QUILTS OF LOVE

Hand quilting is such a labour of love. This is my second piece for charity, the first was given to a child in foster care sometime ago.

This time round it is an incubator cover for a premie yet to be born.

Preterm infants are born "too soon" and so their neurological systems are very immature. As a result, they can become overstimulated by external stimuli such as light and noise. Such over stimulation can lead to developmental and sensory issues in these children. These issues require occupational therapy to resolve. In an attempt to reduce stimuli some hospitals cover the incubators with covers to exclude noise and light. The blankets could be given to the families when they leave the unit as they cannot be "washed" and "sterilised" in the unit.

The "official" hospital incubator covers cost 200euro + vat each and as you can imagine very few of the hospitals have the budget for these resulting in the majority of incubators not being covered.

There are 19 hospitals in total in Ireland and 4500 preterm Babies are born each year in Ireland

I don't know who will inherit this incubator cover, but I'm sending it with my love. This quilt is special because the materials used are from all over the world. The Winnie the Pooh fabric is from Australia, the sashing and binding fabric is from Malaysia, the wadding is from Ireland and the backing fabric is Martha Stewart's. (U.S.). But I guess the baby will never know

Sometime earlier this month, I completed another quilt with appliques of Sue and Sam Bonnet.

This quilt is now hanging over a press door and cuts out the draft.

Another willow to my bow

Since I can't get enough of willow craft, I decided to sign up for yet another class in Killoscully. The class started at 10am and ended around 6pm. I managed to make a log basket during that duration.

Now more confident, I decided to purchase some willow. The willow needed to be soaked (to make it pliable ) so I used the bath tub as it was long enough to house the sticks. (a day of soaking for every foot of willow)

I wanted to make a bird feeder and I was very grateful to my cousin Paul for giving  me a few slabs of wood for the base. 

This is the first piece of willow craft that I made unsupervised.

I also made a fish platter which is perfect for sushi and deep fried calamari.

I found another interesting but more complicated bird feeder and this time round, I signed up for yet another workshop.

The Beauty of Stained Glass

I always feel that the ultimate challenge to crafting is handling glass. Somehow the idea of scoring glass isn't exactly something pleasurable. Breaking the glass with bare hands or cutters is scary. And what about soldering copper strips? I won't even go there.

But I've always admired stained glass panels in churches so suppressing my phobias, I signed up for a workshop in Ennis. (I heard on radio today that we should try - at least once a week- to do something that we are afraid of.) Yes, that's good therapy.

Claire Carroll the expert guided me through the process of planning the design and then cutting the glass to match the design, just like pieceing a jigsaw together.

Pieces of glass cut according to the design

I also learnt a glossary of stained glass terms: shards, sharpie pen, pistol grip and pencil grip cutters, running arrow and grozing pliers and how to tack the flux.

Pistol grip cutter

Pencil grip cutter

Grozing pliers

Running Arrow pliers

Tacking the flux

Then I had to grind the rough edges. This is the part where I had to wear googles and look like the expert.

And we were given a good lunch as well.

It took me 3 cups of coffee, one scone, one plate of pasta, 21/2 hours of driving and 5 hours of glass cutting and soldering to make this wee fishy.

Junior Chairs and Senior Spectacle Cases

With the Irish summer getting colder and wetter by the day, I find myself spending more time indoors and therefore I have loads of hours and minutes to indulge in crafting. I embrace both the rain and the sun. I know my vegetables are happy with the rain. When the sun is out, we are normally on the road.

So, on one rare sunny day I acquired a Sugan chair.

The Sugan chair is a masterpiece in itself. The term Sugan is the Gaelic word for straw/straw rope used for chair seating. The sugan chair used to be a popular kitchen chair in county districts, particularly in the west and southwest of Ireland and they come in bespoke sizes. So, I  decided to give it a makeover.

The original Sugan chair before the makeover

When my young visitors came over for tea and cake, I brought out the sugan chair, the butler's table and the other stools that I had transformed earlier. There were smiles all round.

I then moved on to transform spectacle cases for senior eyes. We have purchased quite a number of reading glasses and left them in strategic places so we did not need to go searching for them whenever we wanted to read.

The original spectacle cases

Now that I've finished these projects, I'm looking forward to doing some other exciting stuff.

TALLER BY THE DAY

It is rather frustrating when I am confronted by tall cabinets and a television screen that is mounted so high on the wall that I find it problematic to switch it off.

Enter the humble stool.

I had earlier on decoupaged a step stool that was painted with chalk paint.

I then acquired 2 more stools which were flat packed and I LOVE putting stuff together, screws and all. Very good, except that most of these flat packed stuff are not female friendly. Putting the screws and bolts together require immense strength. (Note to self: purchase an electric screwdriver) One of the screws did not go down well in my first attempt but I improved after that.

I decorated the stool below with leftover wall paper and stencilled the sides.

For the next stool, I painted zebra stripes and decoupaged.

Friends have asked me whether I would stand on these hand painted stools. Why not? Being an Asian, I do not wear shoes indoors and socks or fluffy slippers will not harm the surface.

COFFEE OR TEA?

Coffee tastes better when served on a handmade tray - a tray that is painted with vibrant colours and decorated with  fussy-cut pictures of yesteryear's delicate crockery. Below is the tray before the makeover.

I love coffee and I must have my fix every morning. Tea will do me too, but nothing beats the aromatic coffee bean. So I got myself a nifty coffee machine that promises luxury and a little bit

closer to George Clooney?...ahhhhh..........

Now that the summer weather is improving alfresco dining beckons. Coffee, tea and cucumber sandwiches will certainly taste better in the great outdoors...errr......in the garden. So I bought a butler's tray  and painted it with the primary colours of the roses in my garden. The sides too are stencilled in contrasting colours.

Now the setting is complete for a teddy bears picnic.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Lampshades are lovely things and they become more beautiful when you create new designs on them. Having inherited a number of lampshades, I decided to try my hand at a few new techniques related to decoupage.

This is the first one I made.

And this was what it looked like before.

I then made used of leftover wallpaper to decorate another lampshade.

Here's another made from a Cath Kidston design

Which matches perfectly with the seat cover of a chair that I upcycled.

And now with the light on

Once I got the hang of it, I decided to go for more challenging designs. This technique is more complicated as I must make sure that the pictures are in order.

And  with the light on....

Now that I've run out of lampshades, I will move on to decorating trays. Watch out for the next post!