Patchwork Progress

Unusually for me I bought a pattern - for the Sew Together Bag (pattern here on Craftsy). I had been admiring several on Flickr, including this one:

But rather than just using two fabrics I thought I'd mix it up a little bit. Here are my outer fabrics for the two bags I am making.

The unusually sophisticated orange and teal one is for me and the other for a friend about to go on a holiday. And of course I then needed zips.

I think zips are second on my list of favourite fastenings, second only to buttons.

The pattern has been consistently criticised for a lack of pictures so it irks me that it is still $12. Despite years of criticism the author has decided to do nothing about the feedback, but then when people are prepared to pay $12 for a single pattern why do you need to listen to them? Fortunately there is a sew along with multiple photos from earlier in the year. I hope to make progress on these over the weekend.

The blue and white EPP quilt for Mater progresses. Last time I checked in I'd done 52 stars. I've now completed all 93 and started sewing together the hexagon section. The pattern is my own and looks like this:

And I eventually decided to go dark to light ish rather than random on the layout. I see lots of bloggers who have a 'design wall' made of felt or something which they can stick blocks up on to see whether a layout works....I have a 'design floor'.

I am thinking ahead to how to quilt this and have been much taken with a blog called Kathy's Quilts and especially her Slow Stitching Sunday series where she spends her sewing time that day hand stitching. She has hand quilted a country style quilt called 'Journey of a Quilter' which, while not my taste, is very beautifully done. But to hand quilt a double sized quilt? That is a lot of work plus you've got the thing on your lap the whole time and it's hotting up again here. I don't know. But then I guess there is plenty of time to think about it before I get to that stage.