Tuesday, February 21, 2012

... and one big one.

I've also been working on the processor quilt once again. In early February I had a rather annoying stretch of sewing where the blouse pattern that I was drafting was just not working out, and I find that when I only have a spare hour to sew it's not very satisfying to spend that precious bit of time doing something like redrafting a sleeve. So, I turned back to the processor quilt, where at least every little bit does add visible progress towards finishing this massive project.

I've now finished enough so that you can see what the finished dimensions of the quilt will be, and it's big. So big, in fact, that I couldn't even lay the whole thing out on my sewing room floor! The quilt is actually much more finished than it looks, because most of the bottom part is a fairly easy to piece section (I think it's the cache of the chip?), and I already have some of that done. So, I mainly have one long strip that goes along the side and some of the cache to go.

Here's a detail shot of the top section of the quilt -- any guesses on how many pieces are in there? Maybe some day when I'm very, very bored I'll count it!

A few little projects...

The past two months have been quite travel heavy for me, with numerous little bounce trips to places on the east coast, and a longer trip to Portland to visit some dear friends of mine. Portland is a wonderful city to bike in, and after being snowed in here in Montreal for the last few months, it was a great feeling to be able to stretch my legs on the bike.

In between trips, I've been working on various little sewing projects, like this shirt for my Portland friends' son, who likes to play the ukelele. I was rummaging through my stash one evening when it dawned on me that this 3/4 yard of Hawaiian print fabric would be just the perfect amount for a ukelele playing outfit. The pattern is once again Oliver and S's sketchbook shirt pattern, this time in a 3T (I'm getting good at making these things now!).

I also made some baby bibs, including these two matching octopuses for another friend's twin baby girls (by the way, three babies and one toddler in the house for the week = exhaustion! I'm in my pajamas today recovering). I took these bibs over to Emiline & Annabelle to work on, a local sewing workshop where you can rent sewing time by the hour. It was fun to meet some other sewists and brainstorm with them about how I was going to cut these curly octopus tentacles out! I ended up signing up for a sewing membership, and will be going back in a few weeks for a lesson on how to use their serger.

And finally, an action shot of the Hawaiian shirt -- that's a smile that makes all those flat felled seams worthwhile!

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