Old miscellany

I had to look that one up, and good thing I did too, turns out I didn't know how to spell miscellany correctly. I thought it was miscelaney for some reason. And, actually, I really prefer my spelling still even though it is incorrect. But I will try to remember the correct spelling in the future.

I found a few things that I'd meant to share on the blog but didn't get around to before my five months of silence. So, here they are.

First we start with...

you guessed it! Another unfinished patchwork quilt top.

I do expect to return to it eventually, it's just that other things are more pressing right now, like the paper photo quilt show that I want to do.

Next, this is a little project I did one day after my husband again bemoaned the fact that we didn't have curtains for our little sweet little storage thingy. He'd said red or black so I did a little of both - sheer black over red.

Some detail. I love hanging loose threads. 

There are some quilters out there, I know, who would probably have a heart attack over my sloppy sewing style and aesthetic. I can be fairly neat, as you can see in the top photo of the orange and blue square, even when working with difficult, non-cotton materials, it's just not what I prefer. I find it boring mostly.

This beast is my outdoor quilt made from 100% reused materials. 

Most of the fabric was given to me or came from old clothes. Some, like the blanket that I used for batting, came from the Good Will outlet store. My friend loaned me her curved quilting safety pins. Unfortunately, I still haven't finished quilting it so she hasn't gotten them back yet. I guess if she asks for them back I'll have some motivation to finish it up really quickly.

I'm not doing traditional quilting on this one. Instead, I'm using embroidery floss to sew on all of the circles and that will hold it together.

Here you can see one of the circles sewed on and a great book we got from the library. In the spring, before it got too hot, we'd sit outside on the quilt while I sewed the circles on and take breaks by reading books. The cooler days are on their way again and then maybe I'll finish this blanket.

Outer space quilted wet-bag

Long time, no post. I know. Like, five months, I think. Well, I kind of took a break from sewing over the summer. It was just too hectic with both kids home all day long. Plus we took a trip up north for a month to see my family. But... now I'm back!

I'm sure there are other things that should be posted first in order to stay chronological... but, whatever. I feel like posting this.

(I'm copying the text from my mommy blog, so if you read that one, you can just skip all this... except that I've added a few more sewing-related bits to captions of the photos.)

Because Austin now has a bag ban there is a dearth of plastic grocery bags in which to send home children's wet clothing. Therefore, Petunia's school asked that parents send a reusable wet-bag for that purpose. They had a link to a bag on etsy and some other suggestions. A friend who also sews wondered why we didn't just make our own. I immediately thought "oh, I could never do that!" but I'm trying to get over that sentiment and really try new things and take risks. Plus, papa B hadn't ordered the bags that we'd discussed buying online so I figured it was up to me to find a solution... on the Sunday before the first day of school.

So, I went to the fabric store and got some rip-stop nylon - the most water resistant fabric they have, then came home and went to town on a quilted, zipper, wet-bag for Petunia.

Mind you I haven't been sewing much and I did this in a matter of hours having never worked with zippers before. I'm working on the second one now and it's going much better. It will have a double layer of the nylon, one quilted onto the back of the batting (which the first didn't have and caused so much trouble with the free-motion quilting) and another as the liner. The quilting on this second one is much better but still leaves much to be desired. But this is why I do it, to improve myself.

At any rate, here are the results of my first wet-bag. Petunia and I are pretty happy with it.

The spiderweb side, as Petunia calls it.

I realized after doing this that I should have put the regular sewing foot back on for all those straight lines.

I'd been saving this outer space fabric for a special project for Petunia and I knew this was it.

The squiggly side, again, Petunia's naming.

At first I was really disappointed with how this was coming out. I felt I just didn't have the control to doodle the way I wanted to. In the end, i'm not too unhappy with it overall. some parts are really messed up but others are pretty good and the whole is kind of interesting. I later realized that I do better if I rotate the work more and use more of a pushing and side to side motion rather than pulling. I've also slowed down a lot.

Also, for anyone who might be confused, as I was when I first started quilting, this is not patchwork, just quilting - the sewing together of three layers of material.

And the zipper with the bright orange nylon lining.