Tuesday, November 07, 2006

African fabric projects

I spent some time struggling to make this backback for my elephant loving sister ( who I am pretty sure does not read this blog. (If you do sis, don't worry there will be surprsies too!)

The pocket and flap is in fact straight despite how it looks on this hurried snap but the straps were a nightmare. It's a Simplicity pattern which called for fusible batting but the shop I went to didn't have fusible stuff and suggested I bought the wadding they use for bags in their classes and fuse it with WonderUnder. Which was fine except for the straps - they were so thick that it was impossible to turn them inside out. Possibly becuase the wadding was thicker than a fusible one? It didn't help that I'd mislaid my loopy-gizmo thing for turning tubes and had to substitute chopsticks. In the end I just did straps without wadding - but even then they are so narrow that turning them was hard - I put the chopstick right through the fabric twice.... the air was blue.... still got there - it just needs a drawstring ribbon to pull the top in.


I've also started these blocks just for sanity. They are extremely simple and great for 'TV quilting'. I have been told that handpiecing is nuts but I like having a pile of blocks to sit with, under a finshed quilt, with a good drama. Of course the drama has to be on DVD or video becuase I miss so many crucial bits becuase I look at the seams far more than then screen....

These are in no particular order and the pink will not dominate so much - I just started with that fabric ( all the colours are the African packs from Ragbags). The pattern came from a Kaffe Fasset book and it does look good with lots of blocks and no borders but I might pay around when I have a few more and see if I can do somthing more innovative with them. It seems tame now to just follow someone elses pattern!

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