Arkansas Traveler Pillow

My time in Cairo is winding down.  I have less than a month left and I've slowly been sorting things into piles, deciding what will go to my next location and what will go into storage.  I've already put most of my fabric into containers.

All of this is to say that I plan on spending my remaining time here sewing up little gifts to the friends I've developed over the past years.  I've made this pillow using the Arkansas Traveler block and plan on giving it to my neighbor.

String Quilt

I started another quilt from the Practical Guide to Patchwork.  It's called "Valentine," but it's a basic string quilt pattern.  I thought originally that I'd make it with 16 blocks, but I decided to expand to 20.  

Now all I need to do is figure out how to quilt this...

Small Plates Finish

I finished this quilt back in early February but never got around to posting about it.  February was a busy month and I hope to do more sewing this month.  I used straight line quilting along the block edges.  I tried to free motion quilt it, but stopped a few minutes in.  I think I need to start out with smaller projects, like place mats, before jumping into quilting something large.

It still needs to be washed, but since I have no recipient in mind I'm going to wait until it needs to be cleaned from all the cat hairs it's accumulated.

WIP Wednesday: Cairo Snow Day

We obviously don't have real snow days in Cairo, instead civil insurrection sometimes makes it impossible to go to work.  This entire week I've been waking up and immediately checking my blackberry to see if I've been instructed not to come in or whether there's been a delayed opening, which makes me feel like I'm back in school and waiting for word on whether there's a snow day.  I haven't had a full day of work so far this week, which has done wonders for getting sewing projects done.

So far I've completed my strip and flip baby quilt and my grandmother's birthday pillow.

 

I've finished my small plates quilt top and am going to start basting and quilting it later this week.

I've also started pulling fabrics to make my Valentine quilt from A Practical Guide to Patchwork.

photo my colleague took on the way into work yesterday

Linking up with Lee from Freshly Pieced!  Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday pillow

My grandmother's birthday is coming up and I'm hoping this will arrive in the States in time.  I made a pillow based on this flying geese pillow and finished it using the instructions in this post.  It was pretty easy to put together and a successful first paper piercing experience!  The only snag is that I used a pillow form that claimed it was 18"x18" and I think it was really much smaller than that because my pillow cover looks very large.

I think she'll love it!

Another baby quilt

It seems like everyone in Cairo is pregnant these days so I've made a third baby quilt ahead of the baby shower next weekend.  The mother-to-be is a bit picky so hopefully this will live up to her standards!  I used Cluck Cluck Sew's tutorial for the strip and flip baby quilt since I needed a quick pattern due to being out of town for the past week.  Luckily there was an Egyptian holiday on Thursday and I got an unexpected day off today due to all the rioting that's going on near my place of work.  Oh Egypt...I think this is the fourth or fifth extra day off due to unsafe security situations in my time here, not to mention all the countless times we've had an early release or delayed start.

I couldn't decide which fabric to use for binding at first.  I have a ton of brown fabric that I don't go through that quickly, but I thought it made the quilt look heavy.

I think it turned out quite well!  One of these days I'll have to start trying to use free motion quilting...

Open Wide Zipper Pouch

I spent part of my weekend making an open wide zipper pouch from the Noodle-Head blog.  It was super easy to put together, though it always seems like I have to take out at least one seam per bag.  For this one it was forgetting to leave an area open to turn it right side out.

I think it turned out well!  The fabric is Bella by Lotta Jansdotter from Windham Fabrisc.  The pouch is currently housing all my empty bobbins and sewing machine needles. :)