happierthanabirdquilts: Sufficiently Distracted

Binding The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made is coming along. Last night I hit the half way mark after some really slow going over the weekend. But we had a fun time as a family hitting the Farmer's Market, kiddie pool swimming, and celebrating my Mom's birthday.

Speaking of my mom's birthday, I can now show you what else I whipped up last week while I was procrastinating quilting...

The Jane Market Bag!

I bought 1 yard each of 3 different pieces of Domestic Bliss by Liz Scott for Moda. I ended up lining them with muslin because I had odd size and shaped pieces left over - enough, but odd.

They were easy to make, and I've never made bags before. I even found a great place to put my labels!

I adapted the pattern a couple of ways, and squared off all of the edges of the bags - I think it only has you do the bottom. I like how it gave the bag a more stable form.

The pattern has you place a piece of cardboard in the bottom of the bag to support the bottom. This is great, because you can just change out the cardboard when it gets dirty or worn out. But it was really ugly looking down into the bag at cardboard. So I make pillowcase covers for my cardboard inserts.

Ahh, much better!

My mom frequents the Salt Lake City Farmer's Market so I am sure these will be well used. I need to make myself some for our trips to the Ogden Farmer's Market. I'm going to experiment more with pockets, because while the outside pockets are really fun, it would be nice to have a secure zipper pocket inside for stowing cash and such.

Anyway, back to this week's distractions:

Yesterday, rather than spending my free time binding, I started TWO new quilt tops. TWO!

I was searching my sewing room for a black jelly roll I swore I had (I don't), and instead found I a charm pack and jelly roll of Aneela Hoey's A Walk in the Woods I've had sitting around for awhile. B picked them out awhile back when I wasn't sure what to do for her bed (seriously, the girl loves that fabric!). I finally figured out what to do with it and got started using the Jungle Path pattern from Moda Bake Shop. Everything is cut out and ready to go, and there was a bit of progress with the initial piecing.

The other project I started was one I was hoping would make Drunk Zebra a much easier quilt to make. Of course I didn't fully think about it before hand, and it won't. Neither will a couple other things I tried out. So, Drunk Zebra will continue to be a paper piecing pattern, and this will likely turn into something new.