RSC 15: week 26: The end of pale blue

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge is hosted by Angela at Soscrappy, who gives a different colour each month and many quilters concentrate on using that colour for the whole month. Some make blocks of  their own choosing, but Angela also publishes block patterns to use in a sampler quilt. This month's colour is pale blue, and last month's was green.

Clockwise from top left: Churn Dash, Woven four-patches, Split pin wheel and Ohio Crossroads

I've been away in Ireland and the UK for nearly four weeks, so was a bit behind. I've caught up now though, and made four blocks at the beginning of this week.

I shall be linking up to

this afternoon, so pop over there to see what other blue wonders have been produced this week.

Yesterday afternoon I posted my impression of the West of Ireland so go and have a look if you're interested; it's high on photos and low on text.

Happy sewing

Marly.

A holiday impression of Ireland

My posts are always about my quilting exploits, but this photo-heavy post has nothing to do with making quilts, or any kind of needle and thread work on my part. You have been warned! On the other hand Ireland is a beautiful country.

I spent two weeks in May and June visiting the West of Ireland.We stayed two or three nights in B&B's  in the following places: Killarney, Dingle, Kilrush, Oughterard, and in Tullamore and one night in Dublin on the return journey. I unsuccessfully tried to include a map here, sorry.

From Killarney we toured the ring of Kerry

Muckross Gardens

Muckross Gardens: a hidden garden at the top of the rock garden.

Torc Waterfall. Aren't there always dare devils who clamber over rocks in a stream?

At the western end of the Kelly Peninsula the cliffs are high with wonderful views, I've been told. Unfortunately we only had about 50 metres visibility, so couldn't even see the sea! Alas, no photos!

From Dingle: The Dingle Peninsula

From Kilrush: Co. Clare

One day beautiful sunshine

Loop Head, at the mouth of the Shannon

and the next some drizzle,

The beach at Lahinch

followed by rain,

In the village of  Quilty, no less!

and the rain became a storm!

The Cliffs of Moher in a storm with driving horizontal rain!

After the cliffs there was just one thing for it ...!

The beach at Lahinch on the return journey. (with raindrops on the lens!)

From Ouchterard to Connemara National Park

where we found a good example of Irish humour.

official looking signpost

to the giant: late twentieth century antiquity!?

Connemara

Conn son of the sea

built in 1994

… Mr. Joyce’s craft shop

for no apparent reason

Kylemore Abbey

The Church in the grounds of Kylemore Abbey

 

 On the way from Galway to Dublin we stayed in Tullamore and explored

Tullamore D.E.W. whiskey visitors' centre.

a peat bog: laid out as a tourist attraction with a long boardwalk and information boards along the route.

 and Athlone

Athlone from the Castle, looking across the Shannon

The River Shannon and the present day crossing; a river crossing which features large in Ireland's history.

 Dublin

One bicycle chained to the fence in the quadrangle at Trinity College.

We only spent half a day in Dublin and spent that time visiting Trinity College where we saw The Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels from around the year 800. The tiny paintings are beautifully and intricately done in many colours and with gold leaf. Needless to say, there's no photography allowed there. We intend returning to Dublin sometime soon, for a so-called "City Trip" of three or four days.

That concludes my tour of the West of Ireland. We have good memories of friendly and helpful people and interesting conversations in the B&B's and pubs along the way.

The following day we took the ferry to the UK and spent the next week touring in Wales (the land of my fathers!)  and around Bristol.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour, and maybe will make the trip yourself someday.

In the meantime, it's back to the sewing machine and the 1/4 " seams!

Happy sewing

Marly

The Toadstool House has finally become a book cover!

This is my fifth finish for Finish Along 2015 Q2:

Hooray!

Finally I've finished that appliqué panel I started nearly two years ago and made it into something!

The original plan was to make a mini quilt wall hanging, but after I'd quilted the panel I decided I didn't want it hanging on the wall. My daughter suggested making it into a cushion, but I know that some of those appliqué seam allowances turned out very small, and wouldn't survive long as a cushion. Then I thought of a book cover to hide my former employer's logo on my pattern file (see earlier post). That is what the panel has become.

The finishing top and bottom is rather unconventional.

Because the panel was already quilted I couldn't make the cover in the usual way: add the wadding and lining, turn right side out, close the gap and then quilt - almost as the last step - before adjusting the flaps and top stitching all round to finish off. I considered binding, but then decided to zig-zag across the top and bottom to hold the layers together and finish the raw edges. Binding would have been neater but now it's finished!

I am linking up to

I shall be linking up to Adrianne at On the Windy Side at the beginning of the third quarter.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Camera Challenge 5 - Going fully manual

The Camera Challenge set this month by Katy at the Littlest Thistle was to take photos in manual mode. That means setting ISO and shutter speeds, and aperture value manually, without using any of the pre-set modes, which is what we have done so far.

Part 1  Landscape

The first one I took was totally black - completely off the scale! But keeping ISO speed and aperture value constant I fiddled with the shutter speed until I had the pointer in the middle of the scale in the view finder and the result is two reasonable photos:

Chipping Sodbury, near Bristol, UK

The faster shutter speed in the second photo has resulted in a slightly darker photo, which I find more pleasing to look at, although the first is more true to reality as it was a very bright and sunny afternoon. How do we decide what is over, and what under exposed here?

Just round the corner from the first two photos I took some of the church. Again the ISO speed and aperture value are constant but the small difference in shutter speed caused the second photo to be darker. In this case the result is more realistic than the first, because the church itself was in the shadow of some large trees to the left of the picture. Unfortunately, my facing west north west was not a good position at that time of day, hence a strange sun-spot on the photos.

Part 2  Willing Subject

The second part of this month's challenge was to photograph a willing subject. Keeping ISO speed and aperture value constant I took three photos. The first one I consider to be good.

 But having taken it I realised the white balance was set on shade, whereas it should have been cloudy.

 

Instead of changing the setting to cloudy or automatic, however, I changed to custom without setting the colour values at all, just to see what would happen! And took the photo again with the same light settings. Result: brighter jersey and teeth.

And then again with a lower shutter speed. Everything is marginally lighter.

I don't think there was much point in setting to custom without setting white balance values in the menu. I didn't try it yet, but I expect setting white balance on automatic would have produced the same result. I must be getting the hang of this though, as the dial twiddling, button pressing part of getting a good shot is getting shorter! That should please my family ...

"Haven't you finished YET? Who said I was a 'willing subject'?

"

There is a third part to the challenge: fast moving subjects, but I haven't seen any I could photograph. I hope this week to be able to take photos at a sports event.

I'm linking up to The Littlest Thistle. Go and visit there and see what other participants in the challenge have done this month.

Happy snapping!

Marly.

RSC 15: week 25: some blue and a lot of green

Each month Angela at Soscrappy gives a colour and the RSC group make patchwork in that colour. This month's colour is pale/medium blue and teal/aqua. I haven't made any sampler blocks this month, but I did get some hand sewing done during my holiday in Ireland.

three English paper-pieced blue hexagon flowers

When I was in Ireland I visited Kylemore Abbey in County Galway.

The Abbey is the home to a group of nuns, but was built in the nineteenth century with other occupants in mind. The first owner wanted a castle in a beautiful park and gardens to honour his bride. The result is a neo-gothic castle set in the most beautiful park with the mountains as backdrop.

Being Ireland the predominant colour is green, but among the green I managed to find some blue in the walled garden:

most of the woodwork in the enclosed garden was teal

 A year ago I didn't know what teal was; now I see it everywhere

Gardener's cottage (with gardener).

Isn't this the perfect location? I shall be publishing more photos from my holiday during the coming week so come back from Tuesday for some more views of Ireland and of Wales.

But now I have to catch up on sewing. I have four sawtooth star blocks to make; the ones that you all made while I was away!

I'm linking up to:

 

Pop over there to see many more blue patchwork projects in progress

Happy sewing

Marly.

Work in Progress: Toadstool House

This is a project that's been on my Finish list for the last year! The problem is that it isn't really my "thing" so I have kept putting it off. It was the appliqué piece during a workshop on using the Appliquick tools. At first it was to have been a wall hanging, but my husband didn't agree. Then my daughter suggested a cushion, but I know how little seam allowance there is in some places, so it probably wouldn't have lasted two weeks as a cushion!

Now I decided to make a cover for my pattern file.

The file once held lesson material from my former employer and I thought it was about time I camouflaged it! (For the photo the company logo is being hidden by some of my leaders & enders!)

As I'd already quilted the central panel of the Toadstool House, but fortunately, not the borders, I added pieces of wadding to make the filling up to size for the file cover.

I trimmed the borders on the panel to the size of the front of the file, and added an extra border to wrap around the opening and to cover the spine. This afternoon I made a log cabin block with 2" strips which will be the panel on the back of the cover. Then I added a border top and bottom to make it up to the size of the outside of the file.

All I have to do now is join the two pieces and add strips left and right to form the flaps, and then quilt and bind it, of course, and join the flaps to the outside of the cover. If I had known it would become a book cover I would have followed Wanda Hanson's tutorial which is a much quicker and neater method without binding! As it is this has a Heath Robinson quality to it.

I hope I get all this finished in the next ten days.

I'm linking up to

 

so pop over there to see what is keeping other quilters busy this week.

Happy Sewing

Marly.