It's a Girls Bag!

Some little girls are very girly, more so than others - therefore, when you get a birthday invitation for a little miss who is turning 3 what do you do?  Why, make a handbag of course!

Some floral fabric, spotty buttons and a bit of stiffening, gives you a very pretty bag with dimensional flower on the front.

Front of bag

 I have adapted the Evening Bag pattern from Nicole Mallalieu Design to make this fashionable little number.  So easy and so much fun to make - I want one too!

All Wrapped Up

Before Christmas 2011 - digging into my memory bank here - I wanted to make some gifts that were effective and best reflected the ladies I was making them for.  In the Moda book "Fresh Baked Treats"  I found the perfect gift to make - Jewellery Wraps.

They are beautiful.  A little bit of a fiddle, but oh so worth the effort.  I made one for my good friend Judy first...

Folded Up



Opened Out

The Outside

... then I got carried away and made them for my Mother In Law and both Sisters In Law.  I just fell in love with the colour combinations and it didn't matter what fabric choices I made, I felt that they were all fantastic.

Folded Up - Wraps for MIL, SIL1 and SIL2



The Insides



The Outsides

The best thing about these gifts, is that all four ladies are using them.  I think I hit the jackpot in gift choice - wonder what I'll make for next Christmas?

Snuggly Jumper

When you use pure wool, you can't help but get a really snuggly jumper that was a joy to knit.  Using TeAwa Wool (from New Zealand) - colour Barrier Reef, I knitted up this basic child jumper, size 5, with Patons Classic Kids pattern.

The Jumper!

I gave this particular jumper to a friend for her son.  I had the wool for so long that my children grew too much for me to knit anything for them with the quantity that I had!  oops! 

Off to look at what else I have to knit now.......

Busy with "Just Takes 2"

Since the beginning of the year, I've been following the fun over on the blog Just Takes 2 .  A new venture from Brenda at Dear Jane and Gay at Sentimental Stitches, this new project is turning out to be quite a bit of fun, well, actually, I'm loving every little part of it!  The philosophy is simple - 2 Friends and 2 Fabrics will make 2 Quilts.  The full history is on the Just Takes 2 Blog.

Here are my efforts so far this year.

Blocks 1 - 6 

 

Blocks 7 - 11




Blocks 12 - 13

I'm about a month behind at the moment, not having completed all of the March blocks due to my slowness at completing the optional Stitcheries.

Within one of the local quilt groups, there are approximately half a dozen ladies also working on 'Just Takes 2' and the variety of colours is fantastic.  You simply cannot choose a bad combination it seems when you add a cream or white to another colour.  It's so lovely to suddenly have a little group within a group to be sharing our quilt blocks - and the rest of the group is enjoying the eye candy I'm sure  :)