When the cat is away...

....the mice will play.

It is amazing what can be accomplished when you find yourself home alone. And can I just say that in 11 years of being a mother I have never had a home alone moment up until now. This will be night number three and the last, without anyone in the house except moi. When thinking about this precious time I thought about all sorts of sociable things I could get up to and then I realised that what I actually wanted to do was sit behind my sewing machine on my own... and sew.

First box ticked was this:

I realise it is not the most revealing of pictures but that's because it is for my secret partner in the Urban Home Goods secret swap on Flickr. Have a look at the amazing creativity that is going on and you'll see why I wanted to join. I must admit that when I was assigned my secret partner I did a bit of a gulp when I looked at her Flickr photostream and saw her creativity. And then you become a bit nervous about the standard of your work. I'm massively comfortable making things for family and friends probably because what they know about quilting you could write on the back of a matchbox. However, when it is for a fellow quilter you start to worry where your work falls on the quilt crapometer. I even poured over a YouTube video on how to finish sewing your binding on the bias because previously I'd done it the other way of just joining the two straight ends.

This is the back.

 Yes, I know...still not much to go on. Hopefully, I'll be able to show the full reveal in the next couple of weeks, speed of various countries postal systems permitting.

Second finish was this:

Daughter No.1 requested a new school bag for the new school year at her new school. "Pink and black please." I'm not a huge fan of solid pink and solid black together so it's blackish and pinkish and I hope she likes it. And if she shows any sign of dissent towards it, I shall swiftly remind her that 'pretty much most other mothers go out and buy their kids backpacks for school so just be grateful that you've got a kind and creative mother who gives up her valuable time to make you something a little bit different.' Or words to that effect;-)

As far as bag patterns go, this one was ridiculously easy to make. The longest part was the cutting out of the fabric. If anyone is interested, I used this pattern which I bought from here when they were having one of their hard-to-resist 'free worldwide postage' offers the other week:

As you can see, I have yet to master the art of getting all the pattern pieces back in the envelope. About as successful a job as I make of folding maps properly back together.
I followed the pattern almost to a T except I added in an extra layer (ie there was none mentioned) of fusible interfacing to both the outside and the lining as I felt just fabric and fleece was not going to be sturdy enough.

And finally...I have started work on a quilt with the purple and green colourway of Tufted Tweets. Something hopefully to share in a few weeks.

P.S. And they all got made listening to these guys. I found myself standing in Bromley High Street (UK) a couple of years ago and they were busking. And I stopped and I stared and I stopped and I stared some more and then I did something I have never ever done before - I bought a street buskers CD. And here we are, two years on and they are still busking and I (without exception, like all the people on YouTube and Amazon (co.uk)) can not for the life of me/us understand why they have not hit the big time. This is real music made by real people and I defy you not to smile/get up and dance/go for a run when you have listened to this.
And when you have; listen to this and this and maybe you'll get what I get about them.
Enjoy!