Falling Hexagons

It was a long time ago that I wanted to make a quilt out of hexagons. I had many plans how to make it but it was only some weeks ago that I made the final desicion. At the end I changed my mind again but now it is done. I have my hexagon quilt!

Salthill, Galway

It took a long time to burry all the threads from quilting and my time table was totally a mess as I underestimated how this will take. I also removed the FMQ quilting I had done as a border. I did not like it at all. Not that it was my first try and it was just not good it also did not match all the straight lines with the curves.

I used pink and aqua varigated thread around the hexagons and a yellow to add a diagonal line. To emphasize the last line falling out I added straight line getting wider at the end using all three colors. This is the first time trying to add a picture with the quilting.

I am happy how the quilt came together. It will be a cosy fluffy one for the living room now when the days get colder. Therefore I used fleece which my girl chose for the back (now my sewing machine is pink too). It is a heavy and comfy quilt.

Waterwheel, Galway

I am so happy as this is my second finish on the FAL Q4 list. Only some more and I get the jackpot! Now I have to hurry and get on going on the pillow for the Irish Quilter Swap and I have to finish the tutorial for my bee block for December!

And linking  up with Finish It up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Feedback Wednesday ... part 3

Heute geht es in die letzte Runde von Feedback Wednesday. Es hat Spaß gemacht, daran teilzunehmen und ich habe einiges rund um meinen Blog erfahren. Es wird noch einige Zeit dauern, bis es Änderungen gibt (danke liebe Weihnachtsvorbereitungen), aber die eine oder andere Idee wird umgesetzt werden. Danke, daß ihr euch die Mühe gemacht habt, und in meinem Blog gestöbert habt.
Today is the last time me linking up with Feeback Wednesday. I have to thank everyone who took time to have a look at the blog and told me things I had either forgotten (what were I thinking when I started the blog) or did not see the way you do. It will take some time (thanks to Christmaspreparations) until you might see changes on the blog but I will be working on it soon.

Aber nun zum Teil 3 ... 

Nennt bitte je ein Thema. Egal ob aus Design, Inhalten, Schreibstil … Was gefällt euch besonders / was nicht. Oder fehlt euch irgendwas ganz furchtbar? Das wärs schon wieder. ;-)

But now it is time for part 3 ...

Tell me one theme (ie design, content, style, ...) that you like the most or one that you would be happy I drop. Is there anything you can happily miss?

Danke an alle, die mitmachen und viel Spass beim stöbern auf den anderen blogs!
Thanks to everyone who joins and have fun looking at the other blogs too!

An InLinkz Link-up

Mittens are done

I am delighted that I a long time UFO is done. The evenings are getting colder and the sund (if she is ever out these days) is gone in the early afternoon. This time I usually start knitting again and enjoy it a lot BUT there have been those mittens. I bought the pattern last year somewhen and started short after. It also did not take long and I put them to the side and so they were lefter there.

I did  not like them at all so I ripped them. I started new and really wanted to have them finished. I was challenged by Leonie this month as well so I sat down knitting. I love knitting but it was really hard to keep track on the pattern. I was lucky not to lose the line and only had to rip once and now they are done!

I am happy they are finished! It is done! I am not happy with the look but they will keep my fingers warm. I will put them in my bag so just in case the days get colder I am sorted. Thanks Leonie for the challenge! 

I am already working on a second (long time overdue) finish and "only" have to burry all the threads (I did not count them but there are quite a lot).  

Feedback Wednesday: Design

Erstmal ein Danke, an die vielen lieben Kommentare letzte Woche. Ich hab mich irrsinnig gefreut. Am besten fand ich die Idee mit dem Übersetzer. Ich hab ihn einige male selbst ausprobiert und selten so gelacht! Danke!
Vor einigen Tagen habe ich eine email mit dem Thema für heute erhalten: Design! Umpf, war mein erster Gedanke dazu. Na gut, dann will ich mich mal der Realität stellen. Der Blog ist ursprünglich entstanden, um den Zurückgebliebenen in Österreich unsere neue Welt Irland näher zu bringen. Glaub davon habe ich mich in den letzten Jahren weit entfernt. Irgendwie war das klar, denn wer will schon dauernd vom selben lesen und da es hier nicht mal wirkliche Jahreszeiten gibt, sieht es auch immer gleich aus. Auf jeden Fall wurden immer mehr posts zum Nähen und dann quilten geschrieben und so gibt es nun nur noch ab und an etwas aus Irland zu berichten.
First of all I want to thank for the feedback last week. I was pleased reading all those comments. The best idea was adding the translater. I tried it the last days and I have to say: HILARIOUS! The translation made me laugh. Thank you! 
Some days ago I got an email telling me the next theme for the Feedback Wednesday: Design! My first thought was just umpf. Ok, I have to face reality. When I started the blog it was all about telling friends in Austria about our new life in Ireland. To be honest, who wants to read about the same stuff over and over again and even the surrounding looks kind of the same all over the year Anyways! Over the years it got less about the living and more about sewing and crafting. 

Es ist an der Zeit mich dem Thema Design zu stellen und euch zu fragen, was euch an dem Blog gefällt und auch um Kritik zu bitten. Es soll ja besser werden! Ab und zu "arbeite" ich an dem Layout aber zufrieden bin ich selbst nicht. Irgendwie habe ich mich bisher nicht der Herausforderung gestellt, aber es wird Zeit. Ich freu mich auf eure Kommentare was euch gefällt, aber auch was ihr ändern würdet, was ihr euch wünscht .... einfach was euch einfällt!
It is time to have a closer look at the design of the blog. Every now and than I try to change it a little, clean it from different icons I collected but it is still not the look I want to have. I appreciate your feedback and help me to get the blog sorted. Tell me what you like or disklike, what you would like to be changed, what you miss, ... I want to know everything. 

Wer heute wieder bei Susannes Aktion mit dabei ist, seht ihr hier unten.

An InLinkz Link-up

Scrappy Tuesday

Last time I used my last bits of scull fabric to finish the pj bottom from my son. I have to commit the scrap was a little bigger than the ones you can find in my box. I promised the next time I will show you a tiny scrap project I am working on.

I am going to make a pillow again. I am using rainbow scraps to make stars. The center star is going to be yellow and red, green, blue and what else I can find will be arranged in a cirle around. To get the measurements right the hexagon and the triangles have a side length of 1.5''. These are quite tiny.

I did not count the triangles needed so far. I will use whitish farbics and low volume to keep it not to busy with all those tiny pieces. The scraps for the red star are already out so no more excuses!

Modern Irish Bee Blocks November

I promised I show you my finished swap item for the "Swappen auf Deutsch" today but somehow the scheduled post did not go out. It was also announced today that the shipping date is postponed for an other week so I thought it might be better to wait some more days. I do not want to tell you to early about the item I made.

An other think I managed to make this week were my last Bee Blocks for the Modern Irish Bee. Some of you might think now the bee is not over until the end of the year. You are right but a long time ago when we chose our month I chose December. So yes, I sent out my last bee blocks on Friday. Anna asked for Friendship Circles in rainbow colors. She had a great tutorial written and the squares came together easily.

I had to read the pressing instruction at least two times for the block A but when assembling A, B and center it made sense. I also had to use my cheeky hippos again and hope she loves them too. This will be a bright and colorful quilt.

They are on the way and now I get ready to write my instructions for December!

Swappen auf Deutsch

I love swaps and it is always a lot of fun to take part. This is my first time to participate in the "Swappen auf Deutsch" and it was/is great fun. There are so many talented ladies in this group that it is a pleasure to watch the progress.

The swap is still not finished but there is so much coming up the next weeks so I had a "quick" go on this one. No, it was not that straight forward. I made a lot of silly mistakes that had cost a lot of time (sewing the binding to the inside for example) but I made it. One thing my partner wanted was color, so no boring monocromatic pillow or bag. I digged deep into my stash and tried to use all different scraps. I hope she is happy with me using lots of grey on the background to keep it calm. 

The final border around is made out of linen. The quilting was lots of fun. I used 4 different colors in 8 sections. The center and the border I left free of quilting. I like a little bit of fluffyness.

The glasses attrected the most people commenting and I am glad I put this little bit of cheekyness in. i think I can reveal the secret that I made a pillow for my partner. For the back I used the envelope method using the same linen I had at the front. I am still not sure if you can make this out of one fabric (single layer) or double it (two layers) but as I put the left over HST in the upper part I anyway needed an other layer to hide the seams. I only did some straight line quilting to keep it the HST in place.

Sometimes I forget to think like stitching down the binding per hand is actually really not a good idea so after 2 hours I sat down on the machine again to secure it. I love the red border and lucky me the thread I got at the Irish Retreat matched perfectly! Thanks again for the goody bag.

I can keep this pillow for an other week until it is travelling into its new home. I hope my partner will be happy with it. It was a great pleasure to make this for a special person!

Pattern: "Big Fat Beauty"

Size: 19'' square

Fabric: scraps in rainbow color

Belfast Part 2

Ein herzliches Danke für die lieben Kommentare auf den letzen Blogpost. Ich habe mich wirklich sehr darüber gefreut. Schön, dass ihr meinem englisch folgen könnt und ich werde mir den Tip mit dem Translator zu Herzen nehmen. Dass ich aufgehört habe auf deutsch zu schreiben hatte den einfachen Grund, dass die Blogposts dann immer so lang wurden und wer mag schon gerne Seiten über Seiten lesen ;)

First of all I want to say Thank you to all those who left motivating comments on the last post. If you did  not comment just have a look and help me improve and write a blog you can enjoy! One suggestion was to write in German again. The reason I stopped that was just that the posts were going incredible long and who wants to read pages!

Titanic Belfast

Ein Grund für die Reise nach Belfast war natürlich die Titanic. Mein Sohn hat in der dritten Klasse schon einiges darüber gelernt und nicht nur die Filmindustrie findet das Thema faszinierend. Wir haben vorab Tickets für die Besichtigung gebucht und auch gleich noch eine Führung dazu. Das Gebäude im Hintergrund befindet sich in den Docks der Titanic und auf der rechten Seite sind noch die ursprünglichen Bürogebäude, wobei wenn ich es richtig im Kopf habe, nur noch eins wirklich in Verwendung ist. Eines der Gebäude konnten wir im Zuge der Führung genauer betrachten. Leider ist es in keinem wirklich guten Zustand mehr, aber die Pläne zur Restaurierung sind schon vorhanden.

One of the reasons to go to Belfast was the Titanic. My son learned about it in third class and not only the filmindustry finds it faszinating. We had already our tickets booked and to get the most out of it we chose to take a tour. The Titanic building in the back is build in the old docks where this ship really was build. On the right there are still the old office buildings and if I remember it right it is only one that is still in use. We were able to have a look in one of the former drawing rooms and offices but unfortunately the building is quite in bad state.

offices and drawing rooms

Hinter dem Hauptgeäude befinden sich die Docks. Nicht wirklich, dann Schiff kann man hier keines mehr bauen, allerdings zeigen die Schienen am Boden und Metallstangen, wo die Titanic ursprünglich ihre Form erhalten hat. Um sich die Grösse dieses Schiffes besser vorstellen zu können, sind die Stangen in den Boden eingelassen und geben die Höhe. In den Boden ist das Deck der Titanic eingraviert. Zu der rechten der Titanic wurde die Olympic gebaut. An Stelle ihres Decks sind dort Gras- und Holzflächen angebracht. Jede steht für eine Klasse an Bord der Titanic und das Personal wobei jeweils ein Streifen für die Überlebenden steht und der andere Streifen für die Verstorbenen.

Behind the exhibition building are the docks. Actually they are not docks any more but there are wooden sticks that show where the Titanic and the Olympic were build. The rail tracks are still there. On the side of the Titanic the deck is drawn on the ground to get a feeling how huge this ship has been. On the side of the Olympic stripes of gras and timber give an impression how many people of each class including the workers died.

Weiter ging es dann im Gebäude. Unmengen and Austellungsstücken und Videos befinden sich auf den drei Stockwerken. Es gibt viel zu lernen, aber die Geschichte der Titanic ist im Grunde einfach nur traurig. Es ist schwer all die Eindrücke aufzunehmen. Der Besuch der Titanic ist mit so vielen Kleinigkeiten zu einem Erlebnis geworden.

Our last stop was in the building with the exhibition. There are so many pieces to be seen, videos to be watched, games to be played that we have been absolutely exhaustet at the end. There is so much so learn and so many impressions that it is really hard to get it all in. The history of the Titanic is so sad but it is an adventure walking around on those grounds. There are so many details put in the building and around! 

compass in the hall 

Den restlichen Tag haben wir mit spazieren und shoppen in Belfast verbracht. Das Wetter war so wunderbar und lud wirklich zum promenieren ein. Am Ende taten uns allen die Beine weh und wir waren froh, ins Bett zu fallen!

The rest of the day we were walking around in beautiful sunshine and did a little shopping. We were so lucky and it was even warm. At the end of the day we were happy to fall into bed.

Nächstes Mal zeich euch meinen Beitrag zu Swappen auf Deutsch! Man mag es kaum glauben, aber ich hatte echt Schwierigkeiten meine Anmeldung auf deutsch zu schreiben.

Next time I am going to show you my goody I made for the "Swappen auf Deusch" Swap. It it hard to believe but I really had troubles writing my wishes in German.

Feedback Wednesday

Heute morgen habe ich auf Annelieses blog die "Magic 5" gefunden und ich finde die Idee toll. Ich liebe die Naehgemeinschaft, denn bis auf wenige Ausnahmen wird man motiviert und gelobt. Normalerweise schreibe ich in den letzten Monaten nur noch auf Englisch, aber heute werde ich mal wieder zweisprachig den post zu veroeffentlichen, damit auch jeder mitmachen kann :)
I just found on Annelieses blog today the magic 5. I am not sure but most of my readers nowadays are speeking English. It happens rarely but I will be double writing today so everyone can join!

Worum es geht wird auf dem blog so toll erklaert, dass ich es einfach mal kopiere:

Wir geben einander Feedback!
Nicht wild und durcheinander irgendwie. Nicht böse. Nicht inhaltsfrei. Nein. Gezielt. Es gibt 3 Wochen lange jeden Mittwoch eine Frage/ein Thema. Und wer dann kommentiert und mitmacht, gibt damit quasi Entwicklungsnahrung.

What is it all about? We are looking for feedback. The next 5 weeks there will be a question asked on the blog for others to answer. The feedback should help us understand how others see the blog and help to understand.

Frage 1:
Fünf Eigenschaftswörter, die euch ganz spontan zu meinem Blog einfallen. Einfach so. 
Fallen euch nur vier Worte ein, so ist das auch in Ordnung, kein Stress.
Es geht darum, dass wir insgesamt am Ende des Tages ein paar ehrliche Eindrücke von außen bekommen.
Question 1:
5 adjectives, which come straight into your mind. Just now! If there only pop up just 4 that is fine, if there are less, don't worry! Don't stress yourself! At the end of the day I would be delighted to get have some feedback and get a better understanding how you see myself.

Linking up with Feedback Wednesday