Birthday bag

One of my co-workers has hired me to make a bag for her assistant's birthday..... and here it is.  This was a new pattern that I tried, "Open City Tote" by Penny Sturges.  I made a cute zippy bag to go inside.

Catching up, and finally fall!

It has been really quiet at my house, with both children away at college.  Luckily they are closeby, so that we can see them on the weekends.  The quiet-ness has allowed me to sew a little here and there, even though it is not as much as I would like to be doing.  Made an uber-simple apron for my mother's birthday....she likes to have the skirt portion be terry cloth.  Then I am in the midst of making another tote bag for someone here at work.  Pictures of that bag when it is completed.  In the meantime, I want to make some more of these!

Preparing for semi empty nest

Well, both children are off to college this week!  I can't even believe it.  Luckily they are closeby and can easily travel home whenever necessary.  But this is certainly a big step to have both gone.  Son has been in college for 3 years already, but now my baby girl is going too.  So we have been collecting supplies for her during the summer.  Whereas my son didn't really care for any particular color scheme and went with a neutral mix of beige/tan/brown, my daughter has very definite tastes as do most girls!  So we finally decided on this, although hers won't have all the accessories that are shown here in a company photo.

Spools finished!

I just squeaked by and made the deadline of finishing by Labor Day!  Here, finally, is my variation of Camille Roskelley's pattern "Spools" that we have done as a sew-along.

More spools happening at my house

I have managed to make a few more spools to include in my next quilt top.  They're so much fun to do, I can't seem to stop.    I may end up making a few more and who knows what size the finished top will be?  Here's an updated photo - as you can see there is no design wall in my house, just the design bed LOL.

Spools sew-along progress

I have joined in the Spools pattern sew-along and have just made a few spools so far.  (Pattern by Camille of ThimbleBlossoms http://camilleroskelley.typepad.com/simplify/).   Not sure how big I'm going to make it, either 3 X 3 or 4 X 4, but it will be a square version of the quilt.  In any case, it's been great fun so far and I'm loving the scrappy look of it!

"X-Squared" Debut

So today I finished the quilt top in time to join my quilting group at my local quilt shop.  Once a month we have a show-and-tell.  It's always lots of fun seeing what everyone has been working on.  Here is my version of Carrie Nelson's "X-Rated".  I'm renaming my version "X-Squared".