WIP Wednesday on Thursday

I was flicking through my Pinterest feed (as you do) and checked out a link to "20 Great Ideas to Do with Denim" or something similar. As I have a box full of denim bits left over from my Jean's Jeans quilt from a few years ago, I clicked on it and fell down that rabbit hole and came across a raggy denim quilt tutorial. Now I would do the right thing and link to it BUT I didn't save it so I can't. But... it was pretty basic. Cut a piece of denim and a piece of colourful fabric to whatever dimension you want (I chose 8") and cut a piece of batting 1" smaller, sew an X to secure the 3 pieces together 

then sew these units, denim sides together into a quilt of whatever size you want, clip the exposed raw edges, 

wash and dry 

and clean your machine out and the filter on the dryer

and voila - a picnic rug.

Digby gave it the doggy seal of approval but Jack stayed clear. He's been in trouble for getting on quilts before.

Can you see the pockets and seams? I love those bits the most

The tutorial writer encouraged the maker to use all parts of the jeans including the pockets, seams and zips. I had a heap of pockets left over from my previous jeans project (called Jean's Jeans)* as it needed straight denim, no extra bits. Unfortunately the pieces I had with zippers in them weren't big enough to be used in this project.

I did have a few hassles. My machine had "no sew" spots at different times, some of which I picked up on at the times, others I found whilst clipping the seam allowance and others afters I had washed and dried it. I am not sure why it was playing up. I kept finding more spots that had to be resewn whilst showing the quilt to friends at Patchwork. That aside it was a great project.

It was fun to get a quilt started and finished in the same week - basically over the weekend.

I got 2 other finishes this week (as reported in my Stash Report) I finished off my club mystery quilt, now known as "Chillingworth Mystery" named after the fabric line it was mostly made from. 

I also finished Sparkle, the last of the Sparkle baby quilts I have had on the go for almost a year.

At Handmade With Love yesterday Peggy, our glorious leader had me on signature bear production! The other ladies present were working on cushion covers and a personal project. I finished cutting out 2 more bears and got the legs and arms sewed and stuffed and the body and ears sewn! I have done the head before but Peggy already had these done. I don't do features - I leave that to her to do as she is a bit more creative than me. Faces of stuffed animals and dolls I have made end up looking like the toy is a little demented or a sandwhich short of a picnic!

Two finished signature bears, which I helped work on last week and which Peggy finished off. They are now waiting delivery to our minister on Sunday for use at baptismal services.

Usually when I come home from HWL I spend the rest of the day sewing other projects for the group - recently I have been concentrating on things for Comic Con but yesterday I started cutting up my flannels to make a backing for a quilt. I have had the  this flannel for years and years but not used them so decided to make a backing out of them. 

They are a pretty mixed bag and to be honest the resulting strips are pretty hodge podge and not very attractive. Having cut them up I am determined to press on but... to be honest... its ugly. Luckily its just the back. Oh and I don't have enough. Maybe I will make a lap quilt out of what I have cut up and make something else (or eh gad buy something) for the backing. I was going to finish working on it today and see what a mess I have ended up with and decide then.

My A to Z quilt is at a standstill as I need to buy fabric for the borders and maybe backing, although I do have some stuff in my stash that would do for the backing. We are going to be going to Rocky this weekend so I will visit Spotlight then and hopefully find something not too expensive that will do.

I worked on a Secret Project at Patchwork. Got lots of blocks made, came home and starting sashing and arranging them. I am still a couple of blocks short. I could change the layout from 5x5 and put the extra blocks I have on the back or I could come up with the blocks that I need for the front. I have come up with 2 more (still need to be finished off but I know what they are) but am one short. I am prowling the house seeing if I can find just one more to complete the quilt

I have sewn up a pile of plastic backed curtain off cuts into cushions to be stuffed with fabric off cuts and made into dog beds. I got one finished this week which I've put into the laundry where our dog sleeps at night but I think its over stuffed and I am going to have to do some unpicking to remove some of the fabric and batting off cuts. I collected another full grocery bag of scraps from Patchwork yesterday so will have the stuffing for another cushion or two before long. The dogs don't really need more beds but I can always give them away.

see what I mean... its a bit too full to be comfy

And that has basically been it for the week. 

Linking up with 

* for some reason quite a few of the photos I used have disappeared off the post. I am not really sure why nor how to fix it but there are enough photos for you to get the idea.