Tiny Grrlfriend Market Bag

 I already made one of these market bags for my mother. This one is for my mother-in-law. The pattern is available for free here. This time I used 2nd Time Cotton by Knit One Crochet Too. I also went with smaller needles, US size 6. Here is a tutorial on YouTube for the beginning that I found helpful.

I love it in it's tiny form. I'm sure I will be using this pattern many more times. Is there a pattern that you go back to again and again?

Eternal Summer Quilt

 A few years ago my other half had me make him a quilt. It was made of old U2 t-shirts and brushed cotton/flannel. It was a pain in the butt to make. The whole time I was doing it my son was begging me to make him one too, then little miss M wanted one as well. The kids ones were small and therefore much easier and funner to make. I swore off quilts after that though. That is until my sister, Miss C, said she wanted one. I laughed at the time and told her that even if I was going to make a quilt for her it would have to be a wedding or a 30th birthday present!. She told me it was her 30th in three years and smiled. So that thought stuck in the back of my mind until I saw this quilt over at the Purl Bee Blog. I thought of Miss C at once. It became my inspiration and I started to buy a quarter of a yard of fabric here and there. I ended up with 11 different fabrics. I then saw this quilt at the Retro Mummy Blog. I loved the look of this one too. I kind of combined the idea of both of them and came up with this design.

This is a picture of the quilt top, spread out on my bed. I didn't want to machine quilt it and I didn't really want to make binding, so I found this tutorial on the Cicada Daydream Blog. I went ahead and tied it with embroidery thread. Then folded the backing over to make a simple binding.

 Here it is drying out after I gave it a wash.

 And here it is on Miss C's bed looking very summery.

I had various problems a long the way making this quilt. I learnt that you get more fabric when you buy a quarter of a yard of fabric than you do if you buy a fat quarter. I ended up having to sew scraps of fabric together to make some of my squares. When my sewing machine stopped functioning properly, I discovered that you can put you needle in the wrong way! Ha, I felt pretty dumb when I found that out. The last thing I realized is even when you buy new safety pins to hold the quilt layers together, they can still leave rust marks on your fabric. So it didn't turn out to be perfect, but then if it did it wouldn't have been a true handmade gift! Happy 30th Miss C!