I've become addicted to making purses and other bags in the last couple of years, so here's my latest. It's call the "bow-tucks" bag, and after I saw someone carrying one at the Long Beach show, I had to go back through all the vendor booths until I found the one with the pattern. It was a lot of fun picking out fabrics from my stash (the inside is other Japanese fabrics in lighter colors) and it was pretty easy to put together. (I just noticed that they make a pattern for a smaller version of this, too) Anyway, I'll probably be carrying it at PIQF...

Here's a new round robin top that just came home to me a couple of days ago. The center is a tomato from Ruth McDowell's vegetable book that I made a few years ago, and three people from a little online group made the borders. I tried to take a picture that showed up the various red fabrics, but they are kind of overhwelmingly bright!
And finally, a sneak peak at the next round of the Spring Fling Round Robin #2. I will be mailing this off to get quilted sometime soon.
I need to get working on my ALQS quilt -- I'm pretty sure I know what that one's going to be, and then I also signed up for the Secret Santa swap this year... I haven't started thinking about that one at all yet, except that I might need to do a little shopping for it at PIQF. What a shame, to have to shop!

odds and ends, including New Zealand

First, New Zealand: Al and I are planning a trip there in November before going on to celebrate Thanksgiving and my sister's big birthday in Tasmania. Have any of my faithful readers been to New Zealand? Our itinerary is pretty much open at the moment, so I'm fully open to suggestions of places we must see, restaurants we must try, wine we must drink, and any fabulous crafty stuff I might want to take a detour to. I think we're going to spend most of our time on the South Island, but that's as far as we've gotten, other than the plane landing in Aukland!
I actually have a few things to show off, for a change. Above is a quilt top made of 6" blocks. One of my mini-groups played around one afternoon with black & white and one other color -- my color was orange, as you can see. I made a handful of blocks, and then sent them along to an online group to use as "my" row for a row robin. A few months later... and I had enough to make myself a little halloween-without the skeletons and pumpkins - quilt! Can you tell I love samplers? The border fabric is my favorite -- it's a very rich-looking batik.

Next up is a sneak peek at round two of the spring fling round robin. It went off in the mail yesterday -- can't wait to see what shows up for my next round!
Finally, a little progress on the knitting front -- this is the first of (groan) a pair of Monkey Socks, using the all-knit variation. It's kind of hard to see the texture in this photo. This sock took me forever to make -- it's kind of a lacy pattern and I never did get to the point where I could remember the stitches from one row to the next!
By the way, is there any way to take a picture of your own foot that doesn't make it look either totally deformed or gargantuan? I need to know before I make any more socks!

Fabulous Booty!

Isn't this wonderful? This is my Miniature Booty Quilt from Tami that arrived today. The fabric colors are incredibly rich and the workmanship is terrific. It's going immediately to my new office to brighten things up -- I hung one small quilt last week and my partner said "bring more!"

Here's the back of the quilt -- Tami embroidered the two hanging triangles to act as labels (you just put a dowel across the top and hang it from two cup-hooks or nails). You'll have to enlarge the picture to see how "deep" the leafy fabric at the bottom is.
Tami lives only about 50 miles from me, so I'm hoping to meet up with her at PIQF next month and thank her in person. Anyone else from blogland planning to go?

view from the left

Why should it be a surprise that I have no problem reading quilters' blogs that express political views in line with my own, but when I read a quilter's blog with opposing views I want to yell at them to stop talking politics and delete them from my Google Reader list? I've avoided politics on this blog as far as I can remember, but here it is, folks: I'm a flaming liberal! The thought of four more years of wrack and ruin, four more years of 90% Bush, four more years of hypocritical "family values" and heads-in-the-sand about global warming... and listening to McCain talk about offering people "choice" tonight -- oh I just want to scream!
Whew, now back to quilting. I finished the top for Judy's Labor Day challenge -- there's a little cultural disconnect, since the Molas are from Panama and the border print is supposed to be from Guatemala... but they're both Central America so I figured it was okay, AND it all came from stash. I can't wait for someone to get pregnant so that I can finish this up.

p.s. I haven't actually deleted anyone from my list. It seems petty. There really are some wonderful, talented (Republican) quilters out there... just please don't rub it in my face too much!