Quilty Orphan Adoption

EDITED to add: please make sure to leave a contact email in your comment!!

Several years ago, I thought it would be fun to be a pattern tester for Sara Lawson (of Sew Sweetness), whom I met at the 2012 Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City. She was, at the time, just beginning to focus primarily on bags rather than dress and bag patterns. After a call for pattern testers, and because she remembered and apparently liked me (go figure!), I was selected. And it was fun, while it lasted. But that is when cancer came to call the for the first time in Bruce’s arm (and lymph nodes, and lungs, they thought. Later they learned they were wrong about the last two) and my world was turned upside down. I never finished this bag.

So now here we are, and I have a colorful UFO in the form of a bag-to-be. Specifically, it's the Dot Dot Dash Bag. Cynthia Brunz assured me that this would be a great inclusion to her semi-annual Quilty Orphan Adoption event, and so here we go!

What you will get if you are selected as this orphan’s adoptive parent:

1.  All the fabric pieces are cut out - main fabric, lining, interfacing and stablizer (either By    Annie’s Soft & Stable or Pellon’s Foam Flex)

2.  All the hardware (zippers and slides) is included.

3.  All the main fabric and lining has had the interfacing fused to it.

4.  Several of the sewing steps have been completed and checked off.

5.  Complete written instructions and patterns, with a note of where I left off. Please note that this is a very rough (pre-publication) copy of the pattern and has a lot of personal notations and corrections on it.

Everything you need to complete the purse is included, and the yucky parts (cutting, fusing) have all been done! YAY!!  And I will even mail it to you, at my expense, if you are in the USA. If you are outside of the USA, you are still eligible, but we will have to talk about dividing up the postage cost. And in the case of this bag, I’m not requiring that it be donated to charity; make it for yourself or someone you know who loves bright colors!!

If you are interested in adopting this project, just let me know in the comments of THIS POST. I will keep the adoption open through Thursday, March 22, 2018 at 6pm Mountain Daylight Time. The winner will be selected by Random Number Generator, then contacted and announced on the blog on Friday, March 23. 

And while you’re at it, why not check out all the other orphans at Cynthia’s Spring 2018 Quilty Orphan Adoption event, or subscribe (if you don’t already) to her great blog.

Caught up!

First of all, may I tell you how much I hate the Barred Chain Stitch? Or the Alternating Barred Chain Stitch? Or the Twisted Chain Stitch?  They are all “TWISTED” and they all should be “BARRED”. IMHO.  That was the Week #12 stitch for TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday) 2 weeks ago.  Last week was a catch up week, which I did.  :-)

There is something about this ol’ brain that just could not grok that stitch.  But I did it! badly  And in the process, I finished up my March CQ Journal Project Block.

The Barred Twisted Alternating Evil Stitches are in hot pink in the middle.  I worked from the two outer rows (awful) to the two inner rows (tolerable).  The other TAST stitch in this block are the woven wheels in the upper right.

The hot pink silk ribbon was part of a gift from Lorraine of Creative Daily.  She dyed it herself, along with some threads.  I won a drawing on her blog, and she included so much yumminess in the package. I will show you a picture of all of it tomorrow, but I couldn`t wait to dig into the threads and ribbons. And they are absolutely delightful to work with!

Here is a picture of the three blocks for January, February and March:

After the three blocks are sewn together, that large black area from the right of #2 to the left of #3 will have some motif that spans them to help disguise the seam.  I am leaning toward a silk ribbon floral arrangement.

And here is the needlepoint picture with the three blocks in situ.  Everything is just pinned at this point.  In April, I will work on Block #4 in the upper right. Too much green, so it will be covered somehow.

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Hey, have any of you heard about the (second annual) Sewing Summit?  It will be held right here in Salt Lake City in October of this year.  Registrations open on Tuesday morning, and I am there!  Check out the Sewing Summit here.  And that reminds me that I haven`t shown you pictures of my new sewing machine yet, like I said I would.  Soon, though.

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Hugs,