WIP Wednesday

This week I have managed to decorate my house for Christmas. I've got the trees up (a big one, a small one and a number of miniature ones) They are all plastic trees. In the summer heat in Australia real trees don't last too long. 

 We used to get a real one  when I was still living at home but we could only cut it on Christmas Eve and it was dropping all its leaves on Boxing Day. My inlaws were still cutting a real tree when we were first married and I loved it but after a few years they got a plastic one too so it would last longer. I admit to being a tad disappointed but...

Anyway - decorating the house has been a work in progress all week as I have gradually unpacked the boxes of decorations. The only things still to go up are my quilted wall hangings. I can't find any of the rods. I suspect I have taken them up to church over the year to hang quilts up there. I've tried to buy some from Big W but they didn't have any but will check out the hardware shop. 

Besides decorating the house.... I have done some sewing. (surprised you there didn't I!!)

I finished off the 5 Darlek potholders I started to make last Wednesday. I finally got the labels stitched on at Handmade With Love yesterday and posted them off to Allison, who commissioned them from me today. (I didn't get a photo of the finished 5 so here is a cropped photo from last week )

Bonnie Hunter's En Provence Mystery quilt, clue number 2 came out Saturday morning Aussie time and I got the 100 units made that day. They are a long way from perfect but done is done. I still need to trim off the tag end bits from the triangles. 

I have also worked on the 4 patches from last week. We had to make a pinwheel at the joins of the 4 blocks on the back which reduces the bulk at the seams (Check out Bonnie's blog for the explanation of how and why) I hadn't read that instruction when making the blocks.... and also that the blocks needed to spin in the one direction. I sewed some wrong and so whilst they are all now pinwheeled, some are clockwise and some anti clockwise but meh you get that.

I am working on a Christmas present for a friend. I wanted to test the pattern before I used the special fabric I had ordered in for the project (ok asked my daughter to buy and post) so I made it out of some cat fabric. I really love the way it turned out

One of my goals for this month is to finish off my 2012 Amy Gibson BOM. To do that I need to make a backing. I have some fabric that I thought would be good but there wasn't quite enough so I decided to piece a row of orphan blocks down the centre to join the two pieces and make it big enough. Yeah ... well I dived into that basket of left over blocks and before long I was having lots of fun making them into a backing. 

There were too many for just a strip so instead it ended up that I pieced almost the entire back with just wide borders of the fabric that was going to be the backing to make it large enough. 

That of course took way longer than just piecing a back but... it was fun. And I used up heaps of orphan blocks and left over bits. I decided that this was appropriate to have a sort of sampler on the back given it was a sampler on the front. I think it looks great!

How have you gone with your WIPs this week/Month?

Sunday Stash Report

Its been a week of little finishes as I outlined in Wednesday's WIP report.

Potholders 
I made another 3 sets of modern floral potholders to complete the order of 5 from my friend. I am so happy with how they turned out. These were 10" square 1.17m

Then I made some more potholders 8" square - 2 sets using Starwars fabric, 2 using Betty Boop fabric and 3 sets using Alice in Wonderland fabric. 1.97

 

Teeny Tiny Zipper Pouches
I have made 9 of these. They take up so little fabric but take quite a bit of time to complete. However they are fun and look great and hopefully they will be good seller on the Christmas Craft Fair. I have used up all the little ends - lobster swivel clips -  so until I get my order from Ebay I won't be able to complete any more. .46m

Earbud pouch
I made 7 of these in a variety of fabric scraps. I was really happy with how they worked out. .51m

Easy Cosmetic Bags.
Made 2 more of these. One in a cute owl fabric and one in pokemon fabric. .45m

Bandanna Bibs
Made 7 of these in a variety of fabrics. I plan to make a few more for the craft fair. Last year I made some Christmas bibs (both bandanna and ordinary bibs) I don't have any more Christmas fabric so perhaps I will buy some more and get some made - unless there is some amongst the donated fabrics for HWL. .29m

Hanging Towels.
I've made one using Starwars fabric and 2 using Betty Boop .3m

I still have plenty of fabric with me to sew but have just about run out of batting and iron on stiffening. I have been using some fabric my sister in law gave me for wadding to go in the potholders (some cotton cloth that I use 4 layers of in the potholders). We will be home midweek so I might get a few more things made after I get home to bump up next week's figures. In the meantime

My stats for week 44 are

Fabric used                5.16m        
Fabric added              0.00  
Net                             5.16m

Year to Date
Fabric used               143.43m
Fabric added               78.62
Net                               64.81m

Linking up with Patchwork Times

WIP Wednesday

My big projects that I have been working on this month are all at a stand still. I need to get home to my stash to advance them and/or finish them off. 

String X is waiting on me choosing the background fabric and cutting the corner triangles. 

Homemade Heritage needs some more pink and purple strips for me to finish the last side and corner stone on each piece of embroidery. Then I will get to work on the borders.

 And the Club Mystery Quilt is needing a 1" finished border before I can put the piano key border on. I need to come up with a name for this quilt. I am thinking of calling it "Getting Along" cause that is the biggest mystery at our club... how to get everyone to get along with everyone else. Always seems to be someone on the outs with someone else. Individually they are all lovely women that I get along with (most of the time) but somehow there is always a bit of someone rubbing someone the wrong way.... sigh. But I do love my group.

There are no fabric shops here where I am currently in fact there are NO shops at all. My in-laws cattle station (ranch) is over an hour from the nearest shop of any description, aside from a petrol station. I also don't want to buy any fabric when I have a heap at home that I want to at least check out before I buy more.

As it turns out we might be making a trip down to Townsville in the next day or 2 to visit my nephew who is currently in hospital there. If I go then I will be visiting Spotlight to buy some signature bears for church so can check out fabric whilst I am there. 

Meantime I have been busy working on some smaller projects. 

I've made 5 sets of 10" potholders for a friend. She ordered them after seeing some I had made on Facebook. I showed the first 2 sets on Sunday Stash report but have since completed the other 3 sets.

I have also been making some Teeny Tiny Zipper Pouches from So Sew Easy (pattern on Craftsy). I've made 9 of them using scraps of fabric from other projects. The first couple I made to pattern and then I added a strip of fabric each side of the zipper for interest (I got the idea from another tutorial). I think that they have all turned out really cute.

I have made some more ear bud pouches - using up more of the scrap fabric. I've made 7 of them as well.

I made a couple more Easy cosmetic bags and 7 bandanna bibs. There's a few Pokemon bibs which I thought might appeal to the younger mums and a couple of Baber ones. I loved Babar so hope there are some shoppers who like him too

The caravan is getting into quite a mess. I have piles of fabric scraps everywhere. Staying at my in laws place I am not having to cook lunch or dinner so haven't had to clean up my sewing each day. I think I am going to have to had a tidy up soon before starting anything else.

So how are you progressing with your Works in Progress? Hope that you too are making progress

Sunday Stash Report week 43

Week 43

Sunday Stash report

I’ve been delighted to be able to make a heap of little things this week. I had prepped a number of projects before I came away. I had made the hand towels up last week and this week I got all the zipper bags that I had cut out done as well as the pot holders.

Some of the fabric I had used iron on clear laminate on but I wasn’t very happy with the results. Making the bags involved having to scrunch the fabric up to turn the bags in the right way and this caused some of the laminate to separate a bit. I am not sure if it wasn’t ironed on well enough of if I shouldn’t have scrunched up the fabric at all. 1.12m

Whatever – they got made and perhaps they will sell anyway given the pattern on the fabric.

 I made 2 red black and white Betty Boop bags and one black and white Pokémon bag with the laminated fabric and 2 other Pokémon bags. I put photos of my finished work on Facebook and a friend has already bagsied one of the Pokémon bags.  

As well as the licensed fabric bags I also made 2 patch worked bags using red and white patch worked fabric. They are a little bigger. I tried a different method with the zipper, using a pattern I found on the web. I stopped following the pattern half way through and so didn’t “box" the bottoms. They ended up looking like pencil cases. ,61m

So I unpicked the side, turned them inside out  and boxed the bottoms, turned them the right way again and the look so much better. 

Another project that I had bought with me to complete were some pot holders. I had 6 pot holders (3 sets of 2) cut ready to go. There were 2 sets of Pokémon pot holders and one set of space invader pot holders. I put photos of these too on Facebook and they elicited quite a bit of interest. .35m

A friend has ordered 5 sets of pot holders from me having seen them on Facebook – she has chosen what I called modern floral fabrics rather than the licensed ones and has asked for the larger size. (25cm square) I have made 2 sets of them but am going to need some more wadding before I can complete the other 3 sets. .78m

.78m

So my stats for week 43 are

Fabric used                2.87m        
Fabric added              0.00  
Net                           2.87m

Year to Date
Fabric used               138.27m
Fabric added               78.62
Net                            59.65m

Linking up with Patchwork Times