A finish and a WIP

One of my good friends will be celebrating her 80th birthday in a few days time.  I have made her a bag using Kiwi fabric charms I brought back with me from New Zealand. I decided to frame the charms with black rather than cream to show them off and I am pleased with the result.

Each fabric depicts a well-known NZ item: sheep, penguins, kiwis (fruit and the bird!), pukeko, tui, a New Zealand bach (little holiday cottage) etc.  I hope she likes it. I am also adding a tin of NZ Earl grey teabags which we bought when we were visiting Kerikeri (North Island, NZ).

 

Three views of the bag, showing both sides and the base.

 

I have also been working on another baby quilt, this one for a boy.  I know of three babies being born in the next few months and two of them are going to be boys so I need to augment my Baby Boy Quilts stash.

 

I am hand quilting it, in the ditch around the main blocks and sashing and then I am going to add some decorative Perle larger stitching.

 

All the fabrics for the quilt came from my stash and the yellow buttons on the bag were also from stash ........ I have several boxes and jars of buttons!

Since my Big Tidy Up I know what stash I have, including pieces of batting.
When I came to sandwich the baby quilt I knew I had a piece that would probably be just the right size.  It was  - but even better, I was able to use the trimmings to fold into the bag handles to give them a bit more strength and body.  Great!

I am off to cut out some strips of fabric to start another Baby Boy quilt. This should be fairly quick to put together as I collected together suitable fabrics for the idea I had when I was sorting out my Sewing Room.

So, off to get cutting out!  I love the excitement of starting a new project and love having hand sewing ready to pick up when I watch TV and go to my Patchwork Group.