Sew One, Get Three

I realised that the Triple Zip Pouch Swap posting deadline is Saturday, and while I'd got the fabrics I hadn't done anything about putting them together. That is no longer a problem!

Once again I uphold my reputation as someone averse to right angles. Everything about this is very slightly wonky but the fabric is lovely and the zips all work and the Japanese tortoise print on the inside will hopefully please the recipient! Now I just need to work out what to fill it with before sending. In case you want to make your own the free and excellent tutorial is here.

As I was getting ready to give it a final iron, I remembered two I had started last summer. I always meant to finish them but it was while the big packing and clearing mission was getting underway and they got packed and cleared. Happily, if perhaps strangely, I brought them with me. It turns out one was actually 100% complete while the other just needed the final seams doing. I must have been really struggling when I packed them up not to be able to do something so simple. Two minutes work and ...

They are both for family members so I shall be despatching them very shortly, along with the greenyblue one.

I do love the quilt-as-you-go method and this particular example is really the only kind of quilting I can do with a borrowed and extremely basic machine. Not that I'm complaining - I'm very grateful to have it! But there's no free motion option and the stitch lengths and widths are fixed so there's limited options there too.

My attempts to lure the neighbourhood birds to the balcony continue. Having become a daily stopping point for brown eared bulbuls I've also achieved sparrows and, just this morning, our first visit by a Japanese white eye.

These tiny birds are maybe 15cm long and have only just appeared in the neighbourhood so I guess they have wintered elsewhere. The picture (taken by someone far cleverer than me) shows the shade of green but not their iridescence. They are so beautiful and, to me, amazingly exotic! I have only seen one once before on the way to the post office and it was pecking at half an orange so you will not be surprised to know 'oranges' have now been added to my shopping list. Tweet tweet!