Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share. So lovely to back with you 😊  Bring along your projects ready to share in the patchwork quilting delights being aired via our Worldwide Quilting Community. The easiest way to join in is to tap on the links below, enjoy a good read and leave an encouraging message or add to the discussion the blog post has stimulated.

I have been busy doing things in and out of the sewing room. In the busyness I’ve lost track of what I have or haven’t shared here on my blog. Taking a quick look in the photo library I see the Making Backpack I made in the middle of June. It was finished apart from adding the binding to hide the internal seams. I can report the binding has been attached but I don’t have a photo to prove it as the rucksack is now being worn by a bodyform in Purple Stitches! However, completing the large size rucksack did inspire me to make the mini size using the same fabrics.

The Making Backpack is a Noodlehead design and I learned how to make it at a weekend course held by Anna of The Eternal Maker. This mini version from the pattern comes out at quite a reasonable size: 10½” high x 4½” deep x 8″ wide. I made a few adjustments: I omitted the front carrying handle; increased the height of the front zipper pocket; and I just used the foam interfacing in the lower half of the gusset and the back panel. Out of interest I kept a record of how many hours it took me to make the rucksack. All told it took me 10 hours. The UK national minimum wage is currently £11.50 an hour. That’s a sobering thought when I often see handmade, unique items being sold for little more than the cost of materials thus leaving unpaid the hours of work a skilled crafter has put into the item.

This coming week I’ll be turning my attention away from my sewing machine to a bit of card making. A crafty friend will be celebrating her 60th birthday soon and I decided to mark the milestone with a nod to our long friendship which all began in the early 1990s through a pen-friend ad in a cross stitch magazine. I need to think of a way to mount this little throwback piece onto a card.

I hope you have time to make progress with a project or two (however small) in the coming week.

Here are some links into our Worldwide Quilting Community:

I find other makers scrappy quilts so inspiring! I’ve yet to make any Wonky Log Cabin blocks but Cathy’s latest finish has got me closer to reaching for my bag of scraps. I like her design with the centre square of each block cut from fabrics with the same colour background. Although the whole quilt is super scrappy those centre squares hold it all together really well.

Here’s a great patchwork pattern deal. The Playful Patchwork Pattern Bundle is only available until midnight Sunday 21st July 2024. There are ten patterns in the bundle. Find the details in the blog posts published by the designers. This is a link to the pattern bundle blog post by Yvonne Fuchs. The bundle is available for $22.50, that’s an 80% discount on the price of buying the patterns individually.

Angela Walter’s is posting a series of free motion quilting designs on her You Tube channel. The second in the series is titled ‘Help! How Do I Quilt Snowball Blocks’.

Need a bit of a kick to sort through and even – maybe – finish a teetering WIP pile? Suzy has some suggestions to help us push through the deadlock.

Linking with Alycia, who has graffiti quilted her Goofy Geese quilt, for Finished or Not Friday.

Happy Stitching!

Allison