More Sewing

I recently purchased an external hard drive for my Mac laptop.  I have an old laptop that went dark and I have about 5000 photos that are probably lost.  In those photos are some of my parents who are in their 80s and very ill.  I am now periodically backing up my photos.  The hard drive came without a case and I felt it needed to be protected.  I found some old, old, old French General fabric and sewed up a small zippered pouch for protection.  I used batting.  There is enough room for other things if needed.  It's not perfect, but it will do.

I also put together this block for my long languishing Long Time Gone Quilt by Jen Kingwell.  I started this as a BOM though Amitie Textiles in Australia many years ago.  Jen's style is outside my comfort zone especially when it comes to fabric selection.  I'm going with it as the BOM included all the fabrics etc.  I might as well use what I have and it's never a bad idea to try something outside your comfort zone in quilting.  I will say that her designs can really easily use whatever ugly fabric you might have.  They seem to work!

Wishing you a great week!  May all your stitches be happy ones!

Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That

My attention hasn't seem to be focused on any one thing these days - my mind is flitting from one thing to the next.  That has been reflective in how I've been spending my free time.  This past week, I've stitched on three different projects and did some frogging on a 4th.  Not typical for me!

Zippered Pouches:

I've had another attempt - two actually - at getting my zipper corners more squared on pouches.  This is most most recent attempt.  Much improved!  But guess what?  I forgot to do the topstitching!  Oh well, I'll either still use this one (knitting notions) or pass it along to my sister who is a teacher to put in her "treasure chest".  I also went back to the drawing board on my pieced zippered pouch, but I can't find it to take pictures of it.  It must be some place "safe".   It came out better too but not tremendously.  Need to figure out what to do with the bulk since that project had batting in it instead of fusible interfacing.

Knitting:

I finally weaved in the ends of this project.  This is an inexpensive wrap for the couch for those days it's too cold on my shoulders in the living room.  Obviously, since it's already hot, hot, hot here, it's going to be a while before I can use it.   When I bought the yarn, I was on vacation and hadn't been knitting for a while.  So I bought cheap yarn.  I've learned my lesson because I really do wish this was  less rustic.  I didn't think I'd like the ruffles but turns out I love them! 

 

Ruffled Shawl

Marble Chunky Yarn Color MC15

Size 9 Needles

Scraps:   GIVEAWAY CLOSED

Do you use 1.5" and 2" inch scraps - mostly traditional fabrics?  If so, leave your name and they are yours!  If more than 1 of you would like them, I'll draw a name.  They're too small for me and have been sitting on my cutting table for far too long!

A Favor:

If you're a stitcher and on Facebook, can you "Like" our EGA guilds page?  We are trying to get to 100 likes!  There is a ton of pictures of beautiful stitching to look at too!  Thank you!

I hope you all have had a great weekend!  I've been busy today with things that need to be done about the house so no needle time so far today. Hopefully tonight.  I hope all your stitches are happy ones!

Tomorrow is Another Day!

I know it's been a while!  I'm still out there reading your blogs and being inspired.  I'm just getting a slow start to the year.  Thank you for hanging in there with me!

One of my goals for the year is to have more handmade ornaments for our Christmas tree this year.  It's a sad state of affairs here as there are presently only two in our "collection".   There are times at work where I do get to take a full lunch hour.  It doesn't take an hour to eat so I've put together a little kit so I'll have something to stitch on when I do have that extra bit of time.  

Here's my kit - this is actually what I'm working on presently.  Fabric, pattern, thread, QSnaps, and a cute little handcrafted needle holder that Annette made for me at the holidays (I love it so much, perfect for a couple of spare needles).  

It fits nicely in this zippered bag.  It looks huge here but in reality it is just a bit bigger than a paperback book and fits nicely in my lunch tote. 

It's amazing how much progress can be made on a ornament with little bits of time here and there.  I've actually finished stitching two ornaments and the one in the kit above is more than 1/2 done.  The one below is the first one I finished this year and the kit was gifted to me by a good friend Teresa.  It definitely started off my year on the right foot!  Thank you T!

Erica Michaels

Quiet Night

JCS Christmas Edition 2007

It's no secret that my sewing mojo has been on a field trip.  I haven't even been going into my sewing room.  A few weeks ago I did get in there and re-organized my scraps.  Today I went in there and told myself to  "just sew anything".  So I pulled out some scraps and ended up making a little zippered pouch.  As you all know, I'm pretty new to zippers.  My first experience wasn't that bad though.  It feels like it's been downhill from there.  I'm not happy at all with today's pouch.  It didn't help that my machine was being cranky as all get out and I felt like I had to fight it to get through this and it shows in the end result.  But that is OK, because I'm going to try again and do better.  And in order to do that, I need to get in there and sew on a more regular basis - improve my skills instead of getting rusty!  

I do love those rounded bottom corners though!  

Even though today was a bit  frustrating, I am grateful that I don't do everything well on the first (or even the 5th try) as I do find joy in learning!  Wouldn't it be boring to master every new skill on the first try?  I think so!  

I'm off to watch some YouTube videos or at least I will be after I finish watching Real Housewives of Atlanta.  Ha! 

Follow Your Arrow

I'm participating in Ysolda Teague's Follow Your Arrow Mystery KAL again this year.  It runs for 6 weeks and we've had two clues.  The pattern calls for 550 yards and I thought it would be a good project to make the best use of the yardage of a skein of Wollmeise.  No such luck.  Here is clue #1 knit in that selection.  As you can tell, far too dark for the pattern.  

So I went back to the drawing board and ordered yarn from Eat. Sleep. Knit - specifically MadelineTosh Tosh Merino Light in the Oceana colorway and here is how my project stands at the end of Clue #2.  With blocking, the texture will look more like sideways arrows.  I had to work hard at not pulling the floats too tight.  I'm trying to loosen up my tension in general.  It's more important with something like this.  I've learned a lot with this project already!  Even though it seems I've knit most of it twice.  Ugh.  Looking at this picture, the pattern isn't very prominent.  Trust me it is in real life, this is just a bad i-Phone pic.

I also ordered some yarn to make my husband a hat.  This knit up super fast. Like two days.

 

Bulky Waffle Hat

MadelineTosh Tosh Chunky

Mandala Colorway

I also made a knitting project bag.  Aren't these knitting sheep cute?  It doesn't match my project but I wanted to use the knitting themed fabric.    I used the Noodlehead tutorial but ended up veering from the pattern a bit.  Sewing is not intuitive for me and I needed more photos.

It's lined in a co-ordinating knitting fabric.

That's it for me for now.  Have a great week and I hope all your stitches are happy ones!

Fear Be Gone!

The funk is in full force but I do have two things to show you.  More zippered pouches!  These were made using this tutorial from Flossie TeaCakes.  I followed it exactly as described except I used fusible fleece and quilted the panels with straight lines.  I was a bit disappointed with my output because I wanted really square corners by the zippers.  I should have shortened my stitch length and probably trimmed my corners a bit closer.  My corners will be more square next time!

I was happy, however, with the zipper installations.  No issues there!  Who would have thought?!  I'm excited about that part to be sure!  These will probably find their way to my nieces (the youngest is really into guitars) at some point.

I'm so glad to be over my fear of zippers - YES, I can say that!   I am going to continue exploring different zippered pouches, working to improve my sewing skills.  I love learning new things and thankfully blogs make it really easy to learn.   I've always said that I'm inspired by all of you and I truly mean that.  I also learn from each of you who share your journey on your blogs.  Thank you for that!  I really does encourage me to dip my toe in and maybe {hopefully} one day master that skill.  

Not So Scary!

I'm so excited to show you these zipped pouches that I made - my very first ones!  To be honest, zippers have always intimidated me.  Seriously intimidated me.  I decided long ago that Michelle's Dumpling Bag tutorial would be a good beginner project.   So I sat down and read the directions thoroughly and followed them carefully.  And I did it!!!  It didn't kill me either!

These are both the smaller version of the Dumpling Bag.  Not perfect but I'm happy with this first attempt!

And what's any girl who sews zippers supposed to do?  Start a zipper stash (from ZipIt) of course!

Now I'm going to go dance around the house while opening and closing the zippers that work perfectly!  Happy Stitches to you all!