Green Grocery Bag Challenge

I love reading Sew Mama Sew  and each year about this time they have a whole month of gift ideas for crafters.

As many of us have too much stuff  and create too much waste, especially at gift-giving time, this initiative is

a great idea

 

 

For a free, step-by-step tutorial, head on over to Green Bag Lady where you can find a wonderful idea for

wrapping your Christmas gifts - something handmade, and hopefully useful for the recipient. 

There are plenty of ways to personalise a bag as well.

 

Off now to hunt out some more ideas!

Friendship Blocks

Our Singapore quilt group has quite a revolving membership, most of us being expats on varying lengths of postings.

We try and make a block for those leaving – which can take many forms.  One of our group is leaving this week.  Being a typical quilter, she found a design she liked on the floor of a shopping centre in Singapore!

The idea is great.  The design looked good.

I printed out the pattern pieces;  began to look in my pile of blue & green batiks -

 

I tried to get it right – 4 times!!  Something was definitely screwy somewhere and going back to basics with the calculator and ruler still did not help.  This is 3rd attempt….

Although I love the colours in this one, something bizarre happened with the pinwheels in the centre and instead of being 12.5” it came out about 10.5”

Next effort….

By this time I was running out of the fabrics I really liked, so I ditched the pattern and worked it out myself.  Size is ok, all the points meet, but not sure about colour placements.

Oh well, sorry Tiiu.  At least you will have a block tomorrow.  But I’m not happy and will persist until I produce the stunner!

My Birds of Hope Valley

Not the best photo; I'll try and get a better shot when someone can hold it up.
This was my entry in our Challenge "Curves and Circles"  It is a pattern from Emma @ Ballarat Patchwork - machine pieced, appliqued and machine quilted by me.