Pressing and social sewing

I finally have the rows together for MJ's Lynnebobsquarepants quilt, but I need to press them before putting together the squares.  A tremendous thank you to my mom who was nice enough to trim HST for me.  I probably will be helping her quilt a 35+ year WIP for her so she can give it to my sister and no longer feel guilty about it.

Then today, I spent a few hours with friends from work on a staff art project.  We're not yet half done but I think a few more people are comfortable with a sewing machine now.  And I think picking out fabrics was probably their favorite part.   Next time I need to bring another cutting surface as that seemed to be the bottleneck.

Another bag, a pillow and a small quilt

 My oldest got annoyed with having the youngest steal her pillows, so she helped me sew a new one.  She arranged the squares, helped pin and helped decide where the straight line quilting would go.  The bottom still needs to be stitched closed but it is supposed to rain tomorrow and I'm trying to improve the quality of my pictures by taking them in natural light.  Not a difficult design but a good project for a near 5 year old.

 After giving a drawstring bag to my nephew for his swimming stuff, my niece got jealous and wanted one of her own.  This time I used coated fabric instead of laminated cotton.  It is a bit sturdier, or better put, it holds the shape more.  I'm not sure if I like it better that way.  The outside is from Good Fortune and the coated is a print from Terrain, both by Kate Spain.  I used a leaf stitch around the top just for fun and hopefully to hide any unevenness on the seam around the top.

  For this one, I cut the outside 16" x WOF.  Next, I cut a 4 x 16" strip and sub cut those into four  4" squares for the tabs for the strings.  I added two tabs to the inside so she could clip her lock and goggles to them.  I boxed the bottom of the bag with a 4 inch hypotenuse for the triangle.  Not sure if any of these directions make sense to anyone else besides me, but it will help me remember the dimensions for this bag if it seems to work out well.

   And finally, a small quilt.  I took leftover charm squares from 12 Days of Christmas and made HST.  After trimming, here is the winning layout.  I used the lines from the chevrons to echo quilt it across the whole top at random intervals.  My angles are not perfect, but I'm ok with that.  The quilt is bound with the Flurry scraps from two skirts I made.  There is a whole lot of Kate Spain fabric in this post.

  And for fun, I decided to quilt swirls in the chevron as a filler.  It looks pretty neat on the back.  I now really want to read Angela Walters new book and do a bit more planning with my quilting.  

    Next time, I think I will flip over the quilt while quilting the swirls.  I wish I would have consistently filled in the whole space between the two lines of the chevrons and it would have been easier to tell from the back.

  And now back to the regularly scheduled programming...... trimming more HST so I can finish the Lynnebobsquarepants quilt.