3-ring zipper pouch

Whilst shopping for school supplies recently my daughter showed me a pencil case that attaches to a ring binder saying how her friend found these soooo useful. Translated into "Can I have one please!". 
Having just seen this tutorial here I refused to buy the plain black and red one she was holding, thinking I would make her one instead. Well that was a couple of weeks ago! How time flies!

So last night I pulled out some fabrics I received in a competition a while ago and set to making it. They are such fun colours. It went together quite easily, but I really should learn to read the instructions rather than guess what comes next, especially late in the evening and I am thinking I am nearly done!! I had to rip out some seams and do it again, which at gone 11pm was not a good thing to be doing! 

It had zippers, which I normally avoid! Not sure why as it wasn't as bad as I had expected!

Applique!

And I added grommets to the side rather than the ties in the tutorial.

Anyway, all finished. And it was well received this morning. Now, how many days until school starts!?! 

Happy quilting.

Link up with The Needle and Thread Network.

Taking shape - stars

I wasn't sure I would get these done this week since we spent the week in the mountains doing lots of swimming, biking and playing by the lake. But here they are the centre stars are complete.

I am loving these bright colours, rather bold but so fun. Can't wait to get this quilt top all together.

Linking up with Melissa here

Quilt-along madness

I seem to be in a space at the moment where I have this compulsion to keep joining quilt-alongs. I think it might be the variety that is appealing as they are all very different!

Firstly there is the Star Surround with Melissa at Happy Quilting. Week three saw us making the flying geese.

Then I found a paper pieced quilt along for Doctor Who fans! This is being run by Soma (Whims and Fancies) and Caroline (Trillium Design). Their paper piecing patterns are just amazing. I am still playing catch up with this one as I didn't find it at the start. So far I have managed two blocks.

Timelord

K-9

Then the other day I came across the Easy as ABC quilt along with Blossom Heart Quilts. She is blogging 5 letters a month that are very simply pieced together to make a quilt, see details here. 

I don't want to make the who quilt, despite how appealing it is, primarily because I have too many of those on the go already (oops!). So I am selecting letters from her patterns to make my kiddies names into banners for their rooms. 

These last few weeks we have had some bedroom swapping going on in our house so I have been painting their bedrooms. Thank goodness I have nearly finished the third one as I am now tired of painting!! The walls look crisp and clean again and I thought a name banner hanging above their closets would look good.

So August saw the letters F, G, H, I and J. I have started with the eldest child and she only has 2 of these letters in her name.

For her birthday last year I made her a cushion for her bed so I am using the same fabrics to make the banner.

The colours are a lot darker in this photo than they really are. I have quilted these very simply by stitching around the letter and will bind with a kona marine blue. So onto the next child. 

It's all good fun :)

A Lovely Year of Finishes - August Goal

Well, I didn't do too well last month with my July goal! I had wanted to finish quilting my charm pack challenge quilt but it didn't quite happen!

Charm Pack Challenge

I have got a bit bored of the quilting I am doing. I thought straight line quilting was a good idea, which it would have been if I had gone right across the pattern and not decided stop and turn when hitting a colour block! Too much turning is making it tedious.

Charm Pack Challenge

I am probably 2/3 of the way through. So I will finish it this month!!! 

Star Surround Quilt-A-Long

Well this wasn't on my list of 10 things to do this summer, although I have done some of them! But I just had to join in another of Melissa's quilt-a-longs - the Star Surround. 

I was really pleased with how the last QAL turned out (the Starburst Quilt) and her instructions are always really good. 

Quite a while ago I won some Heaven and Helsinki fabrics from Mad About Patchwork. I really couldn't decide what to do with them. Well now I have a project!

Last week we had to cut the fabrics and here they are looking fab. That's some Kona snow as the background.

This weeks task was to make some HSTs. 

I like doing projects like this where only little bits have to be completed in a week! Makes me smile when I feel I achieve something!

Now back to finishing my July goal that I seems to have slipped by the way a little...

Ten Things This Summer

Sherri at A Quilting Life is hosting a linky party to share your list of summer goals. So I thought I would join in to help keep me going whilst the kids are off school and my sanity gets put to the test!

#1. To finish quilting my charm pack quilt. I really should think of a name for it too, but I am useless at naming things!

#2. To make the school lunch bags that my daughter asked for last year and have had the fabric sat around for ages. The fabrics are the Babyville Boutique which are meant to be used to make nappies, but since accidents happen with food and drink I thought these would be good for preventing spills in the school bags. 

#3. To make another 2 Mario blocks! I am aiming for this to be a Christmas present so need to get on since there is less than 6 months left! Ha! 

#4. To do something with at least one of these yummy charm packs I have stashed away!

#5. To decide on a pattern and start a Christmas table runner (or maybe cushions, who knows!) using these gorgeous A Little Merry Christmas fabrics!

#6. To keep up the swimming alongside the kids whilst they are in their swim lessons.

#7. After seeing this lovely hexie mini that Svetlana made a little while back, I thought something similar would be good for my hexies that are sat gathering dust (somewhere, when I can place my hands on them!). So, I just need to sew them together and make a whole load of solid colour ones and hey presto that will be another one done! Simple! Ha!

#8. I saw chalkboard cloth in my LQS a while ago and just couldn't resist getting some. I would like to make some placemats for the kids, maybe as Christmas presents and also as gifts for some friends of ours.

#9. I have some fabrics that should really be turned into hats and summer pjs for the kids! If I am not fast with this one though the summer will be over before they are achieved!

#10. To prepare myself for our youngest child to start Kindergarten in the autumn and what comes next!


Well, that looks ambitious! Especially given that we are only a week into the school holidays and it is proving to be busier than being at school! So, realistically, if I get even half way through that list I will be pleased!! Perhaps I should have prioritised them! Now there's a thought ...

Happy Summer :)

Lovely Year of Finishes - July goal!

The goal for June was to finish the charm pack challenge quilt top and get it ready for quilting. 

I think I managed to get to this point around the middle of the June, which meant I could get on with the quilting. So I have a bit of a head start on this months goal which is to finish the quilting and bind it! 

Now this should be a fairly easy challenge if I could just stop doing other things! Like making Just One Slab (or 11).

Slabs

Or another of the Mario blocks

Power Up

Or anything else that I think 'Oh, I just have to do that '! But that's what I enjoy about this fabric obsession! So much to try and play with.

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes

Slabs!

After the recent flooding in Calgary and surrounding areas a few quilting initiatives have been set up to provide quilts to those who have lost so much.

One that caught my attention was Cheryl Arkison over at the Dining Room Empire who put out a call for quilters to make a slab block using scraps. The inspiration being based on the The Missing U quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts.

Now I, like most quilters, have plenty of scraps but I very rarely do anything with them, some appliqué occasionally. So, I dragged them out and set to it. I don't have the book but followed the simple instructions given on her post.

The block is so easy to make and goes together very quickly. Some of my scraps were quite small so it took a while on a couple of the blocks to get to the 15.5" square size. But I was having fun.

I have nearly finished 8 blocks over the weekend. There is another green one and a brown one is almost complete. I reckon I could easily get a few more out of my scraps. I am quite taken with how they look together. But, I think if I were doing a quilt with these I would have to have make the blocks smaller.

Happy Canada Day!