Monday, August 15, 2011

A bonus bag

I decided I need a slightly smaller bag for daytime jaunts so I whipped up this little beauty:

I have made this "Tube Top Purse" before a few times, and I remember why - it goes together very quickly, has lots of little organizing pockets, and is just the right size.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

caught up!

And here's the last of the Planet Patchwork blocks - I'm all caught up and can finish when I get back!
For the rest of the night I'll finish my monster bag, which only needs top binding, handles sewn on, and zipper ... and then maybe a few rounds on the second sleeve of Barry's sweater.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Purse 2


Mom's second purse is finished! I will definitely make this pattern again. Nice bag.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Making progress

The quilt show this weekend was lovely. I sat in on a lecture about thread and learned more in one hour than the sum total of everything else I knew. As with last show, I spent most of my show budget on new threads, only now I'm feeling confident enough to actually use them. A few weeks ago I won a door prize at Sew Inspired, so I got to pick up an excellent workbook about quilting motifs; it's got dry erase pages so you can repeatedly practice doodling the basic designs - nifty. My next big expansion here at "the studio" (read: back of the TV room) is to find/construct/rig a better sewing table so I can have a large flat surface flush with the bed of my machine. I'm getting better at free-motion work, so I think it's time to make the space fit the job.

I have been making significant progress on my to-do list. Yesterday before we went to the show, I helped C make a small dreamcatcher/mandala quilt. He picked a pattern from a coloring book that I bought at the Borders clearance extravaganza. I traced it onto some white fabric, then - inspired by my plans to shade the embroidered witch quilt with crayons - he colored his design in and I helped him iron it. He picked some "Indian-colors" thread and we did a little stitching along the original lines to quilt it up; I added a binding, and he added a few embellishments (his own vision, but not visible in the photo here) and voila!



This morning I finished one of the bags that I promised my mother. A few years ago I made her a patchwork jacket with various Steelers/football fabrics, so I used the scraps from that to make this first purse. I cobbled together a few patterns that I have here and added a few extra details like an afterthought zipper at the top. I hope it's what she had in mind!



My list is looking more manageable now: finish sweater, finish tracing & color witch embroidery, finish Monster Bag (started with Allison), make one more purse, use up one more screen (which I think I'm going to use for pencil cases instead of totes). I'm putting the Beatles on the backburner; it can wait until October.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Two Steps Forward

I finished the background blocks for the Calendula embroidery, so I can get some tracing done tomorrow. These blocks look darker in the photo than they look on the wall; I think they will be a good embroidery setting.

That's a little progress, but unfortunately I remembered another big thing on my before-we-leave list:
  • Cut the fabric for the Newington chapter group quilt so it can be distributed at the September meeting.