WIP Wednesday

Wednesday again, and my WIP is pretty short and sweet this week!

Completed:

My Walk in the Woods quilt using an It's A Hoot layer cake. I will do a separate post for this quilt for the Blogger's Quilt Festival later in the week so I'm just showing the rolled up finished quilt here.


This took most of my time all week. I spent the weekend quilting it, and was pretty happy with my FMQ despite a slightly crazy start  (new quilting techniques and small children are not a good mix!) I am chuffed with how this quilt turned out and can't wait to put up the final pics. It just needs to be washed and dried to give it an even crinklier look so its ready for delivery on Sunday.


In Progress:


I've finished all my blocks for the Pinwheels Pips, they're pressed, trimmed to the correct size and I need to piece together my quilt top next. I've changed my idea for the quilt top layout a couple of times this week (lots of doodling!) so I need to finally decide what I'm going to do in the next couple of days. I'm also thinking of backing it with fleece as its intended as a throw for E - how does fleece quilt up? And if you have quilted with fleece, do you use batting as well? I'm afraid that might make it too heavy and warm. And as fleece is so much easier to work with and more stable than Minky I was wondering if I would be able to leave out the batting layer? Would love to hear any experiences, good or bad, if you have them!

The other little project I've been working on is a lovely piece of embroidery using this pattern:

Source: etsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Another great example of how much I love Pinterest - I found this pattern as a pin there a month or two back and just couldn't get it out of my head. I found a nice, natural coloured linen/cotton mix and am doing it bit by bit in front of the tv in the evenings. Hoping to get this finished up this week, I'm almost done with it and loving how it looks, even if my embroidery skills are pretty basic.

To Start:

I need to do a few sets of bunting for baby boys' rooms before the weekend for my nephew and my friends' two nephews.

I'm linking up as always to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced - get over there and check it out! And check back in later in the week to see more photos of my finished quilt.

Amy Butler's Style Stitches Bag Challenge!

One of my aims for this year is to get involved in some online sew-alongs and quilt-alongs. They seem like a great way to challenge myself to learn some new things, broaden my technical knowledge, get to know other bloggers and crafters and also to have some, hopefully lots, of fun! So I was really excited a couple of weeks ago when I saw a bag challenge over on JemJam, particularly because I had just bought the book the day before. So I entered there and then, bought my fabric and then did precisely nothing on it till tonight!

This challenge is to make all the bags from Amy Butler's Style Stitches book in 2011. Yes, every single one! All 17 of them. Eeeek!

Pretty challenging, not least because some of the bags look to be quite difficult technically, and Amy Butler's bags tend to be huge so I foresee a lot of money spent of fabric this year. (*sigh* I suppose if I have to I'll just force myself to go online and find some. No, I am not secretly doing a dance in my head. Really, I'm not. Really. OK, so I am!! I am going to start a new Pinterest board with fabric ideas for these bags. More anon....)

The first bag is the Cosmo bag above, which is listed as an easy make although I'm not sure, from reading the instructions if I would think it terribly easy! Although this might be because I realised (too late!) that the instructions in the book are not accompanied by pictures or diagrams for the most part. When I'm working with fabric and patterns I tend to be a very visual person so fingers crossed that I will be able to get my head around the written instructions. So possibly this will be just fine and striaghtforward to make, but I freaked out a little at the pages of instructions!

This is the fabric I am using:

The main fabric is "Memento" from the Amy Butler Love range and I adore it, the colour is deep purple blue with aqua, lime green, red, cerise and orange flowers. I have cut the main pieces tonight and happily have enough left over to make another small bag & other bits and pieces. The lime green solid is the contrast for the handles etc, and the small floral print is for the lining. This fabric is more lavender in hue than it looks in this pic (where it looks pink for some bizarre reason.) I'm hoping to get the remaining fabric and interfacing pieces cut tonight and then to start making up tomorrow for the deadline of the 31st January.

I also finally got around to getting my Pinterest account up and running this week. Have you heard of this site? It's my latest favourite thing! It is, in essence, a virtual pinboard where you can save pics, links, and all sorts of things. I have set up a few boards already - one for keeping track of the tutorials I love, or want to try. Another for my favourite fabrics. Also, an essential, an inspiration board. And an Owls board because, as you know, I love owls in my fabric and little softie owls (will have my own design coming soon!) So, a board for keeping track of my ideas for fabrics for the various bags makes perfect sense :-) I have a link on the sidebar so pop over and take a look at my boards! And join up, its great. I have had so much fun browsing through people's boards - and there is so much to explore, fashion, art, interiors, food, all sorts really.

Right, back to the cutting board here......