April bag and other bits

On my last post I said I would get some sewing done and here it is, the April bag. Looks quite good in the pic, but I did agonise over the colour choice and didn't go together as planned. Think it does look good though and the Suffolk Puffs (Yo-yos) with the shell buttons does set it off well.

I cut the bag gusset and the front and back to size and of course it shrinks when quilted so mistake no. 1. and so had to juggle the size of the gusset with cut away bottom of the bag. Then instead of doing the lining separately and inserting into bag I put both together, which I realised when the instructions said "Attach the lining gusset to lining fabric in the same as you did with the bag outer..." argh! Mistake no.2. Lessons to be learned there and some tidying up of seams inside the bag. I've had the password for a "sneaky peak" of the May bag and I like the look of that one and thought of a recipient for that too, looking forward to making that one.

On Saturday I took a trip to Brockenhurst in Hampshire with my mother to the Needlework Fiesta organised by the New Forest Embroiders. We are sadly lacking in Hampshire and Dorset with suppliers of threads and fabrics that people can visit so you can imagine that the event was extremely busy. Being mainly an embroidery event means that there were not many patchwork and quilting people there but I did manage to get some fat quarters of fabric. I'd also bought some silk roving for use with the embellisher to some lovely colours. Also I'd bought some transfer dye, that is painted onto paper and transferred onto poly cotton fabric with an iron.

It was nice to get back home in the afternoon and paint several sheets of this. The pots of dye, though only 10grams each will go a long way as a small amount of the dye is mixed with water. Here are the results below. Left are the papers that I painted along with one piece of fabric and on the right are the four pieces of fabric after ironing. Some look a bit pale but could be livened up with some stitching. But it was fun.















Lastly the pic on the left shows part of the magazine article in Patchwork and Quilting magazine that I mentioned a little while back taken on the retreat at Villavin Crafts. Here we are proudly displaying the quilts and bags in progress with Jo sitting in front of us.

My friend Brenda has suggested we might go back there February next year - I hope we can!