Craft Show Round Up

I thought when I finished work I'd have more time to update here more regularly.  Doesn't seem to be the case.  Although I have had things on nearly every day since finishing.

The first of which was last Thursday going to the Craft and Quilt Fair.   I managed to stay within my budget, sort of ;)  I had a shopping list of supplies I needed for current projects but still hoped to pick up something a bit new and/or exciting.

I picked up a few essentials such as applique fusible web, embroidery stabiliser, bag wadding, needles for embroidery, applique and quilting, then I got some fun things.  I've been wanting to do another latch hook for ages (did one once as a kid), but could never justify the price of the kits when I didn't really have a purpose in mind.  Thanks to baby-on-the-way, I decided I could make a colourful rug for the nursery.  Don't need a rug as there is plush carpet, but anything to add colour to the room is great.  And the plus was that this came out of 'baby budget' and not out of 'craft show budget' ;)

The other fun thing I got was my obligatory quilting pattern (I seem to end up buying a quilt pattern at every show I go to).  I had decided that for my pregnant music teacher friend I wanted to make a quilted wall hanging for the nursery as a gift for when the baby was born.  I saw a pattern from Joan's Own Creations and just couldn't resist.  It's not particularly a baby pattern but I'm going to make it out of more child friendly colours and then it will also last long beyond them being a baby.

Instead of using gold for the brass instruments I'm going to do things like metallic purple.  I might even make the piano keys multi-coloured!  Who knows, I haven't thought that hard about it yet.  Got too many other things to finish first.  The baby is due in November, but I've got until Christmas to make it really because I'll be going up to Sydney then, so don't see the point in paying for postage just to get it there 6 weeks earlier.

I also bought some books on quilting to help me with my current projects.  Good basic details in the books, concentrating on techniques rather than just giving you quilting patterns etc.

I've started doing some hand quilting on my elephant quilt, but discovered that I need a lot more practice!  I also might need to attend a class to get someone to help me with the rocking stitch method as I can't seem to do that.  I gave up in the end and am just doing stab stitch.

And just because I took a photo of it, here is the bag wadding in action!  It's great because it keeps the bag standing up-right on it's own.  That's my fern bag making some progress (until I rearranged the sewing room and haven't got everything set up again yet).