A little bit of sunshine

I have been a bit lazy lately - it's about time to post something, the whole point about this blog thing was that I would use it to talk about my things in progress and remind myself what I was thinking at the time... We had a quilting get-together a while ago with no set topic, just that we were to make something yellow and cheerful to remind us of summer and sunshine. So that's what I did! I made some sunshine - it's like two pieces of a sun stitched together with a zipper in it, and what is it for, you might ask? - Well, to keep my sunglasses in of course! What better reminder of summer than this. I was in a hurry when I took the picture, so I only found my "ugly glasses", so I might have to take a new picture later on. I stitched the strips together by machine before I left and did the rest by hand - couldn't face lugging my sewing machine all the way - told you I'm lazy :-D. The pattern is by Norwegian designer Hanne Asplin Firman, by the way.

I've been doing something different lately: The owners of my local quilt shop have asked me to hold a class in making handbags. It isn't until April, but we agreed that it would be great to have the bags on display in the shop asap, to tempt people into signing up for the class, so I'm busy stitching along. The bags are Madison and Velma by Amy Butler, to be stitched in fabrics from her Charm collection. The fabrics are so lovely that it is a joy to work with them. I'm a bit worried about my abilities to teach, though, but I'll think more about that later.... I'm taking notes about dos and don'ts as I'm working. I have already discovered that using heavy linen instead of canvas as an interlining in the Velma bag is a definite don't! The first bag came out way to soft to hold it's shape properly, so it's back to the sewing machine. And before anyone gets too worried about copyright issues - yes, all "students" in the class will have to buy their own copies of the patterns! I'm mentioning this because I think copyright is such an important issue - there are way too many copycats out there...