Bound!

P4161198, originally uploaded by tellen24.

Laminaria Beauty

P4151181, originally uploaded by tellen24. Photo taken by Chauntel (firebrunette).

Slightly less than one month after starting, I've finished. And I absolutely love it! It was a well written pattern, I chose a lovely yarn, and it turned out to be a well matched set.

Pattern: Laminaria by Elizabeth Freeman
Started: March 15, 2008
Finished: April 12, 2008
Yarn: MiniMaiden from HandMaiden Fine Yarn
Color: Smoke
I used slightly less than two skeins of yarn. While blocking, I realized how much I love the ruffly edge that was created during bindoff, so I left it.

Details!

P3281121, originally uploaded by tellen24.

The quilted pattern is called a meander. Because...you just meander the machine along! :)

A mostly finished quilt!

P3281106, originally uploaded by tellen24.

Okay!! Here it is! I took it all the way to Idaho to quilt on Lois' long arm machine. I still need to do the binding but I received lessons in that also. All in all, I love this quilt. :)

Traveling quilts

I am deliberately holding out on posting pics of progress on my quilt. For one very specific reason. I am traveling to Idaho with Chaun, George and the kids next week to visit her parents. (Cori, I SO wish you could come out too...) Chaun's mom owns a longarm quilting machine and is going to teach me how to quilt my own quilt! The longarm machine will make it so much easier than trying to deal with my sewing machine here at home. The quilt top is done and as a matter of fact, I am just about done with another one. :) I will have quilting-in-progress photos when I get back. I am so enamored with the idea of working my own quilt from start to finish. Any quilt tops I do after the trip will be sent to Idaho and Chaun's mom will do them up for me.

I sewed some more!

Just one more bag, folks. Once I tried it, I had to make the perfect bag for myself. The original was based off an actual plastic bag and I forgot to add seam allowances so it ended up a skinny tall bag. Second time around, I didn't use a template, I just measured and sketched on the fabric itself, the size of bag I wanted to end up with and then added in extra for seams. I made this bag wider, shorter, and gusseted. I also made one handle 1" shorter than the other so I can loop it over the tall handle and the bag will stay closed. Oh! And we added interfacing (Chaun's brilliant idea) to give it more structure. I forgot to measure the finished product but I will add those in once I remember to measure.
SIDE ONE:

SIDE TWO:

SIDE VIEW:

I sewed!

I found this tutorial recently on how to sew a lunch bag by using a plastic grocery sack as the pattern. I don't know much about sewing or my sewing machine but I figured this could be easy. And after a few rookie mistakes, I had myself a cute little lunch bag! I didn't take into account seam allowances (another rookie mistake) so it's smaller than I would like but having done it once, I know I can tailor the pattern to exactly what I want. I used a few fabrics from my stash (I find it extremely funny that I have a yarn stash AND a fabric stash) which made me quite happy.