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.

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!

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...

Sewing Machine Cover

This probably won't come as a shock to anyone, but Cairo is dusty.  When I first moved here I was always wondering why I kept seeing people hose down streets in the morning.  I figured it had something to do with the heat and wanting to keep the concrete cooler, but then I found out that they were doing it to keep the dust down, which makes way more sense.  We're lucky that the building we live in is sealed pretty well, though the dust still manages to sneak in and coat the surfaces of everything  if we don't clean regularly.

All this is to say that I wanted to make a cover for my sewing machine.  I have one that came from the manufacturer, but it has an open top so that I can use the handle.  My machine never leaves its spot so having a hole in the cover isn't necessary.  Plus it lets the dust in!

I used this tutorial to make my cover.  It turned out pretty well, except I think I was too generous in the measurements.  I didn't want to make the fit too smug, but instead it's a little too loose.  I probably would have used interfacing if I had any available to me since the cover is a little floppy for my taste.  Oh well!  I used fabric from the Summersville line, which I love.