A Quilted Tote

This lovely tote at A Bright Corner led me to Jedi Craft Girl's tutorial for making a quilted tote bag.  I modified the dimensions slightly so that I could use a metric fat quarter.  I love the bag but it's a bit large for me for everyday use, if I make another one I'd make it a little smaller.

I straight line quilted the top half in horizontal lines, that are kind of evenly spaced (yep, still too lazy to mark them out) and for the bottom half I just did crazy straight lines in red thread - I love the effect of the quilting on the bottom half, it reminds me of that ping pong-type computer game from waaaaaaay back.

The pockets use leftover scrap pieces from the outer FQ, perfect size for a pen!  So by using those scrappy pieces I'm calling this project 20 of Scraps 101.  Yay for scraps!

Linking up to:

Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts
Can I get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

A granny on the bed

Ruby's quilt is finished!  We love it.

The Autumn Blooms quilt back from A Bright Corner was the inspiration for the back and I included a strip of scraps that Ruby and I had sewn together.  It's definitely a reversible quilt, we love both sides.  The scrappy strip is project 19 of Scraps 101.

 

The quilting ended up being such a chore - I wanted the negative space to be more densely quilted than the blocks, which I outline quilted.  I decided on diagonal lines spaced about an inch apart, but which didn't cross over the coloured squares in the outline quilted blocks.  It took me aaaaaaages, stop start stop start.  I was so pleased to have it finished.

Back showing quilting

Ruby loves it, so its a huge success.  The Lorax is still my favourite.

Linking up to:

Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

TGIFF - hosted this week at Gingersnaps Quilts

Can I get a Whoop Whoop

WIP Wednesday: Basting and backing questions

I basted Ruby's quilt last week and have two questions for quilters out there:

1. Do you baste beyond the top?  I usually baste to the edge of the quilt top, but recently wondered whether perhaps I should baste the back and batting together where they extend out past the quilt top.

2. Do you cut the selvedges off your backing?  I decided not to cut the selvedges off when making Ruby's quilt and this seemed cute smart because a) it meant less work, and b) it saved some fabric.  But I thought maybe there's a reason it should be cut off, like it may affect the give of the backing or something???  The selvedges end up being cut off with all the excess when binding of course, but I was hoping to cut down on some wastage. 

I've been having a little fun with some improv quilting, here's a sneak peak:

Apart from making my husband's cake and basting quilts, here's some other happenings from around here:

I'm picking lovelies like these fresh from the garden at the moment, usually they don't last long enough to be photographed as Ruby and Pepper-Mae eat them straight from the garden but these ones cried out to be shared with the world.

This is my husband's biggest WIP - building a chicken house. We picked up 6 point of lay pullets on Monday, but their house isn't quite ready so they're a bit crowded in a little A frame coop, this is the poultry equivalent of living in a caravan while your dream house is being built. 

Note the lack of Christmas sewing.  One week to go and apart from a superhero cape for Ruby I have yet to make any Christmas gifts.

Linking up to:

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Race Track Cake: Scraps 101

My husband's birthday cake:

The chequered flag is a scrap piece of black/white dot fabric glued onto a craft stick, the bunting is scrap felt pieces sewn onto bakers twine - which make this project 18 of Scraps 101.