Playtime's Over, It is a Finish

Ta da! Can I have a Ta Da! I have a finish. About flipping time too, you are probably thinking. I should be slipping this in quietly under the wire, not shouting Ta Da! from the rooftops. Well, a finish is a finish.

Just to remind you, this is the Plus Playtime, known to me as Sandra's Scraps, or my Adult Playtime (?) quilt from a quilt a long organised by the lovely Sandra of mmmquilts. This was a fun quilt a long. All the more so, as I won one of the prizes, two quilt patterns from Beth of cooking up quilts. They are now in my long list of possible future quilts.


Now for the stats. My lap quilt measures, I can't remember now! 45 or 48 inches, something like that. This is slightly smaller than the original design. I decided to use scraps Sandra had sent me as a gift a while back. Sandra had used these fabrics in a quilt and I had admired them. She very kindly sent me her offcuts. So, to optimise the fabrics, I reduced the size of my blocks slightly. I started using Sandra's scraps from the top corner and worked through them. When I ran out, I then moved on to my own fabrics which tied in best, those with dots and dashes. I also used kona left from Postcards from Sweden or Writing from Whitehead which we had collaborated on.

As you might have guessed by now, I like to rename my quilts, give them a name which makes me smile, or has a special association for me. And so, my Plus Playtime quilt became known to me as Sandra's Scraps.

I love the mix in life of old and new. So, when my husband and I were going on a genealogical hunt, this was the perfect time to take the quilt. His great grandparents came from a small village called Tynan. Tynan really is tiny. Tiny Tynan. The centre of the village is an ancient Celtic cross, there are several of these about these country, but this is a very fine one. Where better to take photos of a plus quilt?


The quilt has Sandra's signature of a shadow plus, a cross in the background. I could go very philosophical here about old and new, cross within a cross, the church as a background to life, both old and modern. I will leave all that to you, if you want. The great grandparents were married in this church in 1864. In 1865 they left Tynan and headed up to the city of Belfast, a young family with a baby, heading off to a new life. We were very privileged to look through the actual church records, and we found the deaths of his great great grandparents registered. No surviving headstone unfortunately, but it was lovely to see their names in the book and to find out the  name of the great great grandmother. Her name was Sally, or Sarah. So often women of that time were just known as wife of, or relative of. I even saw one listed in an English church record as "old crone of". Charming . We found the great grandparents deaths, Sally and Nathaniel. It is acceptable to delight in a death when it is 7 generations back from our grandson. A whole 7!!!! I love those names Sally and Nathaniel. Now if I had known that when having my own children .....

As a complete aside, we were here earlier in the year on recce. The man working in the churchyard had suggested we contacted the church to ask to see the records.  A complete coincidence we were out and about one day, and got chatting to a man, as you do. I mentioned my husband's family was originally from Tynan. N Ireland is a small country, it turned out this man was not only from Tynan, but unbelievably he THE MAN who would be showing us the records! One of the nice things about living in such a small country, or maybe just one of those spooky unexplained things? Anyhow, we had a lovely morning with Tommy, handling books and records hundreds of years old.

After we left the church, we headed to Clontycarty Lane. We had driven past this earlier, and knew the family came from Clontycarty. I love that name!

 
 
 
The lane got narrower and narrower, very quickly it became the width of a car, with the grass running up the centre. You know what I am going to tell you, it unsurprisingly ended up, after a good country mile, into a dead end. Our city car had to go into reverse, with me hanging out the window, left a bit, right a bit, no my left, not your left!

 
 The cows got very excited. I think they may have been bullocks. (I am slightly more of a country girl than my husband). Anyhow, the cows got very excited, just like teenage boys, and raced alongside the car, bellowing very loudly. I know cows moo, these cows were bellowing! I rather think, like teenage boys, they were expecting food.


I took some nice photos in the garden too. It is nearly Finish A Long time again, so I will maybe keep those photos until then. I also haven't told you much about the actual quilting, that's for another blog post too.

All the best,
Helen x
linking up with Beth and Cooking Up Quilts
linking up with Lorna and Sew Fresh Quilts
linking up with Finish It Up Friday

Comments

  1. Beautiful quilt, great photo spots and a story to entertain - the perfect finish up blog post!

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  2. Yay! A wonderful finish! Great job sticking with it to the end. Love your photo shoot and story. Aren’t cows the most curious of creatures?

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  3. A finish is a finish no matter how long it takes, so yes yell finish all you want!

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  4. Lovely finish, lovely story!

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  5. Congratulations on the finish. I like the association of Sandra's Scraps for the name. And Clontycarty? What a delightful word that rolls off the tongue!

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  6. It is nice to see this quilt finished! It's really beautiful. Love the pictures in this post (and your narrative!), those cows!

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  7. What a beautiful backdrop for your quilty photoshoot! I can't wait to hear more about the quilting. I think the cows were secretly hoping you would take their picture with the quilt :)

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  8. Aww Helen! I was enjoying your drive down Clontycarty Lane, especially in reverse with the cows! I love those photos. They probably thought oh boy, here's another one thinking they can just drive down the Lane . . . we'll be seeing them back in reverse soon. Great finish, and your photo shoot location is just gorgeous. I'll be back to read the next installment of your quilt and your adventures! ~smile~ Roseanne

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  9. This is such a satisfying post—all the connections. Sandra’s pattern AND her scraps combined with yours and then all the philosophical connections and family history and the records man. Great story! I’m looking forward to reading more about the quilting.

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  10. Congratulations on your lovely finish Helen. I do love hearing your stories about life and family history.

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  11. Lovely finish (and great shoes!) I know it's not much fun when you find yourself on one, but I find the idea of roads that peter out into nothing strangely appealing.

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