I agreed to make my oldest son a new bag to carry at church. Since he will be entering the youth group in a few months, he and I decided he needed a "cooler" bag. I did a little surfing, and came up with a messenger style bag. I used the Connor Messenger Bag pattern from punkinpatterns.com as my inspiration. Since he is a little bigger than the pattern writer's son, I needed to make some adjustments. My son also asked for some things that were not in the original design, like a zipper, pen loops, and snaps. For the outside of the bag, I am using some old uniform pants I had. I wore holes in several pairs, and I was saving them to use as backing for a denim quilt I want to make one day. Since it is a heavier fabric than regular cotton, it should hold up and wear nicely. He also wanted it lined, so we went shopping and he picked out the celestial star fabric. We didn't know which color carabiners we would be able to find, so we bought a yard of each of the three colors they had.
We found carabiners in red and green, and he chose the red. Since I wasn't sure about the modifications I wanted to make for the bag, I used the green to make a mock up that we will give to his little brother. It turned out ok, but I definitely learned some things that will come in handy for making the finished bag for my older son.
I'll be working on the older son's bag later this week. Tonight, I would like to finish a purse for a friend who has a birthday this week.
At the end of the week, I will be taking 2 classes with Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com I'm excited about the class, but I wonder if I am the only person who has to buy fabric to take her class? She's known mostly for her use of scraps, but I don't seem to have many. I guess that means I am a judicious cutter, I don't sew enough, or a little of both. I'm still excited about taking her classes.
The first is one of her free patterns called Boxy Stars. My husband claimed this quilt, and asked me to make it in blues/blue-greens. I plan to use the white with blue rings as the background, and the blue/greens as pieces. I bought extra of the blue with gray, so I could use it for a border and binding. I'll also be increasing the size of this quilt, so he can use it on the couch. I'll need to get some of the pieces cut before the class on Friday.
The second class will be Bricks in the Barnyard from her book Scraps & Shirttails II. I'll be using the gray strip roll as my light pieces, the black strip roll as my dark pieces, and the yellow/green as my accent pieces. Each of these strip rolls have 50 2.5" strips, which is equal to about 3 1/2 yards of fabric each. I'll be making this quilt larger than is in the book, and I'll have to cut them down this week too. I have some other blacks/grays I may toss in the bag in case I need them.
My numbers are taking a nosedive, since I purchased so much fabric for these 2 classes. I have the one messenger bag finish to offset a little, but it would really help if I could get my last quilt top quilted and bound. My free-motion machine and I have had a disagreement about the top, and so far the machine is winning. It is looping really badly on the back, regardless of where I set the tension. It seems to be piecing just fine. I am going to try buying a different thread for the top, before I throw in the towel and take it to the repair man.
So my number are:
This Week This Year
Used 1.0 22.75
Added 25.25 67.5
Net Used / Added 24.25 44.75
Check out how others are managing their stashes and what they have been up to at Patchwork Times.
Have a Blessed week,
Joy :)
