Cars

I recently bought an Accuquilt Go! die with cars on it for Project Linus use, but hadn't had chance to use it.  We are always looking for boy quilts, and this seemed like a good idea for several.  I combined the cars with the inevitable MAM blocks, with some success, I think.

I haven't joined the final border yet, but I think this looks bright and cheerful.  At least it's another way to use up MAM blocks and reduce the stack! 

Practicalities

After our recent holiday, I realised that my holiday bag had come yo the end of its days.  The handles had begun to come away, there were a couple of little tears in it and it was looking very shabby.  Time for a new one.  I made one from the same pattern again, as I found it so practical. 

Big enough to get an extra cardie in, yet light.  Long enough handles to go over a shoulder, but also good for carrying in a hand.  

And inside, an inside zipped pocket for important stuff, and three open pockets for sun cream, sun glasses, bottles of water etc.  Perfect! 

I also made another of these little dumpling bags. 

Small, but easy to make and very cute.  Again, great for holidays, to put chargers, tablets, coins or any small items in. 

Then, tired of forgetting to bring an ironing board to Linus sewing sessions, I made a small ironing pad which will fit in a Curver box with all the Linus equipment. 

I cut down a piece of cardboard from a fabric bolt and covered it with wadding, then some fabric.  Not very snazzy but hopefully very useful. 

That's better!

People who know me will say that I'm not one to use the unpicker very much.  I'm queen of bodging, my mantra being, if it doesn't jump out and poke you in the eye, it'll be fine!  But this time, I just had to unpick.  I wasn't happy with the orientation of the strings, and the more I tried to convince myself that it was fine, the more I decided it was not fine, and that the unpicker needed to be tracked down and utilised.  So, from this, 

To this. 

Much better! 

Strings

At the last meeting of Piecemakers, we had a sewing evening, and people made string blocks.  This was a new technique for some people, and everyone enjoyed working in just one colour.  We've been away for a couple of weeks, but since I've been back, I've been making up some of the blocks into tops. 

Since there were pink, red, yellow, blue, green and purple blocks, I put these together into a rainbow.  This will cheer someone up! 

There were quite a few pink blocks (some left over from another time) so I grouped these together into fours to make this lovely sashed nine patch.  Pink binding will complete it. 

Then there were some lovely blue blocks, but not enough for a quilt.  I think they look great as a border round this teddy panel. Mill add the printed border top and bottom, then finish with a royal blue wider border.  

The blocks left have gone into the 6.5" orphan bag, ready for another day!