Summer Sewing Wrap Up

Is Autumn fast appearing in your neighbourhoods? Anyone got an Indian summer going on? Sadly, here in Cork the leaves have been dropping from the trees for quite a while now and after a truly dreadful summer (the coldest in a generation) it's quite sad to be facing into the winter without having had more than a week's sunshine in total for the whole summer. I've been meaning to post this wrap up for a few weeks but the Quiltalong, the swaps and my crazy work schedule have delayed me a little - I hope you don't mind.

Ok, so despite (or maybe because of) the awful weather and poor light, I got quite a bit of sewing done this summer. Not everything that was on my list, mind you, but I'm getting a nice warm glow of achievement looking at all my project pics.

The early part of the summer was all about quilts - I finished these 4 babies by the start of July:

Then it was on the rest of my list!

1. Quilt for my son D - this is STILL on the missing list. I'm thinking maybe closer to Christmas now. I'm a bit frustrated by not getting to this one as I have it all in my head - its a simple strip design but I suppose better late than never.
2. Skittles Quilt - This is still a work in progress. I got the quilt top done, and LOVE it but its been sitting in my sewing basket for weeks now waiting to be backed and quilted. This is a little bit of a monster size wise, so I need to wait till I can go buy more batting before I can get any further.

3. My bedroom curtains - lalalalalalalala, fingers in my ears- not done yet! A little bit of progress but I need to get to these before the hubbie moves out into the spare room in protest at how horrible the current curtains are against his lovely paint and wallpaper job.
4. Baby quilt idea - this one is still in the pipeline and I'm hoping to use it for a quilt my friend A asked me to make for her in October.
5. Bottled Rainbows QAL - zilch. Its still there too.
6. Sew Simple Tutorials - these got put on the back burner but I'm hoping to get them up and running with the assistance of some fab guest posters in about a month's time!

Ok, the list is not going so well, is it? Right, I do have more progress to show though, now for the good stuff!

7. Quilt for my new niece/nephew. My gorgeous new niece R arrived in August and my Across the Sea quilt is the one I'm making for her. This is the quilt top but its now quilted, bound and looking gorgeous and waiting for a sunny afternoon so I can get some proper pics of it before I wrap it up for her.

Of course, the Across the Sea QAL was a completely massive project for me and Jennifer and I think probably the thing I am proudest of on this list - I want to say a big thanks to all my bloggy friends who have participated as we are coming to a close!

8. Kaleidoscope Quiltalong with Elizabeth: This one was one of my fave projects of the summer, and my friend loved it too! Elizabeth's design worked great with my little boy fabrics.

9. Sew Irish Flickr group - this has grown steadily in the last few months and I have gotten to "know" some really talented Irish ladies through it. Fi is also a moderator on this group. Irish peeps - watch out for a little ticket giveaway for the Knitting and Stitching show coming next week on mine and Fi's blogs and Fi is also trying to organise a quilting retreat in the new year, how cool would that be? There are still 4 places available so let me or Fi know if you're interested, we would love to have you! There's more info in the discussion threads in the Sew Irish group.

10. Sew Bee Blissful - I joined my first quilting Bee and have made my first set of blocks (after a lot of nail biting!) - I really loved these blocks, Jenna picked a great block for the first month!

11. Swaps. I kind of lost the run of myself and joined up a heap of swaps in August. I made some nice swapsies for the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap:

The For the Love of Solids swap:

And the Goodie Swap:

I also got lovely goodies in return - more about that in a later post! I have sworn off swaps till after Christmas now as I have a number of quilts to make between now and then. Well, except for Susan's Christmas runner swap. And Emily's Christmas fabric charm swap. I mean, how could I resist them? I love Christmas! Get over and check both of them out by the way, there's still time to sign up :-)

12. Random stuff: I made all sorts of random bits and pieces too that weren't on any plan - like my Bliss cushions:

So, all in all, a pretty productive summer, I'm really pleased with how much I got done! How about you? I'm dying to see your summer roundups. As promised, I have a little giveaway for those of you who have been participating. Once you've linked up your final posts I'll draw the winner next week. The prize? A charm pack of gorgeous Terrain and a little surprise from me!

Right so ladies, get linking!