Work in Progress 06/08/2011

I've been busy sewing away this past week! I've made alot of progress on a couple of projects and have picked out fabric to start a few more!

First as you saw yesterday, I finished this pleated purse. I'm happy with how it turned out. If you haven't made this purse, you should definitely give it a try. Once you get it all cut out, it comes together rather quickly. I've made it 3 times and it's a great project.


Next I made this bag:

We're going to the beach soon and I wanted a bag to carry all of my stuff in that is separate from the sand toys! I got this fabric for $1/yard, I think. It was my practice bag. I really like the bag, but I ended up with handles that are too short to put on my shoulder. I think it may end up being daughter's toy bag for the car trip, because she was super excited about it.

She's also super excited about her quilt. It's coming along. I'm quilting now, but I want to quilt each of the pluses by itself. It's going to take me forever because this quilt is HUGE. It's 71x91 before I started quilting. She really likes it though and go onto me last night because I was sewing bags and not her new blanket!

The ladies at my LQS suggested that I add the small border and I love the way it looks. I think I'm going to use the rest of the polka dot fabric for the binding. The pink polka dots were a special request!

I've also been picking fabric for my new projects. I'm going to do two quilt alongs. The first one is the Skill Builder Sampler on Sewn. I am excited about it. I has some of these Canning Days charms from Connecting Threads and I ordered some fat quarters as well. I like the vintage feel of them for a sampler. Plus there is lots of variety for the number of blocks that are planned in the Sampler. I'm ready to get started on this one!

I'm also going to do the Embroidery 101 quilt along over at Clover and Violet. I have 8 of the fabrics picked out, but the ninth is giving me problems. I think I have settled on this bundle:

I'm going to try to get these all put together as my next project. I hate cutting and that's what's next on this on.
I'm going to try to finish my Birdie Stitches blocks for May and June in the car on the way to the beach!

I have one more project to finish before then though, and that's this bag! I am using the same Summer Madra tutorial as my practice bag, but I'm also adding two small pockets to the inside and I'm definitely making the handles longer!

Depending on how the kids do in the car, my hexagons may make a reappearance! My daughter suggested that I bring my sewing machine on our vacation (so I could work on her quilt!), but I think I'll just bring along the Birdies and hexagons!

Next week, I'll have my toes in the sand, so I'll probably be skipping a WIP update! Be sure to visit Freshly Pieced today and next week to see what else is being made!