Small Bag Makes

I nearly headed up this post with "Ditto" .....referring to a repeat of my last post, however I won't subject you to that again!

Yes time flies so there is plenty to chat about...

Some of you commented on the wee bags which I showed photos of in that last post so that is what I will start with here —

I had an urge to make some drawstring bags for knitting and crochet projects; just small ones to hold a few skeins of yarn for small projects.

I had a couple of FQs I had been hiding away for this purpose. This was the first bag I made —

I used *this online tutorial* - altered a little as I had fat quarters to play with, not yardage!

And I added a little zipped pocket for stowing away the tools that are always lost at the bottom of a bag!

I made the second bag a few weeks later and had completely forgotten what battings I had used for the body. I had improvised with what I had at home. The second bag doesn't stand quite as well as the first but it will do!

I did improve the zipped pocket though; it's not quite as bulky as the first. Both zips were in my 'zipper bag' and were ones that Mum unpicked from garments years ago. The grey one is from Dad's workpants and I think the red would have been a skirt!
I was impatient to complete the second so instead of purchasing some cord for the drawstring, I used a pair of long shoe laces that had also somehow ended up in my sewing room!!

Family photo - 

(I haven't measured these bags but I see the instructions say they are approximately 10"x6"x5" - not huge but a good size for what I wanted.)

Another bag I made was one for Miss Lily for her birthday.

It turned out pretty cute.

I hadn't made one of these frame bags before but it was very straightforward 😊

The base and main part are made as two complete parts - 

And then hand sewn together. It seems strong enough - time will tell!

The young lady was delighted and set about filling it straight away!

Still arranging things several days later - 

I have some of these —

— needing attention, so I'd best be off.

See you next time,

Raewyn

How to —

— write a blogpost after a 25, 32, 43, 62, 63, 64, 65 day break 😲

Day 3 - start thinking about content for next post. 

Day 6 - have another think about the next post.

Day 8 - realise the next post hasn't happened yet.

Day 9 - give oneself a jolly good talking to.

Day 12 - oh well, take some photos so at least there will be some content for the next post.

Day 14 - open up blogger and create a draft blogpost (no content, no title, but it exists).

Days 16-64 - continue to take photos of this and that, ready for the blogpost.

Day 55 - have an idea for the theme of the blogpost.

Day 61 - write a title for the blogpost.

Day 64 - start writing the blogpost.

Day 65 - sort through the photos AND complete a post!!!

As you may have guessed from my photos, we're part way through calving - we're into week 5 (I think). It's been heads down and lots of work but we're getting there :-)

I've also been struggling with a health issue, which reared its head in June but I realise now that it's been affecting me from February at least. (Just another Auto-Immune disease.) Physically I'm doing great (now) but mentally it's been a struggle with an inability to focus, concentrate, and settle to a task. Throw in a bit of anxiety and you get little sewing done and no blogpost for 65 days!!! I'm all good now though, just need to continue to get meds sorted and I'll be back to being a box of fluffies.

There will be more detail on what I HAVE been making in the next posts, but for now I'll leave it here.

Day 65 - Push Publish.

Hugs to all, and thank you for the messages I've been receiving concerning my whereabouts ♥

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

For The Birds

Several months ago when I put my hand up for the For the Birds bloghop hosted by Joan of moosestashquilting, I had time stretching ahead of me and I thought it pretty much guaranteed that I would have May and June for sewing all sorts of things, and plenty of time to prepare for the bloghop.

Fast forward to last weekend when I was blowing the dust off my machine and rummaging around looking for the project box which held my intended project!!

This is a project I've long wanted to finish. It started when I test sewed some cute wee bird on a wire blocks for Juliet, of Tartankiwi designs several years ago. I had an inspiration for a layout but at the time I didn't get a chance to do any more.

I sewed these blocks back in 2018 so they've been waiting for attention for a long time!

Luckily I had sketched my idea down and luckily it was in the box with the blocks!

As these are 6" blocks, I started by re-sketching with a 6" grid. That got me off to a good start and I started merrily sewing away.

I had a wee brainwave at some stage and thought it would be fun to put some pieced blocks in the background. But tone-on-tone so you would see them up close, but they wouldn't overshadow the wee birds.

This Seminole strip didn't work where I thought it might, but I adapted it for the bottom.

Of course I had very little of the grey to finish the fence post but I hoped I might get away with using my grey scraps to crown the top of the post — 

Finally after a bit of fudging and unpicking here and there, I have my completed top!

(The rocks and grass along the bottom are the second strip of Seminole I did.)

It still needs a good press and tidyup. This is not a large item - approx 30 x 24 and now that I've got this far, I'm excited to get it properly finished! Watch this space :-)

I'm so pleased that, in spite of a bit of last minute panic a few days ago, I committed to the bloghop. Thank you so much Joan, of Moosestashquilting, for hosting this and encouraging me to take a deep look at this UFO!

This is Day Three of the bloghop. The other participants for today are —

June 19

Patchouli Moon Studio

A Quiltery

Ms P Designs USA

Stitching Farm Girl

Scrapdash

And there is a full list of ALL the participants on Joan's blog *here*.

Thank you so much for visiting and reading along.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn