Sunday snippets

Playing along here. Blogtoberfest starts tomorrow!!

It's all about the zest!

So I got to hang out with my crafty pal on Saturday, doing a bit of sewing, and I came home with a bit of stuff. We both have enough fabric to last a millenium, but this is the gold bar for me!

I got some owls and bikes;  some Spring Bouquet and the green one.

 The 'green one' is this- the Zesty Tote in lime! It's refreshing just looking at it haha. I used one of the panels and whipped it up at home. And waited to semi-ok-light for a pic (sorry, typical Melbourne weather means I blinked and missed the sun!)

The straps are strudy, and the name label is printed on- on for each side, which is handy when you want to show off a geat bag!

I used a vintage tablecloth for the lining.

and now have a reversible bag!

And then, after telling the bag it was going in a photo shoot, it decided to start posing on the kid's playground equipment....

Until I eventually reminded it....'you're just a bag'. Sorry, I think the Zesty Tote was playing with my head! Or it was a reeaaallllly slow day at work!

There are a few other colours in the shop, too.

And a plug about another new product Cam has designed...check out these cool accessories! Look familiar?
 Cam has cleverly taken the orange and pink flower she designed from that illustration, and had these acrylic pieces made up! So they are truly one-of-a-kind!

(photo borrowed from here)

 And that's the kind of person Cam is! 

(sorry, corny but true)

Still going....

Still going on the custom quilt, it's getting to the pointy end!

I layed it out the other night; 

after trimming them all and admiring :)

I was admiring the yummy scraps that came off too! So bright and cherry in the bin.

  

after the borders, I layed it out and check the fit. I was going for about a king size, and my bed is queen, so I'm pretty happy! 

The hardest thing about a custom order is keeping the balance! Creatively, I like lots of different projects on the hop, for different moods, or dependant on whether I can get off the couch or not at the end of the day!

I have been looking at these gorgeous bag patterns for a while, having followed Anna's blog for a while. I have tried a few of her tutorials and liked them, so I splurged on the weekend and bought her bag patterns 241 and Sidekick.

I started with the 241 pattern the other night. So quick- a 2hr movie on the laptop (the amazing Aussie movie Beautiful Kate) and it was printed, cut out and half finished! The rest done this morning.

I used denim, some DS Quilts print from Spotlight, and some of my fave honeycomb red spot. Vintage floral lining.

 And the denim? Chopped from a pair of my sister's old jeans! They came from my bad habit of looking through her bag of stuff for the op shop I had in the car boot! Hmmm, I'll add them to the pile! and they were very handy!

For the side panels I used the bottoms of the legs, and for the strap the upper part. So they are different shades as well. Which I think looks really nice!

Hmm, now to decide whether to keep or sell! It's pretty cute....

Little Miss meets Masterchef

 

 Exhaustipated.

In progress....part 1

So after my last post, I thought I'd try and document this quilt making caper a bit better, so I can show people what it is, and  how I do it! Warts and all I'm afraid, as in "the stylist was on their day off" I doubt I'll teach anyone what to do, but it's fun to document the process! And this is all the 'self taught' stuff I've found that works for me.

So I'm making another one of this, as I said at the bottom of the post, it's not for me, but another custom order (yippee!) My Layer cake and Jelly Roll of this arrived, and I got stuck in yesterday morning.

So the 'den' is semi prepared for the big event. Vacuumed, at least! The desk is in THE best spot for a lovely spring day, I even had the windows open- and the heating OFF! That is such a hard habit to break at the end of winter, right? Machine moved off the table so I have optimum space!

 I have some table protectors on top of the desk, both from IKEA, but the cutting mat fits OK as well. I got cutting- this pattern makes lots of blocks, and lots of cutting! So as I'm cutting (and I sit and rotary cut, which I didn't think was unusual until I went to a few classes. No table is ever high enough for me not to have an aching back after 5mins!) I'm using the old hot pink Post-It notes to keeps track of the sizes and piles....

Oh, a sneak peak of the 'extra' space- music is very important to me while I work, I can't stand the tv on in the day, plus there's never anything that important I need to watch. So the laptop and Cd's it is! night time is different though, trashy TV and Twitter chat keeps me going! My next big purchase will be a 'wheely' chair and chair mat so I can 'scoot' from machine to iron without having to stand and shift the chair!

So the reason behind all my labelling- I know exactly what bits to join to what! This cutting took about 4-5 hrs all up.

But the piecing together is a lot quicker when everything's marked! Today called for A + B + C.

I had a very unhelpful 'cat stop' that insisted on sitting at the back of the machine, where the fabric usually falls down . Unhelpful that I got attacked when I tried to move her!

And the simplest way I've found to sew ALL those seams? Chain piecing, So one continuous strip of sewing, then snip it all and move on to the next line. I used to try and join it all together without the snipping after each line- tangled mess, I'm afraid.

So there's a little start to the quilt. I pressed these ones, and got the D + E block done as well today, then had the rest of the afternoon off!

For Sale (finally)

Yay, it's finally happening! 

I have listed these bags on my Facebook page, 'For sale'. I decided to start small with something with no fees, as I have no extra money at the moment, and hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?

Descriptions and more pics are over 

here;

here;

 and here.

I was thinking the other day, though, that all my pics seem to be of 'finished' things, and this isn't really what a blog/ my blog is about, I need to blog the process more! Unfortunately, all my fellow 'Instragrammers would have seen these before, but a lot of people aren't on Instagram, and are missing out! (on my pics, I mean, haha)

I'm going to try and blog more 'in process' pics, the finished item is good, but it's fun seeing the 'behind the scenes', isn't it?