Spring/summer, Guild teas and lunches, and workshops

Well, it is now beautiful spring with tulips and other spring bulbs.  And, groan, dandelions. How to juggle gardening and all the other things occurring this month.  Well on nice days it is renovate gardening beds, split hostas and other plants, and weed, weed, weed.  Find some time in the p.m. to do some quilting.  Then added to this mix are the closing events of the guild for summer.  This means baking.  Oh how hard it is to make and freeze and not taste.  :) Add to this a lawn tractor with a dead battery.  But I changed the battery myself. Combustion engines and I were strangers.  We are becoming acquainted. 

Garden work, fun, quilting.  The 3 things rotate all day and in the mind half the night.  But my latest quilt is coming along as one or two or three blocks in an evening.  I am not sure where this one is heading.  I am experimenting with unexpected colours in a quilt by Gerry Robinson who always has soothing quilts. My choice of Kaffe Fassett fabrics are not soothing but oh so beautifully colourful.  So I am making the blocks while pondering a bit of a change to the layout to allow the colours to exist in close but not direct contact.  We shall see.

But in the midst of this, one has to make something that will only take an evening and be a fun thing. I found this item on this site Attache case .  Thanks to Terrie Sandelin for this neat idea and one that uses scraps as well.  Who does not have scraps.  One has to keep papers related to workshops and meetings in something and old work cases seem boring after seeing this.  

Unfortunately I was unable to find the interfacing called for so used another product which is quite a bit stiffer. This was harder to work with but in the end worked.  So the buttons  on the side were replaced by hand sewing the bottom of the sides and then managing to get the top of the side under the pressure foot and doing a bar tack.  This left the middle vulnerable so I put a strap across the back and attached at the sides to keep them in place.  It works.  I also used rat tail on the edges to make them smooth.  I used two colours of thread; one on each round.  It helped to contain stray bits of thread.  

So here are pictures of the case completed.  It is scrappy and bright.  I set the closure off center too by accident but it adds a bit of eye interest.  At least is my story and I am sticking to it.  I would make another one but would ensure I had a less stiff interfacing.   Gotta run; bread ready for last rise.  Have a happy day.