November's project - FINISHED!

So here we are, November 27th, and my project is finished! 2 days ago already!  It just took me 2 days to get a picture of this gorgeous tote bag.  I really didn't have a recipient for it when I started the project, but that has changed.  Our son is bringing his girlfriend home to "meet the parents" - and she's coming here for the first time when we're planning to open our Christmas gifts.  That's going to work out really well, except that we started a tradition last year - we pulled the name of a family member, and have to make that person a gift.  I have a feeling that it may be a wee bit uncomfortable to see all of us opening our lovely hand-made gifts, and not have one to open yourself, so she'll be getting this tote.  She's currently attending university, so having a largish tote bag will hopefully come in handy.  I hope so anyway!

Now for the proof: 

I made the bottom boxy, so it will hopefully be a little more practical.  I hope she likes grey and yellow!

This isn't my November project!

I know, I know, I have a lot of projects to have finished by the end of the year, and this isn't one of them, but...  It's been a UFO for quite a while, and I finally decided that I needed to finish it before Christmas.  It's the Miranda Day Bag from Lazy Girl Designs.  I think that having a set of designer handles since 2009 or so was part of the push to finally get it done.   I pulled the fabrics for it in May or June, and got it all cut up a week or so later - and, then it sat - and sat...
Yesterday, I thought that maybe I should finally complete it - and I did!  I'm a little surprised at the size of it - I'm really "into" smaller purses these days - having tendonitis in my shoulder, partly from carrying a big purse or bag on that shoulder, didn't help!  Putting pre-formed handles on it takes away the option of carrying the purse over my shoulder - but it's almost big enough to carry my sewing machine in!  Well, almost....  Take a look for yourself!

Some finishes...

I'm such a tease!  I've shown a few projects here, but forget to show you the finished item.  Well, this is your lucky day - I have 3 finishes to show you!  First off is the wedding quilt for my nephew and his lovely bride.  I chose to use the "Falling Charms" pattern from the Missouri Quilt Company, using 4 "Boho" fabric charm pacs, and Kona  "Snow" for the blocks - and here's the finished quilt: I didn't have my quilt demo partner to hold up the quilt, and the ground outside was far to wet to use the yard, so I draped the quilt over my couch.  I tried to get most of it into the picture, so it'skind of tucked to make it fit.  There's also a picture of the quilting - my quilting and blogging friend Amy used this design recently, and I thought that it would really suit the straight lines of this quilt, so that's how the center of the quilt was quilted.
Next up is my "boy" Jelly Roll Jam quilt, which I've donated to our Christian School fundraising dinner and auction.  I used a "Good Morning" jelly roll, and separated the strips into "boy" and "girl" colours, and got the tops done a few weeks ago - now this one is done.  I used a great bright turquoise polka-dotted flannel on the back - here's what it looks like:

I just did Stitch-in-the-Ditch quilting around every 3 strips of fabric, and then quilted a star in every block (you should be able to see the quilting on the back of the quilt).

And finally, our quilt guild committed to make placemats for our local Victorian Order of Nurses to hand out at Christmas to every client that receives Meals-On-Wheels.  We could do whatever we wanted; it was suggested that we make the back something more generic, so they could be used year-round.  I had just bought the newest McCall's Quick Quilts magazine, and loved the placemat pattern enclosed.  I pulled out my Christmas-sy fabrics, found a great apple orchard border-print for the back.  My placemats are ready to go!

Cutting it close!

Yikes!  How can it be Nov. 7th already?  I just found out that I have 10 hours left to post my Nov. project for my Lovely Year of Finishes project!  Which is okay in some ways...
I have several little half-completed projects - some will be Christmas gifts, some are things that just NEED to be finished....  I'm not really sure which category my Nov. project falls into - this may end up being a gift, just in case I need something for an unexpected guest, or I may keep it for myself - we'll see.
I started this tote bag a few months ago, hoping to have it finished for our annual school bazaar, but life got too crazy, and it was put aside.  Now seems like a good time to finish it - especially because I need a quick project for November.  We usually open our Christmas gifts earlier in December - our kids are spread out in different directions, and they all have jobs that require 7-day-a-week shifts, so picking a date earlier in the month almost guarantees that we'll all be able to be here before the hectic-ness of December really sets in.  This year, the kids informed us that they'll all be home on Dec. 9th and 10th, so we'll open our gifts then.  We also chose the name of a family member to make a gift for this year like we did last year, and I'm VERY quickly running out of time to work on that gift (and I have one of the males in the family, so this tote bag will definitely NOT do!).  So, here's the picture of my bag-to-be:

The bright piece on the right is the body of the bag; the lining is in the center, and the interfacing is on the left side.  I have the squares pieced for the handles somewhere, but I can't locate them at the moment - and I'll probably put some batting in them to make it easier to carry full of groceries or other items.  The bag will have square bottom corners, so it won't be quite as long as it looks.  

I'll also have a pic of the completed wedding quilt up by Sunday - I'm still working on the quilting, and then the binding will have to be attached, but the end is in sight!  Now I just need to find wedding gift wrap somewhere...

October's Finish

Well, October has come to an end - and I'm not sure if I'm more thankful that it's over, or frightened... because Christmas is getting closer every day, and I'm VERY aware of everything that I have left to do before then!
But, for now, I'll stick to October and my Lovely Year of Finishes project -the quilt that will be my nephew's wedding gift.  The wedding is on Nov. 9th, and the plan was to have the quilt completely finished before we leave for the wedding (no stitching in the car will be allowed!).  The quilt is somewhere between a queen and king size - and I've never quilted one this large, but the quilting is very simple and graphic - which suits the quilt design very well.
So, here's the proof:

 The border and binding are one of the prints in the quilt, one of the "tamer" prints, and it's green, which is one of the favourite colours of the bride's, so it should be a win-win situation!
Thanks for checking in!  Pop back in a few days to check out November's project....

An update....

So, I'm sure that you're all wondering how my wedding gift quilt is coming along, right?  Thanks for asking!  It's actually going quite well!  I made all 182 blocks; then I had to make up some kind of a layout for the blocks - and that went reasonably well (just don't ask how my knees tolerated kneeling on the floor for an hour or so.....).  Then I started joining blocks into rows.  The trick is to press all the odd rows in one direction, and the even rows in the opposite direction - they fit together SO much better that way!
Now I have the first 5 rows sewn together, and the rest sorted into odd and even rows.  Do you want to see what I've finished?  I thought you might!  Here we go with rows 1-5:

There are 14 blocks in every row, and I don't have a space large enough to accommodate the whole strip, so you get to see about 50% of the rows.  I'll do a better job when I post the whole quilt, okay? Thanks!

Of course, I'm still reading other people's blogs and I'm getting excited about all the other projects that people are working on.  I usually jump on the bandwagon of the latest designs - I buy the patterns, and sometimes even all the fabric for it, and then I have to put it aside, because the project(s) that I'm working on are usually more important.  That means that I get around to making the latest designs - it's just 6, or 8, or 12 months after everyone else has done them, and who wants to see them then?  So, when everyone in blog-land started doing the Jelly Roll Jam quilts from the Fat Quarter Shop, I decided that I needed to make it too - now!  I had a Good Morning jelly roll tucked away for a rainy day, so I grabbed it and followed the directions (they're super easy!), and I ended up with not 1, but 2 cute baby quilts!  There are no babies anywhere on the horizon in my part of the world, but our local Christian school is having their annual Goods and Services Auction in a few weeks, so I've decided 

to donate one (or maybe both) of the quilts.  I found a great piece of bright flannel in my stash - that will be the backing - so, I just need about 5 more hours to call these cuties DONE!  And, because I'm such a sweetie, I'm going to show them to you now, instead of making you wait until they're both done!   The first one is a little more masculine, and the second one is more "girly".  I'll share the pics of the completed quilts before the auction.  And now, I'm heading back to my wedding quilt!

                                           

                                   

October's challenge

Look at this - two posts in two days!  I'm cutting it really close with this post, and the same may be true for this project.  My oldest nephew on my side of the family is getting married in November, and I promised to make a quilt.  I've had the fabrics for a while - thankfully, the quilt top is made up of charm packs and a jelly roll - but time is disappearing quickly, and I have to get this project done ASAP!
I loved the look of the Boho fabrics - young and modern, not too girly or too masculine, so it seemed like the perfect line to use.  Both the bride and groom are kind of "artsy", so I thought these fabrics would appeal to both of them.  Unfortunately, the prints aren't really square to the grain of the fabric, and some of the charm squares look quite tilted.  But, I'm going to do my best to disguise the wonkiness - which could be interesting with the square look of the pattern.  I'm using Jenny Doan's (Missouri Quilt Co.) "Falling Charms" tutorial.  I've got all of the charms sewn to the jelly roll strips; some of them have the second strip sewn on too, and I'm starting to assemble rows.  Hopefully, this quilt will come together quickly!
Now, I'm sure that you want to see what I'm talking about, so here's a picture:

The picture is actually sideways, and I'm not sure how to rotate it.  There are 2 short rows of 4 squares each;  there are also single squares at the end of each row to show the progression, and there's also a single, random block.  I'm hoping to share my progress as I go along.....