I'll start at the start

I went to Ireland for 6 days in late February for the wedding of a longtime friend, the wedding was beautiful even if the weather was not. But the trip itself turned out to be pretty doomed for me, and my constant refrain was 'it's all uphill from here' - it is not always uphill from there it turns out. One of the hill bottoms was scalding my right thigh quite badly with a cup of freshly made herbal tea about 5 hours before my flight back to Texas. My dad was thinking and suggested the shower, I later found out that running water on the burn (not necessarily cold because over a large area you can induce hypothermia, so tepid is fine) but running it for 20 minutes can reduce scars and skin grafts (I didn't need them, still waiting to see on the scar side). It would have been good to know that before, so now you know just in case!? I really hope it never happens to you, it's truly awful. It took about 3 weeks for the wound to heal over and because Paul was travelling a lot for work in the US we delayed my flight back another couple of weeks and I got back at the start of April. That was a whole other debacle, that uphill bit again, and it's good I stayed in Ireland that long because my burn did not like having to sit around all that time in the airports and planes. But I'm here now!

These are Hovering Birds, Jackknife, and Mother's Dream!

While I was home I had three farmer's wife blocks to distract me, and I downloaded the netflix app to my phone - it didn't care if I fell asleep randomly. I got those blocks finished - woop!

The centre of the Handstitched Medallion by Stitched in Color!

Once my leg was up to having some pressure put on it again I could get out my mother's sewing machine and I pulled out a really old project, I didn't get much done in the end but I did bring it back with me to finish off - I'm quite close. The blanket stitching took a long time around these blossoms, maybe because I got a bit strange and pernickety about spacing. Too little to do, idle hands and all that.

I really like the fabrics I chose for this quilt. This was the first pattern I'd ever shopped for and it took a really long time, involved Paul, and I second guessed the whole way through. But since then I've gotten in the habit of working within designers or within lines, I'm scared of mixing things. I tried last year again and it went disastrously - I'll show you sometime, I kept all the HSTs I made in case I figure out a way to fix it. But I want to break out of that, that's a new long term goal for me.

The neon threads are unrelated, but I found them in the LQS at home!

I'm going to leave it here for now, I'll be back with the tiny bits I've been up to since I came home in a few days :)

I've missed you, sorry to have been gone so long!

WIP Wednesday (it took 3 goes to spell Wednesday, I might give up here...)

I have a couple of ongoing bits of sewing right now. They may be ongoing for a while, as I've only managed to sit down at the machine twice in the last week and a half. But, I'm quite excited for these two projects, one brand new and accidental, and the other over a year old and sort of ignored.

First up, the brand new! I brought the pieces required to make four Greek Cross blocks home. They are in the colour scheme put forward by Katie for a charity quilt to be put together at the DCMQG last Saturday for her brilliant 100 Quilts for Kids. I planned to make them in Ireland, and have them ready for the sew-in a few days after I got back to DC. But now I'm in Ireland for a little longer, and these had no way of magically becoming done and getting to DC in just a few days (the post takes horribly long sometimes!). So I'm making them up anyway.

I can take no credit for anything with this, but I'm hoping to quilt it up and use it to re-cover an enormous pillow/cushion I got as a teenager. Or else, I'll be seduced and turn it into a mini-quilt, or go crazy and add borders and make a baby quilt.... We'll see. It's taken me a full week to just get this far so it might never get finished! Lots of possibilities :)

I've taken the opportunity to haul out my Medallion quilt from Handstitched Class, which I started in ~May 2012. I stopped at the third border, because my two side pieces were too long (my piecing wasn't/isn't very accurate) and I didn't know how to solve the problem. There might be an old photo on the blog to show what I'm talking about...

And there is! See how the top and bottom are too long?

Anyway, impatience and a dislike of unpicking all those little squares meant that I just sewed a new seam in on every second row 1/8th of an inch further in.

I'm hoping that subsequent busy borders, and the fact that this was never going to be anything resembling a show quilt, will mean that very few will notice that some of the squares are not square!

The final thing that I'm working slowly on is the Farmer's Wife Quilt. I've finished a few blocks since I've been home (though a transatlantic flight and and 8 hour layover helped enormously!).

Instagram is proving to be enormously helpful for sewing. Last night when I finished Honey's Choice (the pinwheels in the top left corner) they were all buckled because I have to bend the shapes in order to get my seams to align while sewing. I can't see a way around this practice and it's the only way I've found so far to get aligned seams in blocks that have larger units joined to lots of smaller ones. So I put a plea out on instagram for information on how to help EPP'd blocks lie flat, other than putting them under heavy books. And Melinda from Quirky Granola Girl told me to leave the papers in (which I've done anyway as I plan to piece the sashing too) and give them a good steam press. Which I did, and it worked like a charm!

Woohoo for Melinda!! And Instagram!! And for asking the 'stupid questions'!!

Hopefully next week I might be further on again :)

Linking up to WIP Wednesday (ooh, I got it in one that time!!) at Freshly Pieced (that took a few tries) guested hosted this week by Kristy.

Handstitched Class from Stitched In Color

Last summer, I took part in Rachel's Handstitched Class over at Stitched in Color. It was brilliant. I now incorporate so much more handstitching (embroidery, particularly) into projects just because of that class. I use the needlebook we made there on a daily basis. I never finished the class project. There are reasons. Some of them are really good. But I need to face facts, this quilt is firmly in the unfinished pile.

I can't continue to kid myself that I'm just about to get back to it. Right now I'm on an aeroplane over the Atlantic, and that quilt is sitting in a drawer, in pieces, in Ireland. I won't see it again till September. When we're having the follow-on blessing/reception/party to our January wedding. I plan to finish the next round of the quilt in those 3 weeks. It probably won't happen. But I will make sure that it is the only piece of sewing I have to distract myself with while I'm home. Every time I'm home. Until it's whole.

Here it is,

This round isn't even fully on - the bottom and top strips are a fraction too long which led to procrastination, which led to other projects, which led to right now.

Here's a sort of close-up on the handstitching,

Everything needs a good iron.

And here's all the remaining fabric. I even have the backing fabric in the bag too!!

Every time I take this UFO out I fall in love with it all over again. It was the first time I ever tried to envisage a whole large quilt as a cohesive top before I bought fabrics. The first time I bought fabrics from a mix of collections. I had no idea what I was doing. But I bought things that I truly loved. And I think they're mad, but I also think they work together.

I will finish. Not this year. But maybe in 2014...