WIP Wednesday - what I have been up to this week

I've worked on a variety of projects this week.

Pouches
I completed 6 little zipper pouches over the weekend. I blogged about them on Sunday in my stash report. I took them along to our craft group "Hand Made Love" and one of the other crafters bought one right off the bat! She also asked me about making her a bag to carry her folder in. I am a bit reluctant to do a commission - she wants it bigger than one I had there and in the same colours as the pouch she bought. But that will take almost a whole fat quarter of fabric just for the front of the bag - and the fabric she likes is rather expensive. It was some of the fabric that I had bought whilst on holidays in South Australia last year. So I am not sure if I will take her up on her commission. I will see how things pan out. This craft group was meeting fortnightly but they have now decided to meet weekly. I am not sure if I am willing to commit to that regularly. I might just sew at home....

I also completed another denim jeans bag for the stall. That was the last of my jeans shorts left over from my quilt however someone gave me a bag with another 5 cut off jeans in it so I can keep on sewing should I wish to. I am thinking I will leave it till after the stall at the end of the month and see if there is any interest in them before making any more.

POD
I completed the next block in the quilt along... block 9 and the next one is released today. Some people are already sewing their blocks into rows (5 blocks to a row) but since I've been planning on embroidering book titles on each block I haven't sewn them together yet but I might give in and sew them into strips just to see what its going to look like. This last block had a snitch in it and I am really pleased with how it turned out. I did have a few  hassles with the block this time... of my own making. I did a lot of reverse sewing on the first book I sewed but got it eventually.

Elephant Parade
I managed to catch up the two blocks I was behind last week and to get all the eyes sewn on - including the elephants which I hadn't realised were eyeless. They are also tail less but there are no tails in the patterns. I am not sure if I'll add some tails now or if I will wait till I sew the blocks together and then embroider some tails on... or perhaps add some plaited tails. That might look good and add some dimension to the quilt.

Sorting my scraps.
My scrap basket was once again over flowing... piled well up. Time to get sorting. I'm going to have to do a bit of ironing as well as the scraps have been shoved into the basket so are really scrunched up. Its going to take me awhile to get through it all

Patch n Peace Mystery Quilt
As I started to sort things last night I remembered that I have a mystery quilt to prepare for, for a retreat I am going to in June. I could cut for that as I sorted my scraps. I do have a pile of cut scraps already so figured that I should go through them first and get out the sizes I needed so as to not specially cut sizes I may not need. Turns out that I had plenty of 1.5"  3.5"  and 4" squares cut but needed to cut some 3.5" "bricks" -rectangles that are the size of 2 3.5" sewn together (6.5" cause you take off .5" seam allowance) and also some 7" squares. The bricks I was able to cut from 3.5" strips I already had in my stash but a lot of the 7" squares I had to actually go to my stash to cut as even in my scrap basket I didn't have large enough pieces - well didn't have sufficient of them. It was also important to cut from a variety of fabrics.

Blue Quilt at the club
Today I was able to get the centre of the top completely finished. I am going to add a narrow navy border but then that is it. Well then I have to put the back together and baste it and quilt it. I have spent a good bit of time on this quilt. The blocks were contributed by club members in our BOM challenge. Lindi, a fellow club member and I made a few more that we needed to complete the design. Lots of half square triangle pieces were left over and we made a mass of pinwheels from these, of varying sizes and these we used in the border. The border had to be pieced carefully and painstakingly and it took me a couple of weeks to get it done but at last I got it finished. Everyone is really pleased with it. It was designed to be a charity quilt but now we have decided to keep it for at least a year as next year the theme for the Queensland Patchwork Quilting Guild is blue and white so we will display it at our exhibition at the gallery.

Scrapitude: Scrap in a Box
The next clue for this challenge has been released. It looks really complicated and scary. I've only read it through but I am super nervous about it already. Better get my act together though and have a go. I am not sure how I will go with the April clue as it is due to be released just days before I fly to Malaysia. I get back from that and then head off to Melbourne and then back from that and my sister flies in for 10 days stay. She is a quilter though so she will be happy to sew with me... when we aren't tripping about. Still ... that isn't till April and May. I shouldn't be borrowing trouble should I!! I've realised that I have made a huge mistake and used up various things I needed in previous steps. Anyway - have cut more and ready to start some sewing.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, Wips on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social