my Special Sidekick and the newest member of our gang. This little lady was born within the hour, she was still fairly wet and wobbly. The mother had found a quiet spot in the above field to deliver her lambs and we had to ensure that they got into an old stone calf shed for the night. A nice warm manger of sorts! Special sidekick and I carried the little lamb and mommy followed, of course it was the longest walk on an extremely windy, cold evening. Special sidekick has the makings of a great Farmer Girl. She just jumps right in, although she did think that the lamb felt gross since it was kinda wet. Sadly I must report that the twin died and the mother has no milk so it looks like we will be feeding this little lady by bottle over the coming months, we will have to think up a name for her.

On the crafty front, I made a label for a quilt that is going out in the mail as soon as I can sew this on. I used the monogram feature on my machine and this is how it came out, not bad if I do say so myself. I have been immersed in a Thimbleberries project and haven't finished anything lately. I have a bad habit of jumping from one thing to the next. I have to finish up some of these projects soon, my B&B season starts in about two months and I need to do some serious spring cleaning and painting.

All the best and keep smiling!!

Show and Tell

2008-01-04T23:06:00.001Z

I have been dilly-dallying lately and have been slow to finish up a number of projects . After reading Sherry's blog, I ordered my roll of cotton batting and had it shipped from the US to here in my corner of Ireland!!! Thank goodness, the prices are ridiculously high here and even though the shipping was costly it was still a cheaper option. No Excuses now!!! The binding is sewn on and is ready to find a new home. The fabric is Moda and is Celebrate Spring by Sandy Gervais. The pattern was a Legacy Design but I am not entirely sure, I lent the pattern to Sherry so I apologize for not giving proper credit.

I am going to make a confession, I am a huge Moda fan, they have a great group of designers, especially if you are looking for romantic florals or a country cottage look. I love all fabrics and have a no preference for any particular style. Being a quilter means that I can appreciate the work and love that goes into every creation.

Here on my dining room table is a quilt that I was so excited to make but now that it is getting ready to be machine quilted I am not sure whether I like it. The red is a bit overpowering.
The fabric is Moda, 3 Sisters Sanctuary Line. This was on the market last winter and I scooped up oodles of it, very country cottage but I am afraid that my choice of red my have overwhelmed it. The pattern is from Heather Mulder Peterson of www.ankastreasures.com . The pattern name is "Walk in the Park". The name of the book was Fat Quarter Cottage.

Hopefully this will be on the machine tomorrow for a little machine quilting. Sorry about the pictures but we have had horrendous weather here in Ireland today. I would love to take my quilts outside for a little photoshoot but we may not see the sun for several months. Major drawback to living in Ireland is the weather, probably why the locals talk about it so much!!!LOL

Farm update!!!! We have 12 baby lambs and all are doing well. One of the wee one's was born with joint evil, or at least that is what Farmer Boy (aka my DH) told me. The wee one is receiving injections and is slowing regaining use of his leg. Since Farmer Boy is computer illiterate and will never read this I will tell you a little secret. I am a city girl and love living life down on the farm, however, I play stupid when it comes to learning about animals. The less you know the less you are required to do!!!LOL I have learned alot about sheep and participate as Farmer Boy's assistant but I pretend to be incompetent, come now girls you know what I'm saying!!!!

All my best to all of you, keep smiling!

Winter Days

2008-01-01T22:29:00.000Z

I have been slaving away here on the farm, a woman's work is never done! We are in the midst of lambing right now and that means alot of back and forth and up and down the fields several times a day and sometimes several times at night. The night time routines are very spooky, especially when it is particularly stormy, and in Ireland every winter night is stormy!!!! But at the end of the day this is what you get to enjoy outside your window....

I have been busy working on several quilts that I have been puttering around with over the past two months. I starting quilting twenty years ago while I was living and working in Vermont. I took a hiatus (an eleven year hiatus!) from quilting when my children were born and am only returning to it now. I am enjoying these winter months more than ever before, hopefully I will have some pictures to show in the coming days.

New Beginnings

2007-12-28T00:41:00.000Z

As an American living and working in Ireland, I have decided to take the plunge and start blogging as a way to keep family and friends up to date with what is going on here at the farm. I use the term loosely when I say farm, we have 73 sheep and as of today we have 10 new lambs. My DH works the farm part-time and works full time elsewhere. We also have a B&B which keeps me busy during the summer and in my spare time I quilt. Keep your fingers crossed, this is going to be a new adventure!!!