Grocery Bag Holder and a GIVEAWAY

Hello to all! Today we have a little show n' tell, a reminder, a question and finally, a giveaway.

Show 'n Tell

I've been getting into the low volume scraps again and used Jeni's tutorial at In Color Order to make a Grocery Bag Holder.

I made the larger size and that sucker can hold some bags, it's great.

Projects like these (which don't take a lot of wear and tear) are ideal opportunities to use up some batting scraps, so I pieced together a few offcuts.

Initially I was going to use a zigzag stitch to join the pieces (which I have done before), but went for using fusible interfacing instead. It was very quick and very easy. (I also find zigzag can give you a bit of a wavy finish, which isn't so great.)

I just squared up my batting offcuts after giving them a light press:

Then I butted the edges together and used some 3 inch wide strips of interfacing to join them together.

*Bonus - as well as using up batting offcuts, you can also use up interfacing offcuts.

I actually used two different types of cotton batting (because they fit the project better) but I wouldn't recommend this generally - I'd only piece the same types of batting offcuts together.

Once it was all ironed down I basted my quilt sandwich as normal, but I faced the fusible toward the quilt back so it wouldn't show through the lighter coloured patchwork.  Quilt as normal, no problemo.

Some pretty 3/4 inch twill tape to hang it up with

A Reminder

It's do or die time. Google Reader dies on 1 July, so all the doing is in your camp! Don't forget to continue your subscription either via email (see upper right) or through another feed aggregator such as Bloglovin' (see buttons right/below) or Feedly (put www.bonjourquilts.com in the add content box).

A Question

I'd like to try some Foundation Paper Piecing but don't know where to start. Do any of you have any good recommendations for learning this technique?

A Giveaway. Yay!

I've just turned in a project for the Australian quilting magazine Down Under Quilts. Thanks to them, I have a copy of the latest issue to give away. Open to everyone, everywhere, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll pull a name out of the hat at the end of the week.

And yes, if you leave me a Foundation Paper Piecing tip you will absolutely get a second entry.
If you let me know you've subscribed, you'll get a third (just leave each as a separate comment).
I reward helpfulness!

Hope you're all having a great week so far, if not - make it one!

Saturated colour and texty prints

I've been playing around with the little Japanese collection I picked up at the Stitches and Craft Show back in March.

Having cut the majority of the low volume triangles for my queen sized quilt, I had a pile of scraps staring at me. So instead of doing the sensible thing and finishing the quilt top, I decided to start some cushion covers. Of course.

I think the black and bone prints pair beautifully with saturated colour, especially red:

This one. Don't ask me what's going on here because it looks crazy but I still like it.

I think it would've looked very different with a solid instead of the blue floral. Might have to try that next time.

Hope you all have a great week!

This and that.

It's the middle of a long weekend* here and the plague has come to our house. Why is it always on long weekends? We have all succumbed, one by one, except for the baby - although there's always tomorrow.

Before we all caught bugs and started throwing up everywhere, I was having a lot of fun.

We spent another weekend in Noosa where I was lucky enough to visit the Noosa Food and Wine Festival with a friend (while our hubbies took the kids to the beach, what dolls).

Lots of lovely wines to buy, not to mention tasty tidbits:

There was a huge samples tent where you could wander around and try all sorts of delicious Australian fare, from hand-milked trout caviar (yes, I had to ask her how they hand-milked them) to quail legs to oysters on the shell.

I discovered something new: spreadable chorizo. It's like the sausage, but in a tube instead of its casing, so you can spread it on panini or pizza or straight onto your tongue. Mmmm.

Also wonderful - the cheese.

These huge rounds were placed on tables and you could dig out your own sample. Sooo good.

Speaking of wine, I have a nice collection of French wine corks from our last three years. I won't tell you how many I have lest you think less of me, but let's just say there's a few.

I wasn't sure what to do with them until I found a large picture frame with its glass broken - so now I'm going to glue them in and make myself a large cork board. Once I find the glue gun.

I've also done a little stash building. I used my Pink Chalk voucher (won in the Handmade with Love Tutorial Contest) and also took advantage of the Sew, Mama, Sew closing down sale to purchase some pretties:

I have a great range of low volume fabrics now and after much aheming have decided on a design. It involves triangles:

I'll be sure to let you know how it works out!

* It's the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Her Maj is 87 years old - what a machine!