I was reading Ayumi's latest post over at the Pink Penguin about one of the features of next year's Tokyo Quilt Festival - Partnership Quilts.
There is a major drive to collect blocks that will be made into quilts and sold to help the victims of the earthquake. Last year over 10,000 blocks were submitted which turned into 86 quilts! There is a theme to follow and next year's theme is squaress and triangles so how hard could that be?

Why don't you join in? I am going to make one and the deadline is August so no pressure..............all the details are over on Ayumi's blog HERE.

Mystery Block Time

Time for another block in the Mystery QAL. If you go HERE you will find links to the new block as well as all previous blocks if you are tempted to join in.

There is also a flickR group HERE where you can see all the blocks others are making - they are looking gooood.

Bento Bag Workshop

When I first saw this bag

over on the pink penguin blog, I just knew it was the kind of project my classes would enjoy. I contacted Ayumi who graciously gave me permission to teach the bag, as long as I posted some pix afterwards.So today was the day - twelve eager beavers set to and completed their bags with expert guidance from me...lol, sorry Katrina!!
Everyone seemed to enjoy their day and agreed that the Bento Bag is a super bag, great construction and ripe for "customising" - I expect to see several more before too long.

So my heartfelt thanks to Ayumi for generously letting us use her design - I have posted all the pics individualloy on flickr, click here to get a better view.

Busy Bee

Had a really productive day - dreadful weather so no need to feel guilty staying in by my sewing machine.
The last few nights I have tried manfully to put the laptop down and get on with the hand stitching on my little Brit Quilt Swap. I don't usually do a lot of hand sewing but enjoy the randomness(?) of seed quilting. I used a variegated perle cotton and am quite pleased with the result. It has been done on the lighter green segments of the pic below. You can click for a closer look.

So today, I set to, and echo quilted around 3/4 of the quilt - I used a slightly wiggly stitch and after a couple of rounds thought it looked ok..........as time went on my confidence drooped a bit but I had gone too far to bail.......what do you reckon?

I also made a to-do list which was scarily longer than I imagined but by the end of the day have ticked off one item - I have finished Big Little George, a block project from Lily's Quilts.
I had already finished the piecing, just had to finish it off, so I "bagged it" using fusible 80/20 wadding and my usual split backing to turn - this has become my favourite technique for bagging as it avoids the lumpy hand-sewn gap in any one side.
My quilting on this was a machine applique stitch around the 3 circles and then 3 rows of straight stitching in the border.

Think I might have made a Christmas pressie - ahead of the game or what?

Tomorrow is the last of my weekly workshops.......think it should be a good'un and I look forward to telling you all about it.

Anyone Like Bears?

There is a giveaway going on over HERE at bearbits...............isn't he gorgeous? And, you don't have to have a blog to enter.

Zip Fear

Yesterday's workshop was Zippy Pouches..................we arrived at the Community Centre on what was obviously the first proper day of summer - to find the heating still on!
So, it is difficult to gauge whether the flushed faces and increasing stress levels were due to the heat or......zip insertion!!
Joking apart, I really wanted to show the class how easy it is for us, as quilters, to produce little useful pieces from next to nothing.

The ZIP was conquered by lunchtime and everyone worked really hard to produce pouche..s, yes, quite a few little bags were made.
If you would like to have a go - try these blogs for great tutorials -

Noodlehead - brilliant blog, lots of bags, wallets & zips HERE.
and a fun & straightforward tute from Flossie Teacakes,    HERE
and last, but not least, from Kelby Sews, a tute that concentrates on the zip ends. HERE

Enjoy.

Another New Month

Today I am linking to Fresh Sewing Day on Lily's Quilts. Lynne started this idea a couple of months back and it really helps to reflect on jobs done and to sort out what still needs doing. Then of course you feel chuffed, or disappointed with yourself..lol.
My classes all finished at the end of March but I scheduled 6, day workshops from the end of April through to beginning of June, mainly smaller projects, doable in the day.
 I had to re-schedule the first workshop due to local elections but on 12th May got going with a UFO Day - those attending come along to finish off stuff - very satisfying. The small project on offer was a cafetiere cover and as I couldn't locate my previous covers which had been made two houses ago - I made a new one.

Despite a total lack of planning, I was delighted to discover it co-ordinated with my new kitchen, I had used some leftover charms from this -

Technically made in April and yet to be quilted, this runner is also destined for the kitchen.
With luck on my side, I have now counted up all the remaining charms and have enough, with some solids, to make 6 matching mats (maybe in June?)

So although I technically should have a heap of time available, I have to get myself organised for these workshops. We also had a fantastic 3 day wedding to attend in the middle of May and prior to that I was busy making this........

 I blogged about this HERE.
When we got back home from the wedding I found out who my secret swap partner was in the Brit Quilt Swap and got going on my little quilt.

Today I made a start on the quilting, so far a combination of ditch quilting, wiggly line quilting (with dogs up) and then some fmq.

We also had the "Very Useful Tote Bag" workshop in May and I finally finished one that I had started back in September.

The panel was machine embroidered and the fabric for the bag came from Africa quite a few years ago when DH, also known as Big Al, was working overseas - "bring me cotton" I wailed and this was some of it, batik with a very high glaze.
Last week was Quillows, didn't have enough space to make one myself, but tomorrow is Zippy Pouches, and I have a couple of samples ready -

Hoping to quell some zip fear tomorrow.
So, that was May, if you have made it to the end of this blog, well done and thanks for stopping by.
I don't anticipate much in June, it will be far too HOT.................