Rain, Rain, Go Away

i have to confess that i do not like rain. not one bit. there is nothing i hate more than being wet, except for being cold and wet. rain means i get my feet wet (since i'm usually wearing flops or sandals). it means my glasses get wet, and i can't see. so, rainy days are perfect stay-at-home days for snuggling with M, or the kitties, or sewing, or reading. unfortunately, sometimes it rains on days when i have to leave the house. today, i really need to go to joann's to get a dress pattern (mccall's on sale for 99 cents through monday), and i need a handful of short zippers for some projects. i have tons of long, invisible zippers, perfect for dresses and skirts, but no zippers suitable for my current project. i also have a girls' night dinner tonight that requires me to leave the house. sigh. at least i have super cute rain boots.

last night, with camera battery freshly charged, i took pictures of the two blocks i made for hollie for Sewn Together Bee. i really like these, and the quilt she's making with them for her fiancee is going to be fantastic!


last night, after date night dinner at chuy's, M left for his BBQ cookoff, so i had the rest of the night to sew. i didn't feel like working on my bee blocks for july, so i was fiddling around with different pouch patterns. i had made one of these last summer, in the same size as the pattern to carry my handquilting supplies, and i love it. i had dug some fabric out of my stash and wanted to play around with some ideas for my Modern Swap partner. one of the fabrics i had is an old Robert Kaufman print of a collage of vintage train tickets. i thought this would make a nice little bag for miscellaneous stuff to take on a trip. i envisioned the bag as longer than the one in the pattern but the same height and width, or a little taller. well, i guess i wasn't thinking when i cut my pieces. my zippered pouch is about twice as wide as i wanted it to be. also, my interfacing wasn't stiff enough, and with the size of this pouch, it just sort of lies there limply.


i can make larger corner seams to make the pouch taller, so i think i'll try that and see how it looks. i was pleased with how the zipper went in, and the lining fabric has vintage maps of the Lewis & Clark expedition, so i thought it tied together nicely with the travel-themed outer fabric.

i also tried a little pleated pouch from skip to my lou. not so thrilled with how mine turned out:



something about the zipper is wonky, but i followed the instructions. maybe i'll try again later.

afte the two pouch attempts, i pulled out emily's quilt, which has been sandwiched and basted and ready to quilt since early february. i finally picked up the grey thread i needed for quilting last week, so i had set the quilt out to remind me to work on it. i stayed up quilting until 1:30 am and finally put it away for the night. i quilted for another hour or so today and stopped because my shoulder hurts. i've never machine quilted a quilt this large - it's for a twin bed, but it's 9 feet long, and wider than usual, so almost a full-size. i'm quilting free-form lines vertically through the length of the quilt, except the border, and also horizontally through the sashing only. i think i'm about halfway through, and i'm surprised by how long it's taking. i'd hoped to get in done today, but now am aiming for sometime this week. that gives me a week, then, to stitch the binding to the front by hand, and have it ready so i can do the handstitching during the upcoming guild meeting.