Celebration Bags

Amongst the many things needed as a guest at a family wedding is, most definitely, a new bag, which is why you would have found me last week frantically sewing away the day before we were due to leave for Dublin! As it turned out though the sewing was the easy bit. I had decided to make myself a small handbag using the Kyoko frilled pouch pattern from u-handbag.com that I have used several times before. With no time to visit the LQS before our trip, I was really pleased to find the exact shade of red in my stash, along with grey satin lining in the perfect shade, this bag was meant to be! Once sewn the pouch is threaded on to a metal frame, which is where I hit a rather large problem. I had, I thought, brought the frame with me from Riga, but I discovered when I went to assemble the bag, on the evening before we left, that, in fact, I had only brought half of the frame, the metal rods that the pouch is threaded on to were languishing in the cupboard in Riga.

Fortunately I remembered that I had made this bag a few months ago for my son's girlfriend, who was also going to the wedding.

So, one quick phone call later and the frame was travelling to Dublin to meet up with my pouch the next day.

And here it is. I really like this pattern, it is quick to make and once you have a frame it only takes a minute to change around your bag, which was just as well considering.

The theme of the week has definitely been bags, as not only did I get the bag for the wedding finished I also managed to squeeze in some sewing on the patchwork bag that I had cut out before we left Riga. On the face of it this bag looked to be as straightforward as the frilled pouch, but the instructions were rather vague and I had to work out for myself how to join the squares at the side without having the seam allowance on the right side, and I am not altogether happy with the corners where the lining and the exterior join, but that might have something to do with me rushing it to get another finish in time for my May  entry in 12 WIP's in 2012 ! Given the colours of this bag, I have christened it my Jubilee bag as it is finished just in time for the Jubilee weekend.

Having only just recovered from the extravaganza that was the SewMamaSew Giveaway Week, there are even more quilting and blogging delights to be had this week. First up is voting for the Play mini quilt challenge quilts, which closes on Friday at GMT 13.00. There are some fabulous quilts in the challenge so you will be spoilt for choice. Click here to vote for your favourite.

Also on-going is the Let's get acquainted Blog Hop, organised by the very efficient Beth at Plum and June This week's blog posts are from

May 29
    Heidi from Fabric Mutt

    Amy from Amy's Crafty Shenanigans

    
May 31
    Jodi from Tickle and Hide

    Jennie from Porch Swing Quilts

They are definitely worth checking out! The Blog Hop will continue through till October so there will be lots of new bloggers to meet over the coming months. Check out too the guest blog and giveaway from Deborah at Whipstitch that's running this week.


As it is Wednesday again, here's how my current project list looks
Completed projects

• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange and Reindeer cushions
• Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
• Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilts
• All blocks of FPPFTT
• Sibling Together 20 Blocks sent and received  
• First crochet project
• Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
• Patchwork Block Bag 

Ongoing

• 3 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (2 blocks behind schedule)
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 4 Zakka-style SAL projects completed (So many projects behind schedule!)
• First border of teatime quilt completed, blocks calculated and fabric cut
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 8 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
• Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued 
• In the Bag Ugly Fabric fabrics sent waiting for swap fabric to arrive

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag
• Dragon Bag
• Christmas mini quilts

The waiting list is getting smaller but that ongoing list doesn't seem to change much, I think I will have to do something about that in the coming weeks!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday
                     We Did it Wednesday