Mini BBQ Invite

The weather in Galway has been phenomenal the past few weeks. It is such a rarity that we felt compelled to take two days holiday from work and head to the beach.  After the winter we had, it is nuts to miss out on the few sunny days coming our way.

We packed up the camper and headed to the coast on Saturday morning with Daisy (the moped) in tow.  If you ever see this camper bumbling around Ireland, do pop over and say hello.  I would love to meet you and chat a bit.

Here we are in Kinvara for a quick breakfast.  Yum!

A weekend camping means a weekend sitting in a lawn chair while chatting with friends, so I had to bring hand work to do.  Recently, I have been thinking of inviting our neighbours over for a 4th of July BBQ.  They are so nice to us, so I wanted to do something fun for them.  Dinner outside on our long summer evenings seems like a great way to spend time together.  This is a classy BBQ - no texted invites.  They are getting a bespoke hand made request to join us.  

I packed up my stamps that I bought in Liberty of London last summer and my blue and red ink pads, then set to work Saturday night after dinner.  It's my first time really stamping at length.  I could use some practice.  There's no confusion that this was hand made, is there?!?

Their surname is cropped off on purpose...don't think I'm that miserable with a camera, please?

It is signed from the dog only because I miss calculated how much space it would take to write out the whole invite, so I couldn't fit on the full 4 names in our family.  I thought since our dog and their dog are best friends, it suited.

On the front, I wanted to make an American flag.  I brought a Kona FQ with me to hand embroider white stars, but I was VERY not impressed with how "organic" they were.  

Instead, I thought I would carve a star stamp and use a silver ink pad to make the stars.  Bad decision.  The silver ink was lost on the blue fabric.  I tried embroidering over star prints that were in the shop, tried to forget the star and instead just do french knots on blue Kona, etc but they all looked pretty awful.

And then it finally hit me!  My Blueberry Park charms might work!  I pulled out a Blueberry Park panel and paired it with Riley Blake gingham to make this liberal take on an American flag.  I love it.  Looking at the photo now I wish I aligned the gingham on the top and bottom, but in real life I am 100% pleased with how it turned out.  It's bound in Kona white with the little invite serving as the backing fabric.

So I pinned it to Molly's collar this evening and let her loose in the neighbour's yard.  The girls were absolutely delighted to have a hand made invitation and wanted to know more about how it was made, how to stamp fabric, etc.  I'll make crafters out of them yet!  Needless to say, the whole family will be joining us on the 4th for burgers, home made ice cream and a few pints.  Molly's friend Oscar is coming too.

Quilting And Camping Do Not Mix

I am sure many of you realized this long ago.  We were out camping for the past 5 days at a music festival called Electric Picnic.  We heard amazing music, soaked in the sun, chatted with friends and had a generally fantastic time.

Being an optimist, I brought a bunch of fabric with me that needed to be cut.  I brought a small cutting board, a ruler, a rotary cutter...and it was never used.  It was just too windy.  When ever I cut a square I was off chasing it through the grass.  What was used, though, are my knitting needles.  Boy, they travel well.  They kept me occupied when we were driving to the camp sight and travelled with me around the festival to be pulled out when we were just lazying around.  How great is that?
 

What am I making?  My other half wants a hat.  I have no idea how to make a hat, but Leanne convinced me I could work it out.  I found a pattern on Ravelry that I understood, which is half the battle.  I kind-of figured out how to use 4 double pointed needles at once with the superb help of Ger from Pippablue.  And finally I sort-of found the wool my other half wanted....as close to pure, unprocessed wool as possible (hence the "natural" brown).

What's better is that the wonderful Judy of Fundamentally Fiber seems to have SERIOUSLY helped me out in the quest for natural wool.  I'll give you more on that story later!

I am really not sure if it will fit, but it seems like it will stretch a bit when it's off the needle.  Worst case it will become a tea cozy.  Or a wool ball cozy.  Seems to fit my ball of wool better than my other half's head right now.  Can you see that it's ribbed along the edge and then goes into a pure knit stitch.  So far so good!

At the festival there was a vendor selling wool from her wool wagon.  If you have a chance, check out Winnie's Craft Cafe.  She has a great shop!  These wool beauties were going for 2 euro each!  I don't have a plan for them yet...they're the beginning of my wool stash!  Like I need another stash....

And finally, what was waiting for me on my return home?  A care package from my Mom and Dad.  I'm in my mid (ahem, late?) thirties and my folks still hook me up!  There are few things I miss about the states, but Dunkin Donut's hazelnut coffee and Skippy peanut butter are absolute must-haves.  Thank goodness my parents keep me stocked up!

That's the news!  I'm off to cut a bit of fabric, ponder Leanne's Mod Pop QAL and package up a few FQs worth of scraps for swapping.  Life is good.