This week's news...

A couple of little things to show you this week - and some news to share.......

I mentioned in another post that I am making a few sewing room essentials as a project of the month club for my Favourite Quilt Shop. April's projects were these are two little scissor holders and fobs.

And I have just finished the bag below, as well. I based it on this pattern by Sew Prim Khris. (I also made another one a few years ago, shown here).
I have made my new one a bit taller and appliquéd on the outer pockets. Once again I used Matilda's Own Bag batting, I love the soft firmness this gives. I also put a little cotton batting behind the pockets... no it doesn't make it too boofy - it's got quite a nice feeling body.
You can see I have used Anni Downs' cat from her Simple Pleasures book again; he is such a cutie and I like an excuse to use him from time to time.

On one side the cat has a suitcase...

...and on the other side he has a sewing machine.

Now, you will be thinking two things..... why does the cat have a suitcase and a sewing machine, plus, what is the news to share I talked about at the beginning of this post....?
Well, this bag is hopping on a plane with me in a few days and winging it's way to the USA. It's going to accompany me to my brother's place for a visit and then to Paducah for Quilt week!!!! It's keeping the materials I need for the classes that I am taking nice and safe. Woohoo!!! Lucky little bag isn't it.... and the cat isn't the only one getting excited!!
If any of you are out and about and JUST HAPPEN to see my bag - please take the time to say Hello - I would love to meet you!!
So the next day will see me focussing on getting everything else packed (why is it that my sewing things always get packed first?!) and getting to the plane on time.
Have a great week everyone - I know I will :-)
Happy stitching,

Scrappy blues and creams

About three years ago, I started this project. I thought some hand piecing would be great to do in the evenings while sitting in front of the TV with the MOML.

Winding Our Way  Australian Homespun #72

Then I discovered stitchery-hexagons-hand appliqué - and suddenly my nights were filled with those and this project languished at the bottom of the pile.
UNTIL SCRAP BASKET SUNDAY!!!
I've been looking for a good travelling companion and I decided that this project would be a good one.
I discovered it had that "I've been sitting in the cupboard too long " smell, so I had a marathon session airing and pressing.

Ironed and stuck on the wall; I can see the starting of the circle effect....

Sorting, pressing, drawing, cutting, AIRING.
Scrap play!

The start of a nice little pile for the next few blocks.

 Today I am linking up with Kim (Kim's Big Quilting Adventure) and other scrappy friends on Scrapbasket Sunday. Click here to visit more bloggers playing with their scraps.
Happy Sewing!!

Scrap Basket Sunday

Look what's just started up!!

Scrap Basket Sunday!!

This sounds like me!!

I am a sucker for scrappy projects - and Scrap Basket Sunday on Kim's Big Quilting Adventure blog - sounds like an ideal excuse for me to keep working away at my pile/s of scraps. Thanks Kim for hosting this, I'm sure it will be a load of fun.
This weekend I have been beavering away to finish the blocks which I started in January/February when Pam Burda had a Orphans and Scraps Sew-along.

It was fun sorting through my scraps and actually using random spare half square triangles (and so on) that were destined for a life in the bottom of my scrap bin.

As well, there was learning new techniques and the challenge of making 'little blocks'. They all finish at 4 1/2 inches so at times there some pretty tiny pieces.

Pam pieced her blocks into a runner which looked lovely. I have had a rather long conversation with myself about what I wanted to do with my blocks, and finally decided that a more square like shape would suit me better.

And because I really wanted an excuse to make another one of the clever Block Two (see the directions here on Pam's blog) it couldn't be a straight forward 4-block square.(Also my log cabin was a bit 'light' looking and so the four squares together weren't very well balanced.)

Finally I have this ---

---a cute little table topper

I fought with my instinct to use a gorgeous brown as the sashings - it is one of my favourite colours for that sort of job, but I do wonder if I use it too much. For a while I thought I had overdone the lights and wasn't so happy until I put the red around the outer edge (another favourite colour I probably over use!) Ahh - now I was rocking -  (but I do think I may succumb and use the brown as a narrow binding .)

Cant resist, the brown will look good here, I'm sure :-)

And I am extra pleased as it has remained scrappy to the end - the 1" sashing strips even have joins in them to make them fit, and the setting triangles were a ten inch square I had...simply quartered it - whew - it was the perfect size!!

Pop over to Scrap Basket Sunday on Kim's Big Quilting Adventure to see what others are doing with their scraps. In the meantime, Happy sewing, and thank you for visiting,

PS: And if you go to Pam's Heartspun Quilts blog, you will see that she is having an airing of the quilts, showing everyone's version of them.