Bag planning

The front of Sophia's zebra bag is fixed and looks much better.  I have the back and lining pieces cut, and the handles made.  This was a kit I bought, but . . . the pattern called for the handles to be 42" long.  This is for a little girl who is 9.  She doesn't need this bag to drag on the ground when she carries it.  I'm not very tall either, but this bag hung about at my waist with the handles that long.  So, I made ONE handle at 42" and cut it in half.  

The pattern calls for fusible fleece to be fused to the lining and I'm really questioning the logic in that.  So, after chatting with a couple of people about it, I'm thinking I'll fuse it to the outside of the bag and do a few simple quilting lines on it for stabilization.  I don't want it too flimsy - or too bulky. 

And here is the "pattern" for granddaughter Olivia's music bag.  She wants a bag just large enough to carry her lesson books to piano lessons, so I'm making it up as I go.  I have a pretty splatter paint music print for the main parts of the bag, and a purple (her favorite color) for handles, plus a top and bottom band.  Those bands will hopefully help keep the music print a bit cleaner since it has a lot of white in it.  And I want to make some batik flying geese in the colors of the music print to run up the front of the bag.  Hot pink, lime green, purple, aqua - all of those colors are in the print.  

Two finishes this week - a bag & a wall hanging

The navy blue Sew Together bag was a UFO most of 2021, but now it's checked off my list. Yay!!

This is #17 for this bag pattern.  Guess I really need to learn to make a different type of bag some day.  But I really do like making these little bags!

The other finish is the Bats & Boos wall hanging.  This was actually one of those squirrels that crossed my path and insisted that I drop everything and make it.  And I'm so glad that I did because this was a very fun project.  This one will go to the quilt show this weekend.  And then next Monday morning I will hang it from the quilt rail in the living room for the rest of October. 

I've often said that I'm a nerd who loves a spreadsheet.  Projects are so easy to track with a very simple spreadsheet.  I have a tab for my UFO Challenge list, a tab for random blocks made, and a tab for project finishes.  When I start working on a project I list it on that sheet, and then when it's finished it gets a date and category selected from a drop down menu I created.  That way I know how many of anything I've actually finished.  My finished total for 2021 wouldn't look very impressive without so many pillowcases added in.  

It's fun to see how many things actually did get completed this year.  And those items started but not finished show up highlighted in yellow until they are done, which is a good reminder to keep working on them.   

Not all progress is forward

 The navy blue Sew Together bag is all done except for the handwork around the handles and zipper.  At some point this week I plan to have it all finished. 

The tote bags for my granddaughters have also been started.  The parts for the front of Sophia's bag were cut and sewn on Monday morning.  But I couldn't figure out why the borders on this panel section didn't fit.  I measured them twice, and even pieced the top and bottom to make it fit.

And then I looked at the pattern again.  Oops!!!  Two mistakes on my part due to not reading the instructions closely enough.  

Mistake #1 - I didn't trim to size after adding the the blue borders.  Mistake #2 - I put the narrow flowered sections on the sides (because they fit since I didn't trim the blue), and the wider border on the top and bottom.  I ended up piecing those because they were too short.  Duh!! GRRRR!  This was a careless mistake on my part!!

So, I do believe my seam ripper is coming out again.  And once I trim that blue, then the flowered pieces should fit IF I put them on correctly.   

Design Wall Monday - bag progress

There has been significant progress on this bag, which is another of the Sew Together bags.  This is #17 that I've made from this pattern.  I'm wishing however that I had sewn that license plate another inch higher.  But I had already quilted that front section when I realized it should have been higher.  

The handles and final zipper are remaining, so I'm feeling optimistic that I can finish it this week.  The hardest part is sewing that lining, with pockets and side sections onto the front as there are so many layers of fabric to sew through.  

But before I could sew those sections together I had to correct my big mistake.  I had one zippered pocket all sewn and even top stitched, when I realized that I had left out the pocket lining.  Oops!!  My seam ripper is always close at hand luckily. 

 

The lining, pockets, and side sections were finally successfully added.  Now, on to the next step.

What is on your design wall today? 

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

I'm also linking up with Monday Making:

https://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

What is the plan for the week?

 On Friday as I hung up lots of new blocks on the skirt hangers in neat collections, I had to look around my sewing room to see what was waiting for some attention.  Believe me, there are so many projects waiting for attention.  Too many!!  Some specific goals for this week need to focus on things stacked on the end of the ironing board and taking up space.

This bag was kitted up about a year ago, and has been neglected for too long.  I pulled it out this summer and quilted the front. Then I put it away.  A couple of months later it came out again and I sewed the end sections together. And then it was set aside again.  Well, it's time to finish it.  

Both granddaughters are getting tote bags for Christmas.  The music fabric will make Olivia a bag for her piano lesson books plus a pillowcase.  I'm not 100% sure about using that purple with the music fabric, but I'm thinking it will be good for the bag lining and maybe the handles.  The zebra fabric will become a tote bag for Sophia.  She loves animals, and this bag kit was something I bought while shopping with her mom last spring.  I should be able to finalize what size to make them, and cut the pieces this week.  Maybe a little sewing will happen on them too, depending on time. 

Friday this week will be completely taken up with the set up process for our guild Quilt Show.  The show itself is Saturday and Sunday.  It takes most of the day to set up poles and hang quilts, and then do a bit of decorating.  I plan to take only 6 or 7 projects to show this year, including this Halloween themed One Block Wonder.  It was finished in 2019 - but we can show anything we've made since the previous quilt show, which was 2018.  

Neutral and lime green

 For October our color for RSC is lime green or neutral.  I love lime green and have a pretty good selection of it to choose from in the scrap bin.  But . . . this happened instead.

There was already a green bunny, so this Country Bunny isn't green; it's kind of a grey/brown color.  He looks a bit boring all by himself, but when he joins his friends he fits right in.  I deliberately chose colors that are less saturated than usual, so they all have a softer feel.  Not quite pastel but not bright either.

But I did play a little bit with lime green.  A couple of green Ohio Star blocks and a couple of green Twinkle Star blocks have joined the collections.  And 8 new tulips were made and sewn into 2 quad sections.  There is a touch of lime in those leaves and stems.  

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

Y-seams & HSTs & Squares - - Oh My!

Y-seams are not my favorite thing!  Grrr!  Notice the blue pin near the top of this block?  It's holding that Y-seam in place until I can sew it by hand with a needle and thread.

This was Garden Path from the Farmers Wife Sampler book.  It's only 6.5" square, so all of the pieces are very very small.  Working on these blocks has been an excellent way to improve my accuracy and skills, but occasionally one of them gets the best of me. Happily all of those little HST are getting better and better. My points are even looking pretty good on this block. But that pesky Y-seam drove me nuts!  I almost took those blue strips off and pieced them with regular strips and then squared up.  But the pattern had them pieced like this and I want to stay as true to the pattern as possible.  The last one of those Y-seams will need to be stitched by hand.  Enough said on that topic!!

The other block for this week was Gentleman's Fancy.  It was easy - thank goodness! It started with that center square, and then cream triangles were added to all 4 sides.  And then a round of pink triangles, followed by bigger cream triangles, and finally the larger pink ones.  Square-in-a-square times 4.

 

And finally, I got the HSTs made for the Halloween pillow.  This 20" pillow front is ready to quilt, but I have no idea what I want that quilting to look like.  

Additionally - 5 new tulip blocks were also pieced, and 2 side of Bats and Boos wall hanging was bound.  Hopefully I'll finish that binding today.