2011: First Quarter gone already

I saw a lovely post by Elizabeth over at Don't Call Me Betsy which got me thinking; she was looking back on her progress against her crafty goals for the first quarter. So I decided I'd jump on the bandwagon and do the same, and maybe get thinking about what I want to get done by the end of June.

Back at the start of the year, I was still too much in recovery from Christmas to write out any goals. But I did have quite a few actually - mostly short term focused. Here's a little summary:

1. To finish my Bliss Charm quilt. This was the first quilt I ever made, I started it over Christmas and completely fell in love with quilting while I worked on it.

2. To make more from my own designs and I definitely have done this with lovely quilts I made.

PictureBox quilt

I loved how they turned out, and even wrote up a tutorial for the PictureBox quilt, and at the weekend I got an email from Beverly who has made it - I'll post her version over the weekend. That totally made my day, as you can imagine!

Sophie's Dreams quilt

I also designed this handbag and must get working on more bags.

3. To take part in a Quiltalong....I had been reading about these all over, and was hoping one would come along that I felt experienced enough to take part in. Of course, like the proverbial bus, none came for ages and then 3 came at once. In recent weeks I joined up in the Lily's Quilt quiltalong. I'm loving doing the Dresden mini block, its so much fun!

Also, this week I decided that I'm going to take part in the Bottled Rainbows Quiltalong on a small scale. But sadly, I just couldn't commit to the Supernova quiltalong over at Freshly Pieced even though I'd love to do it - I just don't have the time.

4. To take part in the Amy Butler Style Stitches sewalongs over at My Crafty Crap and JemJam. I'm making pretty patchy progress with this one - the Cosmo bag (January) is half done, I didn't do the February bag (the big shopper) at all and I did one small Origami bag for March, although I'd like to do a few more. I'm looking forward to the next one for April, the chequebook cover, I badly need a pretty one.

 

 5.  To make a Charm Bracelets quilt using Kate Conklin's lovely pattern. I even have the Fandango charm pack. But I haven't even come close to starting it.

6.  To make the Alice quilt from Red Pepper Quilts - I just love this one and reckon I have enough scraps for it but again, no time (yet).

7. To take part for the first time in some Flickr swaps. I joined up for the Scrappy Pincushion one and loved taking part, in particular the lovely pinnie I received.  I'll definitely be looking forward to participating in more!

8.  To grow my blog and to take part more in the crafty blogging community - and I've really pleased I've done this. I'm really thrilled and flattered to have lots of new readers this year and I've made loads of new bloggy "friends" all over the world who have given me great advice and lots of inspiration. I love visiting their blogs every week to see what they're up to!


9.  To learn, learn, learn!! I'm new to quilting and this last 3 months has been a challenging and wonderful time for me as I learned new techniques, got to grips with quilting basics and browsed online resources, tutorials, patterns and blogs voraciously. I'm now completely addicted to and in love with the process and end result - roll on the rest of the year!!

I have lots of goals for the remainder of the year but think I will spend a little time thinking about them and maybe post them next week! In the meantime I'll be linking this up to Elizabeth's post and checking out everyone else's progress.

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......

Handbag heaven

Here's a little handbag that a friend asked me to make for her. I'm going to find it hard to let this one go!! I really love it I must say. Handbags are my thing, as anyone who knows me will attest and one of my favourite things about sewing and knitting is the ability to make my own for a fraction of the cost. I made one before Christmas last year that I got a tonne of compliments on, including probably my favourite one ever - "Is that an Orla Kiely bag?" (asked by 3 separate people no less!) So when S asked me to make one for her I was thrilled. I'm loving pleats at the moment and decided to try and work some into this bag. I took out my big box of fat quarters and spent a very enjoyable half an hour figuring out which ones to use. I had a lovely bundle of Freebird by Moda fabrics that I bought last month just because they were gorgeous. I adore the brown dotty one which reminds me of a dress worn by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and thought it would work great as a contrast lining. I had some difficulty deciding which coordinating one to put with it but finally settled with the floral because it was so fresh and to be honest, it just screamed "make me into a cute bag" to me.





The original fat quarter bag I made last year, I sewed using a great tutorial I found on Sew Mama, Sew. This time, I really wanted it to be my own. So I didn't look at any patterns purposely as I had a clear idea in my head of how I wanted it to look, with the dotty trim at the top, a pleated body and a medium length shoulder strap that would be comfortable to use.
First of all, I cut a long strip off both fat quarters for the handles and another strip for the trim at the top of the bag and then cut each remaining part of the fat quarters in half. I played around for quite a while trying different looks before finally pinning the box pleats on the floral, going for quite wide pleats. I sewed the trim strip to the top of all pieces and then did the side and bottom seams on the lining and the main fabric. I went for quite a wide handle, with the dotty fabric on the outside, and the floral on the inside for contrast.

I used fairly heavy iron-on interfacing on the fabric to give the bag some structure, and used a long strip of very stiff interfacing in the handle. Lastly I put in a magnetic snap button and, with right sides facing and taking care not to twist my handle, sewed the lining, outside and handles together, turned it right side out and finished the last couple of inches by hand. The main body of the bag measures about 9 inches high and 7 inches wide at the top / 9 inches wide at the bottom. Perfect for carrying wallet, keys and a few essentials. Voila!