October 12: bags and sessoms

 One of my friends, Abbie, saw the bags I have been making and decided that she would like one to give as a Christmas gift.  We got together to go through several color combinations and settled on deep, deep grey, orange, and a deep teal, with a lighter grey for the pocket linings.  We were both kind of unsure at first, but I think that we both are very happy with the way it turned out:

I was in charge of a mini-retreat at Quilting Adventures on Saturday, and I decided, that since I would have the opportunity to sew, I wanted to sew something for myself - a project for my soul, as I was calling it.  I picked out TONS of fabric, but couldn't settle on a pattern.  Finally my wife decided for me, and I started work on the Sessoms quilt by Carolyn Friedlander.  I have had some serious issues with paper piecing in the past, but I thought I'd give it another try.  I really enjoyed the fact that there was new precise cutting required, so all the fabric was cut in less than an hour.

 

 Those are the most recent pictures I have, however, I've sewn a little bit farther.  Now that the quilt top is almost done, I can say, yet again, that I hate paper piecing.  I very much love the quilt, but have gone back to my original feelings on the technique.  Once it's done, I'm going to big stitch quilt in the white areas with a variety of blues and greens.

On the horizon: I'm beginning work on two new quilts which will eventually be patterns and classes.  My checkerboard quilt is almost done, and I took a ton of pictures while I was working on it, but my computer seems to have eaten them all - I think it may finally make it into my next blog entry.  I have some "personal time" next week, so I will hopefully be doing a lot of designing and sewing!