Something Old, Something New

I had four old things that I pulled out of the cupboard to finish in March. Each had a bit left to do and they had sat there hiding for ages.
The granny bag I finished pretty quick. It was just a matter of sewing in the handles. I had to settle for the round handles that I had instead of the semi-circular ones specified in the pattern.

The wool bag was meant to have bought handles but they cost $14. When I finally sat down to do the handles I remembered I had some wool felt binding strips that I bought from Pendleton Woollen Mills on my trip to Oregon. The pink matched nicely. I folded the edges to the centre then folded it in half and sewed nearly to the ends. I rounded off the ends and sewed them in place. It is quite a little bag but will carry my keys, phone and purse to the shops OK.

Next there was my journal cover. Instead of hand quilting I just zipped it up on the machine. While at mum's I used her Bigshot to cut out some fabric flower shapes to bring home. I put some on the front of the journal, lined it and folded in the ends.

The lady with the french knots hair is still going. I decided to continue with the french knots so just a bit more to do there.
Didn't get to do much free motion applique but I did a bit on the journal cover and played with a cat applique sketching in some of the details with thread. It is filed away to be made into something later.

It was hard to find something for this month. I have pulled out a few more old things hiding in a box. The blue spotty pieces were meant to make small thread catchers but I plan to combine them to make one bigger fabric box. The triangle will make a little thread catcher and the cat fabric will be a zippy purse.

I am a bit stymied for something new but I am thinking I might do a bit more sketching or try to prepare some of my free patterns for adding to Craftsy.
I have remembered FNWF this month and will be signing up. I think I will be doing some felt stitching.
I am linking up to Something Old, Something New over at Never Too Hot to Stitch. Joining in is a great way to get motivated to dig out those old UFO's and finish them off as well as plan to try something a little bit different.

You can comment through Flickr or Pinterest.

There is a great tutorial for the little wool bag of squares design here.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Something Old, Something New

What a sad lot this is. They will be much cheerier next month.

Sometimes I think I have too many linkies, challenges and BoMs on the go but today I have realized that they are perfect for focusing my thoughts. I knew I had a post about Something Old, Something New to do today so I got thinking about what I could do for old. My bigger UFO's are in storage. I remembered seeing a few smaller things just sitting looking at me when I was looking through some boxes the other day. Trouble is they don't just look at me, they taunt me :D
I can remember the enthusiasm with which I started these projects. So what happened?

1. The fancy pink granny bag needed handles with a straight piece where they join the bag. Handles are too expensive and if I did see them in the shop I couldn't remember what size they had to be.
2. The applique lady was meant to be a slip on cover for a book end. The hair is made of hundreds of French knots and I just got tired.
3. The stripy thing is a folder/journal cover that I thought I would make and try some hand quilting. Yeah right! After a few rows my fingers hurt (I don't have a thimble) so now I know I will never do hand quilting. I guess this project served its purpose then.
4. The cute wool bag I still love but the instructions didn't say 'make sure you put the flowers on the handle patches much lower down so the handles can be sewn on without covering the flowers'. Anyway the spotty plastic handles I wanted are way too expensive for the bag.

What I am going to do this month is:

1. Put round handles on the granny bag. I already have a set.
2. Finish the hair with some brown felt appliqued on.
3. Quilt the folder cover on the machine, and
4. Make felt handles for the bag.

For something new I want to play with free motion stitching on applique. I have done it a bit before but I just have a need to do something fun and free form at present. I have a few pins on Pinterest that I will use as inspiration. I think I will use lots of felt too.

Last month I managed to get an owl block done as something old and I also finished off two blocks from the new BoM Sew Kitschy. 

Today I am linking up with Something Old, Something New over at Never Too Hot to Stitch.

Why not join up with Google+ if you haven't already. I love it.

Or, leave a comment on my Flickr photo or on my Pinterest pin for this post.

Just noticed that I will be in Brisbane for the Stitches and Craft show. I plan to go on the Friday. I am sure I can find a spare $50 to spend.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,

Val

Something Old, Something New

Writing goals really helps.

I am afraid January was a challenge to me, let alone doing sewing. I am still reeling from the affects of organising to move house and then going through the move. We are also just starting to build a new house. We went along for the first meeting on Monday and after 2 1/2 hours of talking and trying to take in a thousand things our brains just shut down and we had to leave. It was the strangest feeling to have an exhausted brain. Unfortunately I have to say it is probably because of our age. If we were 30 we could keep going without noticing any fatigue. We should have given ourselves a full week to get over the move. Our next appointment is next Tuesday so we should be right by then.

My January something old was my Go Wild quilt. I managed to get quite a bit done before packing up the sewing room.
I wanted to finish piecing the last four blocks and I got that done. I also wanted to get all the borders pieced and I got that done. After that is goes a bit awry. I only managed to sew the applique on one block, not four and only glued the applique on two blocks, not eight. However, I feel as though I have got it well underway and will continue to work on it slowly each month. I don't have any pictures of my progress for this post but I will update my Go Wild blog later this month.

The new embroidery stitches went by the wayside. I just wasn't able to cope with anything new. I will tackle that another time.

For February I have printed out a few more of the Whoo Knows owls by Fat Cat and will do some catchup on that BoM. I will set myself a goal of 4 blocks for February.

For something new I have started the Sew Kitch BoM where all the blocks are paper pieced. I have only done paper piecing a couple of times and I am trying out the freezer paper fold back and sew method. You don't actually sew through the paper. I have also started the In The Garden paper pieced BoM so I have set myself the goal of catching up with last month's blocks and doing this months blocks by the end of February.

I am linking up to Something Old, Something New over at Never Too Hot to Stitch.

Other comment options:
Flickr
Pinterest

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val