Bag making is fun. Bag making is enriching. Bag making is frustrating. Bag making is a process. Last week I started making the Everyday Everyway bag from ByAnnie. I thought maybe I would have it finished by Friday, when we left for the weekend. By Thursday night I was on the inside pocket divider. I had finished all the straps. If you’ve ever made a ByAnnie bag, you know that all strapping is covered with fabric. It looks really nice, and makes the straps less slippery, but what a lot of sewing. Make a tube, turn it right side out, insert the strapping, then sew around the edges. This bag is called every-way because of all the strap options. There are regular handles, a shoulder strap, stroller straps, and back-pack straps. A lot of hardware too, all the pieces I ordered from ByAnnie, came in little plastic boxes. I am determined to find a use for them as they close tightly and are a good quality plastic.

Yesterday I spent two hours on the side panels of the bag. Today I am hoping to get the front and back panels done, and maybe get the bag put together. I think there is inside binding that needs to be hand sewn, I don’t want to look ahead in the pattern and spoil the fun. I am enjoying the process though. Really.

As a break from the bag, I started the ABC cardigan. I really like this Debbie Bliss Cashmerino yarn. It is the same yarn I used to make the hoodie out of. Everyone loved the hoodie btw, the blanket was a big hit too. I think my DIL was expecting the quilt (Tilda Anniversary quilt). I have that ready for appliqué, just have to get started on the process of sorting the prints and cutting chunks for the flowers. I drew all the shapes on to the reverse side of the background with permanent ink pen using my projector. Sadly, or rather frustratingly, I had to do it twice, as the first time I did it too small. It’s kinda of a mess back there, but it doesn’t show on the front.

After the bag of all bags is finished, I am going to start the two Pumpkin Patches quilts. One from the kit fabric and another from the stash fabric. I am ready for some mindless chain piecing about now. I sold one of the Halloween quilts and the other one, the zig zag, is in someone’s cart. Two more fall themed quilts would be a good addition. Probably should do another Christmas themed one too. I would like to use up the rest of the All Hallows Eve fabrics this year. I think that I have a small Fig Tree quilt pattern around here that’ll work.

I really should get quilting on the purple pineapple top. It is all ready to go, first row set. There are only so many hours in the day. I am going to be home for the next few months, no excuses not to get some more things finished. There are still 37 days left of official summer.

I just got notification that the next Fabulous house has shipped. I really need to make some more stitches on the Light House. I don’t like being behind on BOM’s as it soon leads to UFO’s for me.

Be Kind.