Refining

I have spent most of January working on my bag pattern and making bags! I just can't believe the month is gone already. I made 9 bags in approximately 6 days. Most of those were 2.5 - 3 hour increments in the evenings with a couple of Sundays thrown in. I'm glad I did the mass making because I was able to refine a couple of things to make the assembling of the bag easier. Now I just have to finish putting it into words. It ends up it's not all that easy to do.

3 of the bags were belated Christmas gifts that I forgot to take pictures of before giving away. They were cute though. One was for my friend Bill who made me the most wonderful cutting board last Christmas and brings me wonderful patterns and fabric from his worldly travels. He lived in Hawaii for a while and loves the Hawaiian prints and such, so I made his bag out of the same RJR fabrics I used in Tom's quilt.

I made 2 for my boss, who loves wine, out of this gorgeous line by Wilmington called "Bottled Poetry". I wish I had taken pictures before giving them to her because the pictures online just don't do this fabric justice. It's really lush and gorgeous.
I also made several out of Amy Butler's "Ginger Bliss", "Belle" and "Midwest Modern" fabrics.

And I made the CUTEST bag out of this fabulous Robert Kaufman fabric:

I also almost finished the quilt top featuring the gorgeous LakeHouse "Le Grand Jardin". I would have had it finished, but I cut the green hydrangea flower fabric incorrectly and and didn't have enough to do the prairie points. I'll take photos of it to post in a couple of days.

I don't know, do you think my tastes are diverse enough?

I've also been working on my mini quilt swap for my Swap Til You Drop partner from Flickr. What fun it is! It's like instant gratification quilting. And it's good for me since I have a hard time making small quilts. I don't want to post a photo of it until my partner gets it though, so you'll have to wait to see it.

Insanity 2009

It's not like I don't have enough going on to keep me busy for the next 40 years, but I have decided to join two Block of the Month clubs (BOM).

The first is through a local quilt store so that I can learn how

to do hand applique. I was actually surprised that this particular shop decided to do the Halloween Baltimore quilt by Pearl Pereira. Pieceful Gatherings ,in Fox River Grove, specialises in Civil War reproductions and darker fabrics with some 1930's repros and wool thrown in. They don't usually do Halloween that I know of. It's a nice little shop and they are the only ones in the area that are open on Sundays. Their applique teacher does beautiful work and talked them into having this class. Boy am I ever glad! Have I mentioned that I love Halloween and bats? This quilt has a ton of bats too! I hope I can do it justice! Pearl has a really cute "Little Red Riding Hood" quilt on her site as well.

The second BOM I've decided is a free, yes FREE, online sew along from Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs. It's called "A Tisket, A Tasket, 12 Months of Baskets" and is the first one cute, cute, cute! I've been following Anne's designs for a few years and think she's just wonderful. I have the kits for the "Pumpkin Hill" and the "Rabbits Prefer Chocolate" BOM's that I haven't made yet because of my handwork phobia, and I really think the Rabbits need to be hand done as opposed to fusible webbed. Since I've been participating in the embroidery club at Tammy Tadd's, my fear of it has lessened quite a bit, and I'm finding that I enjoy it somewhat, so I think 2009 will be the year I learn some hand applique! Maybe if I get these three done in my lifetime, I'll make the Baltimore Bunnies too!