Pacific Rim Messenger Bag!

And so, a finish!

The Pacific Rim messenger bag with the logo for the Jaeger 'Gipsy Danger' (piloted by our heroes), made for a craft exchange.

I made it in 'stealth mode' so the recipient could hide the logo if she wanted:


And added an inside pocket since the front outer pockets were co-opted by the logo.


A little extra sewing will be required, however, since I managed to get the side pocket ALL WRONG.

First, I sewed it upside-down. So the finished edge I'd sewed? That's in the seam. The raw edge is what's showing. *facepalm*


And then the little 'tag' that I made to help pull out a phone that had stuck too deep in there wouldn't work with my sister's Nokia. (It is an old phone, mind you - not a smartphone, so not very wide...)


But it is done. And hopefully the recipient likes it and can use it!


I have another yard or so of this Japanese chrysanthemum fabric in a navy blue and several yards of Echino linens that are perfect for this kind of bag. Although I really should switch it up - try a few other bag styles, perhaps?

WIP Wednesday: the one with the short short version!

Quick one this week - lots of things in progress:

Messenger Bag

That's planned to go on the front of the bag, under the flap (not on the flap).

Mendocino Windows

Blocks centres done, now to frame and add borders!


More about this quilt in this post.

USA Hurray

Columns sewn together (after some mix-ups with order and direction of the blocks - ARGH) and it's looking pretty good!


Trivets

Old project - been sitting around for forever, I'm doing this between 'big' sewing projects. ie. the columns of 'USA Hurray'.

Cleaning up of the sewing room is in progress, due to carpet cleaning people coming on Friday (mostly for the lounge room and upstairs hall.

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Also: I finally gave the baby quilts to their intended recipients!

She looks nonplussed, but when she was looking at the quilt, her eyes were huge!

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What have you been doing this week?

Meetups and Mermaids!

Much sewing was done at the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild meet-up on Saturday!

That's the President's son in his carrier. Such a cutie!

And the result was that I finished putting the block centres together! Many Mermaids!

The grey thing in the middle of the second pic is a few more strips of the fabric framing the Mendocino range (Cotton Coutere for Michael Miller: colour "Fog"), and I need to cut them up, iron them flat, and put them in a bag for safekeeping.

And now, to see them laid out (without the window framing or the block framing):

My design board just isn't big enough for the quilts I make! This is going to be a HUGE quilt - the original design (Kitchen Windows by Elizabeth Hartman, from her book The Practical Guide To Patchwork) was only a 3x4 layout. I calculated for at least 25 blocks in a 5x5 configuration, but ended up with enough pieces for 29 blocks.

I might do one more and make it 5x6 - at 16" square, plus a 2" border, I think we're looking at ~ 90"x100" sized quilt. Queen-sized, which I like because it will cover my bed quite nicely.

This one is being kept! No giving away! :D

WIP Wednesday - the one with mostly mermaids

WIPs

Mermaids

Blocks cut and ordered, and the sewing has begun. I was hoping to spend 1hr a day on this, but it hasn't happened yet.

Also, side note: don't you hate it when you make a wrong cut on the rarest fabric that you have in an already-rare collection?

This is all I have of this print. The entirety of it. I don't even remember where I laid hands on it, or if I swapped my firstborn in exchange for it.

And I cut it short. *facepalm*

I ended up sewing it together and just re-cutting it. But still! Of all the pieces to get wrong!

The Sydney Modern Quilt Guild meets on Saturday, so that'll be a good time to get all the blocks sewn together. :)

USA Hurray

Sewing the columns together:

Should not be that difficult.

Pacific Rim messenger bag

well, messenger bags generally. Try to get ahead of the Christmas rush!

But at least one (maybe two) will have the Gipsy Danger logo on it:

Smaller than the cushions I did.

To Do

Um, STOP BUYING FABRIC!

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How are you going? What are you doing this week? Have you linked up at Freshly Pieced? I'm going to go in and comment on at least five blogs this week!

WIP Wednesday: The one with Mermaids, and Tigers, and Agents, oh my!

Hola! How are you? It's been a while since I posted for a WIP Wednesday, but it's been busy! I've been through the USA and northern Italy and now I'm back at work and doing a bajillion things and kind of exhausted.

But I have quiltingy things to report on, yes, I do!

Finishes

Tiger By The Tail

This is a project I've had in mind for a while for my (field) hockey coach. She's a supporter of the Tigers footy team in the National Rugby League (NRL) and their colours are orange and black.

I actually 'sub-contracted' this work out to another woman on my hockey team - she had a sewing machine and some experience at patchwork so I have her the fabric, a roller-cutter, a ruler, and a youtube video and told her to make a bunch of hourglass blocks. And she did! And then helped make nine-patches to fill in the gaps.

The top was done just in time for the SCQuilters meeting on Saturday and for my hockey presentation that night! Now I just have to get a backing together and get it quilted.

Agents of SHIELD cosplay patches

Hockey presentation night is always a dress-up of some kind. This year, the theme was 'Disney'. Since Disney owns a lot of properties (including Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Marvel movies/television group) I branched out from the (mostly white) princess theme with an Agents of SHIELD costume play.

Which required dressing up in 'agent' casual, and making SHIELD logo patches for my jacket.

It's pretty much a rough applique, nothing more, but they look pretty good.

And here's a pic of my cosplay of Melinda May, Agent of SHIELD, at Presentation Night!

(Agents of SHIELD is showing Tuesday nights in the US, on ABC, I believe?)

WIPs

Selvage Strings

Once again on the move (albeit slowly) - the selvage strings quilt!

The reds look so gorgeous!

Mendocino Mermaids!

This quilt has been through a lot of ideas! I was nearly fixated on doing it wth Elizabeth Hartman's Honey pattern, but decided against it (at least for the 'main' quilt).

Having looked at Penny Poppleton's lovely Washi Windows quilt (using another Elizabeth Hartman pattern, Kitchen Windows) I laid out some fabric for a test run:

I think I have enough of the brown kelp fabric for background. I hope I do - it'll look really spectacular! And the grey framing should work a treat!

The tricky part is going to be getting all the prints facing one way.

I'm still trying to think of a nice name for it. "Windows To The Sea" is the current name, but... *handwobble* I'm not convinced.

No Progress

USA Hurray!

I haven't done anything with this since I got back from the US 10 days ago. Impetus, argh!

Other Things

fabric from The Hobbit

These are some fabrics that a woman at SCQuilters brought along. Her daughter was doing makeup for the most recent Hobbit movie, and at the end of the production, they had all these costumes/fabric they were throwing out...so her daughter snaffled a couple of bags of fabric of the Elven clothing, from which the lady at SCQuilters is going to make patchwork quilts:

They were lovely fabrics - beautiful textures and embroidery and everything!

She said she might bring in what remains after she's made a couple of quilts from the scraps. I would have liked to get my hand on one of the cloaks before it all got cut up. I mean, can you imagine? *geeks out*

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What have you been doing this week? (Month?) I...have not checked my reader feed in 6 weeks and am kind of dreading going back!