Bag done and new venture!!!

Well, that Little Boy can arrive any time now and there will be a nice place to keep some diapers etc when he is "out and about"! The bag AND the changing pad are fini! Yay, Me :-)

The finished bag- closed up!

And the "business side" of the changing pad OPENED up!

The fun big grommets

The pad in a pocket

The bound and finished pad. It stays so nicely folded when not in use.

All we need now is a baby to use the bag. Soon enough , I expect. As of tomorrow, six weeks to go. This has been a diversion and a fun job to do. I have one more bag to make - for ME this time. I have some fabulous fabric which shall be unveiled eventually - once I get a few other things out of the way. BTW- I do NOT plan on a career change- from Fibre Art to Bag Making !!

Now- you may have wondered about the frenzy of work before Christmas- several biggish, major pieces of new work in a short time. Well, I am making an unofficial announcement , more info soon. Late last summer, I was honoured to be invited to participate in a small group show at the Homer Watson House and Gallery which will take place later this spring. I am one of four Fibre Artists who have been asked to take part. The others in the group are Marg Notar ( also a SAQA member), Joanne Young and Carol McLean. The other three are all Kitchener- Waterloo artists and I am a "foreigner" from Burlington . I am really thrilled to be involved with this . I have shown my work often in the past- watercolours and batik, but the quilts have never really been seen publicly. As I have no samples of the other women's work and as I do not know what their parts of the show are to be called, I will wait to make a more formal announcement . My part will be called Passions- because it will include pieces from my nature collection and from my Kintyre (Scotland) collection, two things about which I feel passionately. I will announce dates later and will issue a more formal invitation to any and all of you who are able to attend. It would be grand to meet some of you face to face.

I guess that is all the excitement for this post :-) I am posting this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com and hope that you will join me there to see all of the interesting work going on just now. Marg, Joanne and Carol's entries in this year's Grand National can be seen here by clicking on Local Colour at the bottom of the page. Hope this works! Grand National Quilt Show 2013

A Diaper Bag :-)

I have stopped doing art in order to make a diaper bag for this VERY active babe who is about to join our family :-) He is currently giving his Mum no peace and , as a result, I get lots of iMessages almost every day giving us a blow by blow description of the goings on! We are all very happy and excited. Seven weeks to go as of today. I never would have believed it possible! God DOES work in mysterious ways- and we are SO grateful!

I made a prototype bag before Christmas as some may recall. ( see Diaper Bag) Katherine and I worked together to decide where and how many pockets would be good. She chose the fabrics and I am making the bag- from an Indygo Junction pattern called Grids and Grommets. It is a great bag.

We decided to amend the original pattern and to add outside pockets to it as well as bigger ones inside. I have finished the outside bag body and have the front and back pockets on.

Here is one side with a big single pocket. I put a paper in so you could see it a bit more easily.

And here is the other side with a double pocket.

The sides fold in eventually. I made a pleat at the bottom of each pocket and gathered the top edges with a bit of elastic to keep the pockets from flopping open too much. Before I go much further, I intend to make bar tacks at the vulnerable corners to keep the pockets from pulling away with use.

I have the pockets on  the lining now and am about to sew up the side seams, make the squared bottom and put the band along the top edge. NB: This is NOT shaping up to be a "pink or blue" baby! So far, it appears that he will get lots of stimulation from all sorts of bright, cheerful colours. Please stay tuned for the finished product- soon, I hope, as I have another exciting project on the go which I shall announce soon :-)

See what I mean! Not subtle colours. This is the big single pocket and the split one is on the other side. 

Sick:-(- but a very new adventure!!

My DH and I have been as sick as dogs for a couple of weeks now. I am not asking for sympathy as I know that the World and his Dog all have IT! I will say YUKKK! though! I think we have single handedly kept the facial tissue manufacturers in business. Ah, well! Could be LOTS worse. We SHALL survive .

The Dear Lord is looking out for us though. I have kept this under my hat for about as long as I can stand it but it is my GREAT pleasure, my GREAT and VERY UNEXPECTED pleasure to announce that, contrary to medical opinion , our Dear Daughter and her husband are expecting a babe next spring!!! The Lord DOES work in mysterious ways :-) We are all thrilled and especially as everything appears to be going splendidly. Healthy Daughter. Strong healthy Babe- a wee boy !! She has just passed the halfway mark so I have been brave and am announcing it publicly. A few of you knew before but now, you all know.

SOOO.... I recently came across a very nice pattern for a bag which I thought would be easy to adapt to a diaper bag. It is a pattern by Indygo Junction called Grids and Grommets and it uses huge, oversized grommets for the strap to pass through. I have made it up exactly as the pattern suggested and when we go south to visit in a month or so, we shall confer regarding the best size and placement for pocketses!! anyway, here it is- a rather sharp departure from what I normally do, but fun, quick and easy.

I shall take my colour cues from Herself in Tennessee!!

Just pinned closed to show you the look of the finished bag...

...and, Ta Da!! The Finished Bag. Grandpa says the baby should fit in there just fine! Goof!

I am finished that little project now and am about to do some pastel dyeing for my next venture-

My Aunty's gorgeous hydrangea. I will not use the green at the bottom . I will intensify a deep taupey purple and use that at the bottom right corner- I THINK!

So now, I will make a nice hot cup of tea and wallow a while longer in this plagued bug we have . Hope everyone else is hale and hardy?