Some More Bags

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! We've been having rainy weather here. It's been raining and foggy off and on for a couple of days now and it looks like it is supposed to continue throughout the week. Unusual for us, but very welcome! We also had a visitor in the yard this morning. We had a beautiful bull moose munching away when we got up. I had to keep Grace in the house until he left, but he only stayed about an hour. I was lucky enough to look out the front door as he was walking by the house so I got to safely look at him from about 6 feet away. I just love living up here!!

I was able to make a few more of the Twice As Nice Pouches designed by Aneela Hoey. These are the little bags I'm making for the ladies in my English Paper Piecing (EPP) group. The first one I made was for myself. I've been wanting to make this bag for myself for a while and I'm in the EPP group, too, so it was the right time!

Twice As Nice Pouch - For Me

I also decided to make one of these for a friend of mine who has a birthday in early June. She's not in the EPP group, but she's a quilter and a knitter, too, so can always use a bag. I choose a fabric that depicts an underwater scene because she and her daughter just finished their entries for the 2025 Cherrywood Challenge. The theme this year is The Abyss.

Twice As Nice Pouch - For A Friend

The final bag I made is for my good friend who is in the EPP group. I gave her a Twice As Nice Pouch for her birthday in February so I wanted to make a different bag for her. I decided to make the Peek-a-Boo Bag designed by Terri Staats.

Peek-a-Boo Bag

I used a firefly fabric since she loves fireflies. I made one of these bags for myself years ago and I keep a small EPP project in it. I think it's really cute and hope she likes it, too!

Since I'm making these bags, it makes sense that I should also make some progress on my EPP project. So I did some more work on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein.

La Passacaglia - Rosette 2

After I finish this round, I just have one more round and the rosette will be complete. The next round is another star round (like the green and pink round after the black round), so it's a more complicated round. I'd decided to use solid fabrics for all of the star units in this quilt so I'll probably use a solid darker purple for that round. Then I'll find matching printed fabrics for the pentagons and diamonds in the round. Although this is "rosette 2" in the pattern, it will be my first finished rosette for the quilt. I started with rosette 2 because it is one of the larger rosettes. There are four large rosettes in the quilt. I'm planning to make them first because I think that'll give me a better idea of how everything is looking when picking out fabrics for the smaller rosettes. This rosette is now too big to fit in my project bag without folding it. I'm thinking that after I finish the rosette, I'll probably make a new project bag that is big enough to fit the rosette flat so that I can keep all of the units together nicely while I'm making them. Any excuse to make another bag, right!!

I've also been thinking about another quilt that I want to work on. My Jungle Magnolia BOM is getting me excited to work on another Judy Niemeyer quilt.  I purchased the Amazon Star pattern from my quilt guild's online auction a couple of years ago. Someone had the pattern in their stash and decided that they weren't going to make it, so they donated it to the guild and I picked it up in the auction. I had been scared to start it since the Judy Niemeyer patterns are so complicated, but now that I have some experience with them I realize that they really are easy once you figure them out. Since I'll need to purchase the fabric for this quilt, I installed PhotoShop on my computer and started playing around with fabric colors. The pattern includes a schematic page that you can use to audition colors, so I scanned the page and opened it in PhotoShop. Then I had to remember how PhotoShop worked (it's been several years since I've used it) and figure out how to do the things that I wanted to do. There was a lot of fumbling at first, but now that I have everything set up, I can just pick a color from the top of the image and change the color and it will change that color throughout the quilt image. Here are the colors that I deicded to use:

Amazon Star - Chosen Colors

There are several "repeated" colors. These will be fabrics with very similar color and value, but with different pattern to make the quilt sparkle. I'm planning to use all batiks. I'm visiting the family in Kansas City next month so I'm planning to make a trip to Missouri Star while I'm there to pick up my fabrics. If you're a sewer or quilter and have never been to Missouri Star, it's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area! It's basically a small town that is also a quilt shop. The entire main street is shops that are all parts of the store. There's a batiks shop, a baby fabrics shop, a Christmas fabric shop, and so, so much more! I'm always excited to go there (although my bank account isn't so happy about it....)!

Finally, I made some more progress on my Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska.

Peach Sorbet Throw

I'm getting so close on this one! Just a couple more stripes and I'll be done with the body of the throw. Then I'll just have to add the border. It'll feel good to have a big finish!

Nancy