Design Wall Monday - bag progress

Sophia's zebra bag is all finished.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  It's about 17 x 21, and the shorter handles were a good decision.  

Olivia's music bag is coming along nicely.  I'm making flying geese for the front of the bag, and have a couple more left to do (aqua & green).  Then I'll sew them in a vertical strip, with the music fabric on both sides. My plan is to have the geese slightly off-center.  

I want the pianos to be the main focus on the front since she wants this to carry her books to piano lessons each week.  I have a purple print for the lining and handles, and possibly a strip around the bottom of the bag.

I dropped off my main sewing machine on Saturday afternoon for a long overdue tune-up and cleaning.  For a couple of weeks I’ll have to use my smaller machine that I usually take to classes and retreats.  I’ll miss a couple of handy features not on this smaller machine, but it will be nice to have my big machine all tuned up again.

What is on your design wall today? 

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

I'm also linking up with Monday Making:

https://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

The Pillow of the Month - October

 The Scaredy Cat pillow is all finished and sitting on my sofa for Halloween.

This is the latest in the Pillow of the Month (Riley Blake) kits.  So I can't take any credit for fabric or design choices because it all comes in a cute little box.  The only thing we have to add is the pillow form to stuff it.  I quilted this one with double diagonal lines following the HSTs.  The envelope back is simply black, but I really love that orange and white striped binding.

It looks good on the sofa along with the bench pillow I made last year.  

While thinking about how I decorate with quilts . . . in my dining room I hung up an older Halloween quilt that has been packed away for a couple of years.  The blocks in this one were from a block swap I participated in.  It is such fun to be able to change out the quilts on this wall whenever the mood hits me. 

 

Green is leading me to Christmas

 With this month's color being green, I started thinking about Christmas projects, even though lime green may not be the shade normally be associated with that holiday.  Then I saw this project in a magazine, and you know how easily distracted I am.  So, Christmas table runner #2 is ready to quilt and this one has a touch of lime green. This runner looks kind of busy.  Maybe I should have put a solid red border on it.   Hmmmm . . .

Runner #1 used aqua with pink and red, and again I used the busy print as the border.  It's also ready to quilt.  But I probably won't decide how to quilt these until all 3 are ready.

Runner #3 just needs the border and my plan is to use the snowman print.  Since I used up most of that dark red fat quarter, I guess the decision was made for me.  All 3 runners will use the print from the Crossed Canoes blocks as the border.  

I'm linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge today:
https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Enter at your own risk

 Parts of my sewing room have been recently cleaned and reorganized. And other parts are still a mess! 

So . . . this little machine embroidered door hanger is perfectly appropriate.  I purchased this at the quilt show last weekend to hand on the door to my sewing room.  Sew Storm Quilting is in Alcester SD, and they were one of the fun vendors who came to the show.  They had a lot of fun embroidered items for sale, in addition to the fabric and notions they brought. 

Still distracted

Wednesday was a chilly rainy day - perfect for sewing or playing cards.  Actually it probably was a perfect day for baking or making soup, but that didn't happen. LOL  The sewing and the cards did.

And yes, I'm still distracted from finishing the bags or the table runners.  But making more Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks was actually on my weekly goal list, so it's OK.  There are now a dozen of these Windmill (or Roll On) blocks made using leftover charm squares.  This would really make a fun I Spy quilt, so that may be the direction I'll keep going with it.  So far there are monkeys, bugs, cats, hearts, oranges, flowers, and Christmas ornaments. There is even a super hero in that top left corner.  In better light these are bright and cheery.  

We actually got 2" of rain yesterday and then it turned to snow for a couple of hours. By bedtime that snow had melted again.  We needed that moisture so much!  I'll take it, even in the form of snow.

A little bit of sewing

 Just a little bit of sewing happened yesterday morning, but I did get almost caught up with chores and errands the rest of the day.  Grocery shopping, laundry, decluttering . . . all are things that I DIDN'T do last week.  And I also did a bit of cross stitching as a reward when I finished.

The center of the second Crossed Canoes runner is all assembled.  That snowman fabric makes me smile.  And I made a few new RSC blocks - 2 Twinkle Stars and 3 Windmill (Roll On) blocks.  I think I have 26 of the Twinkle Stars, but since they are only 9" blocks I'll need more.  

I'll have to share the windmill blocks another day as I have a few cut out, and will take a photo when there are several to group together.  

And I need to get back to working on those bags for the granddaughters!!!  

To Do Tuesday

 Yesterday I went back to my October list of goals and was shocked at how little from that list I've actually worked on.  Wow - that was an overly ambitious list of goals!  Last week I set a weekly goal of working on bags.  One is done - Yay!!, a second is partially done, and the third is planned out. The zebra bag is ready to fuse the fleece lining and do a little bit of quilting.  There are no zippers on this one so it really shouldn't take too long. 

And then I got distracted with some Christmas table runners last week.  I think these will make good gifts if I can actually finish them.  One is a complete top and the other 2 are cut out.  So I'm adding these to this week's goals so I can focus on those bags again. 

The pattern called for 4 of the paper pieced Crossed Canoe blocks, but that would be a huge table runner and that doesn't work for everyone.  I ended up doing just 2 blocks because with the sashing and border it's a decent size even if your table is small. 

That first one is a very modern Christmas fabric in aqua, and pink with a touch of red.  The peppermint candy print and the green snowman are both a lot more traditional. I think each one will be very cute.  

So for this week I've tried to set some reasonable goals for myself:

• FIRST - put away all of the Quilt Show "stuff" that I unloaded from my car!!
• Finish 1 of the 2 Christmas runners (flimsies)
• Farmers Wife Sampler blocks
• make this week's 2 new blocks
• sash at least 10 more
• Make at least 5 various RSC blocks
• Progress on Sophia's zebra bag
• Progress on Olivia's music bag
• Halloween black cat pillow (quilt front & cut back pieces)
• prep a possible charity stitching project with friends - maybe they will be interested

I'm linking up with To Do Tuesday.