A couple more finishes

Today I've got two more finishes to show you - the first is my bag. I only broke 5 sewing machine needles getting it together. Afterwards the instructor and I came up with a few different ways we could have done it differently so the poor needles didn't have such a hard time getting through all the layers (6+ layers of pre-quilted fabric gets rather thick) - still it all goes into the experience to learn from for next time.

Then I attended my first EGA meetings this month (my local chapter meets a number of times a month for different things. The main meeting has just started a series on crazy quilts, so we did our first block this month and here's mine:

The other meeting I went to was the sampler satellite where we had a talk about whitework which was very interesting and has got me wanting to pull out my Ukrainian Whitework book and find a project to do. But I'm being good and waiting - although I'm thinking that would be a good project to take to the sampler satellite each month, so I may end up starting it just for that purpose.

I've also almost finished the things for school - just as well as the last day is Wednesday, so I'll show that to you soon when they are finished finished.

The Pirate Quilt

At long last I show you the pictures of the quilt I completed a couple of weeks ago.

Front:

Back: The light blue wave fabric was going to be the border on the front, but it washed out the quilt too much so I found the dark blue map fabric instead, and pieced lots of leftovers together for the back - I basically started out with the largest pieces I had and went down in size filling in the gaps with as little cutting as possible.

And a gorgeous cat who thinks everything is for her use:

Now I'm working on a 'designer purse' and making changes as usual. It's based on a Simplicity pattern (#9949, view A) and we're adding extra pockets inside, and then I'm making a single cross-body strap as opposed to the shoulder straps that it comes with. Oh ok, I'll show you the current progress.

After this I'll do DD's pink castle quilt - honest :)

Dress

Today I made a dress for DD. It actually came out rather well, if a bit big and long. But hey, that just means it'll last a bit longer (hopefully). And at least it covers her butt which is more than most of the ones you can buy seem to do.

Curtains

The other thing I've done recently is make a net curtain for my daughters room. I started out trying to use this fabric:

But the sunsety stripes were across the fabric so I had to cut it into lengths and then hem each one, and they turned out a bit short and the fabric wasn't really bright enough (the room is rather pink). So I went out and found some more fabric, with stripes the other way so I only needed a hem down each edge and one seam across the top.

Here are the curtains - I wasn't quite sure what to do with the extra fabric at the top so at the moment I've just folded it over and left it (it made hemming it easier if I didn't have to try and cut straight as well) and it seems to be working ok, so until I come up with a brilliant idea on how to finish it neatly it'll stay like that:

Here they are trying to show the colour of the room:

And here's a better picture of how pink the room is - so you can guess how washed out the first try looked (the stitching was done by my mother):

Paper Dolls

I've also been busy making my daughter 'paper' dolls. Here are the two dolls - they don't have faces yet, and I think given my drawing skills they might stay that way for a while - and the two outfits I've finished (minus the shoes which I haven't).

Sewing the dolls was horrible, but the outfits are really quite fun to make.

Must admit though that I'm not doing quite what the pattern said - would waste so much fabric, and I really don't want to be doing 20 layers (ok so that's an exaggeration - I think they only want 3 or 4 layers - I think it's 2 layers of stiffening, one of shading for the back, and then the clothes on the front. All stuck together with paper backed webbing. And they do it by making big squares of the layers and then cutting them out at the end. Well as I see it - that paper backed stuff is expensive and I really don't need to waste it by sticking together great squares of fabric that I'm then not going to use - so I draw the picture on the paper, then roughly cut it out, attach it to my clothing fabric, cut it out nicely and then attach that to the backing fabric (one layer) then I cut it out nicely. I can fit so much more on that way - even if I did two layers of backing fabric I'd be saving a lot of fabric and fusing. May not be as stiff as the pattern asks for, but it works for me and DD.

I also haven't put any of the buttons and stuff on them. I haven't completely decided yet, but I kind of feel that they'll be ripped off quite quick and so it would be a waste of time. I will put some bits of ribbon on though I think (partly because I already have the ribbon). There are lots more clothes to come too - ballgowns and wedding gowns and pyjamas and ballerina costumes and so on.