Winner Winner . . .

I received some great comments on my bag post that I thought I would share, 

Wendy suggested I quilt using a double needle!  I love that idea and will try that on the next item I quilt, you may want to try it too,

additionally, if you don't want to rip the cover off a book to keep from having a saggy bottom, Kathie recommended a product called foam core.

I also got a couple of questions about the handles.  For those of you wanting to buy these handles I've been told they are hard to find but sometimes are available on Etsy.

The leather handles do not come with instructions but the magazine did a nice job of explaining how to attach them to the bag.  The handles come in 6 pieces, two front/outside handles and 4 inside tabs.  There are little holes punched into the leather of the pieces which makes attaching them very easy.  The pattern directions tell you where to place the handles on the bag, that's easy too.   The directions say to attach the pieces using perle cotton.  I attached the front handle, in the appropriate place, using regular thread, I guess you could say I basted it into place.  

Once it was set I used the perle cotton to attach the back piece to the front piece through the quilted fabric.  The pieces are well manufactured, the front and back matched up perfectly, I had no trouble at all getting everything into place.

This is my only experience with handles and it could not have gone any easier.

Thanks to those who shared how they spent their summer in their comments.  It's so nice to get caught up with you!  Time spent with family was definitely the most popular pastime with home improvement projects coming in second, but some very lucky folks also took some amazing trips.

Finally, I have some great news, Carrie Nelson, of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co and the designer of this bag pattern has donated a kit to the giveaway, so I have two kits to giveaway.  Carrie is also supplying the magazines for the bag pattern for both kits.  Thanks so much Carrie!!

And the winners selected using Random Number Generator are:

Comment #43 - Sorcha Girl / Clara 

and 

Comment #61 - Helen

Two last bag stories, I had my bag sitting out after taking pictures of my handles for this blog post and my  husband said, "that bag is adorable", which about made me faint, I don't think that man has ever used the world "adorable" but he's right, and that's what I'm calling it, "My Adorable Bag", and finally, I needed to carry a couple of items to an appointment on Thursday, the perfect opportunity to use my new bag for the first time, but it was raining, and I just didn't want it to get wet.  I'm sure the perfect day that I'll carry that bag is coming, sooner or later, but until then, it looks great hanging on my sewing room doorknob. 

Thanks to all who participated in the giveaway!

Read more

A weekend's worth of work

I had a very productive sewing weekend.

Here's another HST block, this time I went with reds.  Even though I don't have a good feel for the overall look of this project, I have decided to make blocks in chunks of color, with the upper right hand section made with a fabric that has a white background.

I'll probably just sew all the blocks together once they're done.  I think I'll go with 9 of these big sections.

The best thing about football season, besides the football, is the time I spend in a chair in front of the TV doing hand work.

This weekend I was able to appliqué all the red centers on my Dresden Doilies medium sized blocks.

All the blocks are done, hopefully I'll start appliquéing the blocks to the red background fabric this week.

Once the dresden blocks were done there was still football on TV so I got out my Clown Pants project box and worked on my red dot blocks.

Just in case you've forgotten, this is Clown Pants.

And finally, I started on this bag.

This bag is in the Fall 2013 issue of Quilts and More.  The pattern is by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.  I see bags online all the time and really was never motivated to make one, until now.  I'm not sure if it's the polkadot handles, the fabric, or what.  But I've started my first bag and so far so good.  I'll blog about the details later in the week.

If you like the looks of this bag you can order a kit here.

Read more