Crossing off my list

With so many ideas about what to make and so many projects on the go, it's all a question of keeping up the good work. A little bit here, a little bit there, and eventually it will all be finished. Now that's really beside the point, because I enjoy the process so much that the finished product isn't always the most important thing here. Today is a good excample - I started out working on the blocks for my BellaX quilt, slicing nine-patches apart and inserting strips of grey. Fun for a while, but once I got the hang of it, my mind was off working on a new project.

So of course, I had to give the xplus-block a go. I tried to stick to my scrap basket, but had to find something bigger for the large squares, and ended up picking a great text fabric for it. That made me start thinking about fabric choices. More text, I think. And some polka dots.

Back to the stash. What have I got in the way of polka dots? - there's this layer cake of Kaffe Fasset I haven't been able to cut into - no time like the present! Well, that's a start at least. By the time I had finished cutting it was about time to get dinner sorted. I'll get back to the fabric selection later.

After dinner the sofa and my knitting beckoned. I'm making progress there as well. Yes, little by little I'm making progress on several things and eventually they will be crossed off my list. But the main thing is to have fun along the way, right? And the list keeps growing, so I have lots to look forward to...

And here it is!

Once I had all the pieces laid out and the tutorial ready on my iPad, making the pouch turned out to be a lot easier than I had thought it would be. I fiddled a bit with the end pieces on the zippers to make sure that all three zippers ended up the same length, but really, it is all down to taking care with pinning - honestly, you'd think I had no sewing experience sometimes!
Anyway, the pouch ended up quite nice, if I may say so myself. Since the main fabric is one with buttons, it will most likely be used for sewing notions, but I see it could also be useful for a lot of other things. So I need to shop for more zippers so I can stitch up a few more fore gifts. 

Zipping along with the best of them

Enough time counting on my buttons, will I, won't I? This is all about zippers. I finally decided to join the Triple-Zip Along and here are my fabric choices. They are mainly based on the zippers I had available. My initial ideas just didn't work with these three colours, so I just decided on considering this a trial round. If everything goes well, I'll get some more zippers and make some in the fabrics I had planned on using.

Join the Flickr-group or see all the great pouches that have been made so far, and read Debbie's tutorial here.

I leave you with a photo of my wonderfully overblown tulips - here today, gone tomorrow...

Learning curve

My lovely Madelinetosh DK yarn took less than a week to travel across the Atlantic - impressive! I picked it up from the post office on Friday and couldn't wait to get started unfurling the beautiful skeins. The picture doesn't do it justice - there is a wonderful depth to the colours with subtle shades blending into each other and the yarn is soft and pleasant to work with.

Now it remains to be seen if I can get my head around this double knitting thing. I have knitted and frogged, watched various tutorials on youtube and tried again. I t h i n k I have got it now. Almost. Some quiet knitting time will prove me right. Or wrong...