Diaper bag finish

I'm so excited to have another finish, smaller than a quilt, but very satisfying!

Last year I made a diaper bag for my niece, and blogged about it here.

My DD asked for one this year, so we shopped for fabric together, and eventually found the perfect cotton print on Spoonflower. She wanted the same pattern as the previous bag, from a tutorial found on the Warehouse Fabrics blog.

It doesn't take too long to make a bag. The most trouble I had was getting the fusible fleece to stick. I had quite a time with that, and not a few bad words! The rest is just a case of following instructions and not rushing the steps in the process.

Here is the finished product:





As you can tell, we have a small obsession with our Boston Terrier!

Here's the inside:




There's a center divider, pockets on both sides, and pockets at both ends. Some have elastic to hold things like bottles.

There's lots of room in there for stuff you might need to carry!

I used a yard of black home decorator weight fabric, a yard each of the two cotton prints, and two different kinds of fusible interfacing.

And best of all, my DD loves it!

Till next time,

Sue

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First Finish!

At last, my first finish of 2013! Never mind that this quilt was a WIP for 2, or was it 3 years.
It's all set, and ready to snuggle a baby.

I outline quilted around the owls and around the eyes and bellies. They puffed out a little bit, and looked so cute, I didn't think they needed more quilting.

Here's the back, a lovely soft minky in just the right colour and pattern.

I'm at a quilt retreat this weekend, and looking forward to tackling some of my huge pile of WIPs. I don't think I'll come home with an actual finish, but I should be a lot nearer!

Till next time,

Sue

Whoos in progress!

I'm making some progress with my WIPs this week. It feels good!

Most important is this baby quilt.

I started it two years ago and then put it aside for a while. When I got it out again the nursery colours had changed from turquoise and brown to green and pale grey. I think it all works together pretty well. We have decided against a border, it is already 54 inches square. So next up is sandwiching and quilting it. I've got some lovely minky with owls on it for the back.

I'm thinking a white meander around the owls and a little outlining in invisible thread within the owl bodies. What do you think?

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Till next time,


Sue

Moving Right Along,

In my last post I counted up the loads of projects I have to finish, continue and even start.
Since then I've done some sewing, and am pleased to announce some progress!

I'm having so much fun with Don't Call Me Betsy's BOM. See my sidebar for directions to read about it.

Here's my tester block:

 

Now for the January block:

I made every possible mistake with this block.
 A lot of my mistakes are in the cutting.  I can't believe that I still do this, but at some point you actually have to use the rotary cutter, right? And so often, after much debate, I cut and then find something wrong! Elizabeth includes cutting instructions for the fabrics in each star. Easy! When I got to using them, I found I had cut the whole lot for a 6 1/2 inch star, and I'm making a 12 1/2 inch block. Start again!
Then there wasn't enough background left, so I joined one piece (it doesn't show).
I carefully measured the inch block on the pattern I had printed and found it was more like 7/8 inch.
So I re-did the block in Photoshop and started sewing. Wait a minute, it seems a little big...now I'm working with a 13 1/4 inch block! Wider seams affects the star points. Oh well, it's all learning, painful learning.

I groaned to DD about all these problems and she said "What do you expect, sewing at 7 am?" Well, doesn't everyone? I didn't like to say that it was actually earlier than that. And the funny thing, I'm better in the morning than at night!! Sigh.

I can't wait to try February's block. Maybe I won't make all these mistakes, just different ones!

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Till next time,

Sue

What's cookin' in 2013 ?

First of all, Happy New Year! I hope that 2013 will be a great year for you, full of joy and surprises!

While I was waiting for midnight last night, I was thinking of all the projects I have on the go and other things waiting to be started. I thought I'd identify them here, in the hopes of having more finishes. I know others do this, and they must be successful, right?!!

The Hoots, quilt for the new baby who will be born around the end of March. High priority!
Here it is so far:

Have I really only done 3 blocks? I need at least 16! Better get moving.

Diaper bag for the same baby. I made one last year for my niece, and it seemed to be successful.

Here's the fabric. We have a Boston Terrier, can you tell?

Postage Stamp quilt, sandwiched and ready for (my) quilting. It's big!

Harry Potter Bookshelf: no progress for a couple of months. For me and just because.
Here's Hedwig.

I love this block. I'm a paper piecing newbie, and it took a long time. Worth it!

3 x6 Bee: 6 blocks every 3 months. The next round will be in Feb. Here are the ones I mailed yesterday:

 Gosh it's hard to organize these pics!
You get the idea!

And just in case I needed more to do, I joined the Lucky Stars Block of the Month hosted by Elizabeth of Don't Call Me Betsy. Check out the link in my sidebar. It looks like fun! All paper pieced stars. I hope to improve my paper piecing. there's still time to join, we got the January star today, and there is also a test star.

Let's not forget the T-shirt quilt, due to be finished in June. I've got the interfacing, so far I'm scared to cut!

I nearly forgot the Hunter Star, up on my design wall behind me. The top is to be put together in two weeks. Lots of trimming and sewing blocks before then!

There are a few more quilts with no pics because they are far down my line mentally. My Swoon quilt is waiting for me to get up the courage to piece it together like the jigsaw I (mistakenly) made out of it. There's a kaleido quilt that needs sandwiching and quilting. And there's a scrap quilt that is, well, scraps.

On top of all this I saw a quilt yesterday on Red Pepper quilts and nearly started another one! It's called a Scrappy Trip Along. It looks like fun to do, and bonus, I could cut into yards of fabric that I may not use any other way. Sense prevailed and I didn't see the New Year in frantically cutting and sewing, but it was a near thing!

Whew, that list is a little daunting! Does the New Year see you taking stock like this?

I'm hoping for good things for you, wherever you are, during 2013 and onward!

Till next time

Sue

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Christmas is coming!

Yikes! I'm really behind.  I did a lot of gift certificate gifting this year, so I should feel on top of things. Trouble is, gift certs seem rather impersonal to me, so I wanted to add something to each one.
We're having a family dinner on Christmas Eve with DD#1. In addition to food, I thought I'd make a little gift for each family there. It adds up to 5.

I saw a cute pattern for a hot pad here.

Here's my first attempt:

It's really stiff, 5 layers. Not bad, but a little bit wiggly round the edge.

Second attempt:

Better, but I haven't sewn down the binding yet. Lets not get ahead of ourselves!

Third one. Now I'm getting confident. And while trimming the top four layers, ready to bring the binding over from the backing, I actually thought: "Wouldn't it suck if I cut into the backing?"
And, hey presto!

So now I've got to trim it all, and put on binding separately. And do you want to know something funny?

These hot pads are a 60 Minute Gift !!! To wrap, maybe. For me to sew, not so much!

To all my blogging friends, have a very Happy Christmas! We'll get together again after the holiday.

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Till next time,

Sue

The more I hurry...

I've got far more ideas than time!

I'm not ungrateful, I know that I have much more time for quilting and crafting than many of the talented people I admire. It's just that every time I finish a project, two more seem to take its place!

Don't get me wrong: it's the way I work, the way I keep enthusiastic and interested, but it is rather like a kid in a candy shop. That's why I used the blog title above. Isn't there a quotation along the lines of "The more I hurry, the behinder I get" ? That's me. So what have I been doing?

The latest batch of sewing has been delivered.

Two Advent calendars now in use:

Two cushions claimed by the little girls whose artwork is on the fronts:

I sewed together some of the squares on my Hunter Star quilt. Up to the dark blue is sewn together now. It will be bigger than this, there just wasn't room to put out all the squares! It's a barnraising layout, for those who know. You'll be sick of this quilt if you read my blog. Feel free to skip ahead!

A while ago I came across a Block of the Week posting of paper pieced Harry Potter themed blocks. The project finished a couple of years ago, but all the patterns are still available. The quilt is like Harry Potter's bookshelf. You can read about it here. I fell in love with it! Never mind that I'm a paper piecing newbie! So when I have a few minutes I make a block, it's so much fun. I've raked through all my scraps loads of times.

I've done more than these, pictures next time!

While I was visiting my son, we talked about turning his cherished concert T shirts into a quilt.  I must admit, I'm a bit nervous. I even put most of them in my carry on on the flight home!
Feel free to offer any advice!

Isn't this a long post!
More next time,

Sue

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