Zippers...

For a long time, I was afraid of sewing with zippers (might have something to do with one of the first times I tried I broke several needles, long story), but I've progressed (a little).  Now I see zippers as another part of a project (not the part I'm usually the most thrilled about, but I don't avoid them).  After sewing the Runaround bag and the Dallas duffel last weekend, I'm feeling more comfortable working with zippers.

So yesterday I decided I wanted to try the Triple Zip pouch and here are the results:

not the best, but definitely not bad.  Not sure how it got so wonky, but oh well, I'll definitely try it again!  And then today, I got back to work on the next Dallas duffel:

and let me tell you...that's the best looking zipper pocket I have ever made!  Far from perfect, but compared to others I have done, it looks fantastic!

Now I need to buy more zippers!

A month of bags...

March may just be the month of bags for me...over the weekend I put together this duffel:

using the Swoon Dallas Vintage Duffel pattern.  And then had to go get fabric and supplies for two more.    This is a great pattern, a fairly stress free sew (it made me get more acquainted with my zipper foot...and more zippers...which I guess is a good thing).  All in all, I really enjoyed putting this one together.  Sunday evening I managed to get 95% of the pieces cut out and interfaced for one:

now I just need to get the fusible fleece piece done and I can start assembly.   I have also had a hard time finding the proper hardware for these bags, so I ordered some and hope it shows up soon.  I'll post more about that later.   I'm hoping to have the two finished in the next two weeks.

I also put together a Lazy Girl Runaround bag, another fantastic, and fast sew.

I need to finish at least two more of these over the next two weeks.  And then, last but not least, I need to get at least 5 (preferably 8) new laundry bags (using Jeni Baker's drawstring bag pattern), over, you guessed it, the next two weeks.

I'm excited for all of these bags, and just hope I get them done for when they are needed!

Then there was February...

I made a lot of sewing progress in January...was thrilled with what I got accomplished...and then February came along and I did pretty much no sewing.  So bad, that I even forgot to post some stuff I worked on in January.  So here I am to catch up a bit.  

I finally decided what fabric I want to use for my Fancy Forest quilt .  It took a lot of effort.  I decided on using my big bundle of Cotton + Steel basics I picked up in November, and Bella Solid in Smoke:

and then got everything cut out:

After all of that, I've managed to get this done:

16 fabulous foxes!  Love!

Anyways...last weekend I started on a memory quilt for a co-worker.  No pictures to share of that.  Hope to finish it up over the next weekend or two.  I also would love to get my scrap vortex quilt done.  It hasn't changed from this picture:

and my hubby would really rather it was not still on the guest room floor.  I also have this on the hallway banister:

and should really get at least one of them finished!  

Stitching with scraps

I've really been wanting to put my scraps to good use for awhile now.  So after frequent views of the Scrap Vortex quilt by Amanda of Crazy Mom Quilts, I just had to pull out my scraps and get started.  It went pretty quickly

and before I knew it I had quite a few large blocks put together

and then as soon as I blinked I had a lot of large blocks

enough to get to this

and now i just need to work on some filler pieces and I'll have a quilt top.  Sadly this hasn't hardly put a dent in my scraps.  Might have to work on another one...or more blocks to make this one larger...we'll see.

That was quick...

It honestly took me more time to cut the fabric for this quilt than it did to piece it together.  I spent a good chunk of my day in the sewing room today, after spending some time each of the past two days cutting out fabric (a lot of time spent sifting through scraps), and I ended up with this:

and then a short while later, this:

I'm sure if I wasn't using scraps, and just cutting from FQs or yardage, the cutting would take very little time.  I will definitely be using this pattern again.  For now, it goes on the "to be finished" pile.

New Year...new quilt

Yesterday afternoon I started cutting out fabric for a new quilt.

I am using the Swiss pattern by Camille Roskelley.  I fell in love with the pattern as soon as she posted it on Instagram, thinking it would be great for scraps.  I started with orange, as it's pretty much my favorite color.  Unfortunately I didn't have near the number of orange scraps as I do other colors, so I had to pull from my stash (which was also limited in orange) to cut some of the larger pieces.  I still have quite a bit of cutting to do, but hope to be moving towards the assembly stage later today.  My daughter has also started pulling from the blue scraps to make a blue Swiss quilt.  I'm thinking there could be a rainbow of Swiss quilts in my future.

I hope your New Year has started off the best it can be.  I've made no resolutions, set no particular sewing goals and have selected no special word for 2016.  I really just want to relax and enjoy the process...so maybe that is a goal/resolution.

Red Letter Day...in shades of Tula

I started my Red Letter Day quilt blocks way back in August of last year.  I finished all 9 of the blocks 3 months ago (according to instagram at least) and blogged them briefly here.  Yesterday I finally turned them into a quilt top:

I've got backing fabric for this quilt already, and I plan to get this one basted and ready for quilting in the next day or so.  But then I plan on doing some hand quilting with these:

so who knows when it will actually be finished.  (I will do some machine quilting to anchor the quilt and make it more sturdy and long lasting).  Looking forward to having a slow stitching project...of course it would be better if the weather cooperated with being covered up with a quilt...but supposedly some chilly weather is on the way.  I'll believe it when I see it.