Crafty Day

Today was a day most of the girlies could come over to hang out and work on projects.

Jen1 made 2 more dumpling dishes. Poppy worked on knitting her colour block sweater.

Marilyn worked on her Plum Street Samplers 'Winter Moon' and Jeanette stitched a little quilt.

II worked on the mortar between the bricks of the house on my 'The Light of Winter' and took a poll about what type of stitch I should use on the 4 stitch clusters. The overwhelming favourite was the complex Algerian eyelet.

The cluster of 4 cross stitches (top) was uninspiring and the simple eyelet (left) looked incomplete. 

Backing up to yesterday...

I kept thinking about the piece I cut from the lower part of the front of the Lori Holt Zippy bag. There were these three quilt blocks that I thought shouldn't go to waste.

I decided to make a little ort container that can snap together on the sides or unsnap to lie flat in the project bag. So I used two of the blocks - one for each side.

It's itty bitty with the sides snapped together.

but flattened out, it fits nicely in the project bag.

After that, I was motivated to make another of the Lori Holt Zippy project bags. None of them had large areas I could use for under the zipper without chopping up the design. I liked the colourful blocks in this one.  I figured I could use a strip of another one of my Lori Holt fat quarters for under the zipper instead. 

It worked out well except I used the entire fat quarter. I probably could have lined the parts above and below the zipper with plain white as I was a bit short on my backing which extended beyond the dimensions by an inch. In fact, I had to trim off about 1/2" from the bottom of the unit so there would be enough allowance for the folded binding. 

I'm pleased with how these stitch up. 

Two tips to pass along. . .

First, before fusing the backing fabric to the quilted part, and after trimming/evening the sides,  I align the back and front using clips then zig-zag stitch the edge all the way around. This ensures that nothing will shift when sewing the binding down. 

Second. Presser feet will stick to the vinyl so just cover the vinyl with the tissue paper that comes with it or even just some copy paper. You don't have to sew through it, just butt it up to the fabric. I used paper over the vinyl both when I was doing the zigzag all around and when I was sewing down the folded binding.

I'm going to transfer my 'The Light of Winter' project to this bag and will show it off tomorrow at Monday morning stitching.

And finally, the Persian Tiles blanket is all sewn together except for one corner, which I'll finish tonight. I always get a second wind in the evenings and had been staying up way too late. Since the new year I've been trying to make myself go to bed a little earlier (before midnight) so I bailed on attaching the last corner triangle. 

Then I'll start the binding. On the previous blanket, I only used the two crochet hook sizes, 3.5mm and 4mm. However the pattern also lists the need for a 4.5mm hook. I wondered why I didn't see where to use it in the instructions. Last night I took a closer look and finally noted it is used for the border. Aha!