getting stuff done!

 Finished up the 4 quilts for QFC:

This one I did just simple meander quilting.

This one was floral and loopy meander

This one was outline the applique, ribbon swirls and just a wavy line around the blocks.

This one I did some straight stitching around the blocks.  Some meander in the borders and a bit of stippling around embroidery.

A bit of a close up of the quilting!

I am far from ready to 'quilt for profit' but as time goes on I'm getting better - at least I hope so!  I know I should practice more and I do practice but just not enough.  I have worked on feathers and feel pretty confident in them on the practice piece but the minute I think about doing them on a quilt - I simply freeze up.  I have never used a pantograph - if I'm going to meander style quilt - I'd rather just do it myself than try and follow a design with a little laser light.  I have used a pattern to stitch individual blocks using the laser and that was okay- definitely got better as I got to the end of the quilt - gee wonder why :-)  I bought a couple stencils and a pounce pad with the iron off pounce - need to practice with that too - I need to get some darker fabric or darker pounce so I can see my marks!

okay, enough about my so so quilting. 

A while back I posted pictures of the fabric my granddaughter chose for her quilt along with a piece of funky fabric she wanted me to make her 'something' with.  Well the quilt has long been done and delivered.  We went to a 'street fair' over the weekend and was looking at some tote bags.  I asked her if she'd like one made out of the funky fabric and she said yes.  So today this was what I made:

I added the batik to the bottom as that was the way the totes were at the street fair.  I didn't make it square - the bag is about 2" larger at the top.  I used a magnetic snap at the top center as a closure.  I put a few pockets inside:

If you look, you'll see the top has side to side pockets with just a single pocket opposite.  For stability on the bottom, I made a sleeve the width and length of the bottom and lined the sleeve with fusible fleece.  Then I slid a piece of plastic canvas (used for needle point) just a tad bit smaller than the sleeve into the sleeve and stitched the end.  To secure it to the bottom I used some permanent fabric glue.  I'd thought about hand stitching it down, then remembered DIL gave me some of that fabric glue and thought I'd give it a try.  Seems pretty secure - guess time will tell.
So that's my creativity update ;-)  I've been looking through my embroidery files to find a set of toile birds that I want to stitch out and do a black, red and white quilt with.  Can I find them?  oh noooooo, everything but.... Of course the minute I decide to stitch a different set and get it done, I'll find what I was originally looking for.  Just a note here:  Most of my designs are on an external hard drive that holds files from 2 different computers.  My old lap top was getting ready to crash, so moved all those files.  My old desktop is almost out of memory so moved those files before it got to the point I wouldn't be able to use the desktop - so now I have a mess that I probably should clean up but it would also probably take me half the year to do it - so guess it probably won't happen!
Hope spring is starting to spring whereever you're at - except for a bit of hay fever - this is my second favorite time of year.  My most favorite?  Autumn - love the colors, the smell, the expectations of holidays spent with family.
til next time,

Katie