It's lovely in the sunshine

It's a lovely sunny day here in Westward Ho! once again. I'm keeping an eye on the shingles to make sure it's not coming back with a vengeance, and this involves getting up early in the morning. That's not entirely true, I get up early to make the most of the coolness in the flat before the sun comes into the flat. I love having the sunshine and the blue sky, and the heat, but the heat is not comfortable for quilting - well, it wouldn't be, would it; sitting under a quilt with the sun blazing down into a room that is effectively a greenhouse.

Anyway - the next installment of my endeavours. Today I'm going to show you a competition entry.

This is a bag I made for the Patchworks competition back in 2004. Patchworks is a shop in Scotland, and you paid about £6 for some fabrics that you made into whatever you wanted. You could add other fabrics as well. I can't remember which charity the competition was raising money for - it may have been breast cancer. I used one of my favourite fabrics - the chocolate one - twice; once on the outside, and then again on the inside for the pocket. I used and adapted a pattern from Barbara Randle's book - Crazy Quilting with Attitude, the bag also appeared in Popular Patchwork several years ago. I adapted it by adding a single shoulder strap on the gusset, and by creating a flap so that the bag could be closed over the top, rather than in the middle - I thought this made it a bit more secure. I used the stitch and flip method to piece the bag, and added ribbons and couched decorative threads for embellishments. The use of ribbon served two purposes; one was to use the means of tying the fabrics together for posting, and the second was to hide an unsightly join in the fabric. I couched the threads using invisible thread to add some movement to the piece, and used the colours of the fabric pack. I used some of the embroidery stitches on the machine along the ribbon, and along the gusset.

The bag didn't win any prizes, but it was fun to do, and I stretched the limits of my skills to achieve something that was attractive, practical and useful. It made me think carefully about what was required, and how to achieve the finished product - it was an exercise in creative thinking and problem solving.

That's all there is for now - check again soon for the next installment.