WIP Wednesday

Wednesday again and once again I have made progress on a number of fronts.

At Handmade With Love yesterday I worked on finishing off the pencil cases I started a few weeks back. I had done more work on them on Monday so on Tuesday all I had to do was sew the inner and outer pieces. It was beaut to get them done. I also worked on a couple of other pieces from the box of stuff there - not anything that I had started by myself.

Today at Patchwork group I worked on a couple of things. First of all my friend Lindi once again helped me pin a couple of quilts - yay. Now the first of the Sparkle baby quilts and "My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes" are pinned and ready to quilt. I would love to get them quilted in time for my stash report but since I am going away tomorrow till Sunday night that isn't going to happen. I am taking my Janome Gem with me but I don't quilt on that! Actually I probably could take the baby quilt and get it done as it is small enough to work under the small throat space. I used Minky dot in the backing of it. I love the feeling of minky and the look of the dot one even more. 

This baby quilt will be for one of my Mum's great grandies as it features some of her embroideries. I have a great niece and great nephew born in the last couple of months that are "owed" quilts and another one cooking away as we speak. I also have 2 other babies, the grand daughter of a friend and the daughter of my daughter's friend, that I also plan to make quilts for (I made one for their siblings so I kinda have to) so.... after I had pinned (sorry we) had pinned the quilts I got to work putting together another of the sparkle quilts. I had made the blocks at Patch n Peace. I plan to put another border on it but the centre is done.

Then I started making some more blocks for the next baby quilt - this one for the great grandie due later this year. Fortunately Lindi was at a loose end and she was a great help pressing the blocks for me. I'd snow ball one corner, sew the second seam (to make a half square triangle out of the bit you snip off) and she would trim to hst off and then press the corner out so I could snow ball the adjacent corner. I sewed the second seam and she snipped the hst off and pressed it again. With her help I was able to get ALL of the squares done quickly. Now I can make the blocks whilst away this weekend. 

Since I got home from Patchwork I have worked at trimming the HST from the first three quilts I made. I now have a lovely pile neatened down to 2.5". I think I will make a border out of them for one of the baby quilts. Not sure that there is going to be enough for more than one but we will see. I didn't do the HSTs from today's efforts as they were still in the car, ready to take away with me. Hopefully I will get them trimmed whilst I am away.

I have put together all the bits I need to make the final sparkle quilt - well the 5th one for this batch. This baby lives in Iceland so I have chosen Australian animals to be the centre of the blocks and fabric from my Australian wildflower collection to be the snowball pieces for the blocks. Instead of working with white background this time, I am using beige as it tones in better with the colours in the blocks. (lots of yellows and tans and browns).

I sorted through fabrics and Handmade With Love yesterday. I was looking for scraps of Christmas fabrics to make circles to Cap the bottles of savoury peanuts I have made. Instead I found some gorgeous fabrics, too nice to chop up for caps but perfect for  table runners. I bought some home and if I can find my pattern I will make some of those this week for the Christmas in July craft fair at the end of next month.

These will make a lovely table runner I think.

I will get the caps for the jars out of this fabric I think although I might think of something more creative

So how has your week been? Have you made good progress?