Yay, Progress!

There has been a significant amount of progress made over the past week. Yay for syllabus days and pre-planning actually paying off! 

I finished what might or might not end up being the fronts of the Halloween coasters I'm making for Potholder Pass. They had to match, but not necessarily in an identical way. I think this counts, but just in case, I made two of each so that I could make a more matching set and keep the leftovers. 

I do really like them all, and will probably just convince myself to send the whole set possibly plus a few extras in case my secret partner doesn't like these 4 together.

There was also progress made on the wedding quilt for my friends' wedding that is in November, not October. I am trying to trick myself into thinking it is actually taking place in October so that my enthusiasm doesn't have the chance to fade. I do have other quilts to make, brain!

This is the giant stack of finished blocks for the quilt with sashing already sewn on one side. Now I just have to put them into rows and spend at least 2 hours trying to make said rows look effortlessly random, stitch the rows up, make it to the quilt store for another 1/2 yard of sashing fabric, add more sashing, and put it all together. Excuse the really horrible picture. It was taken on my cell in a dimly lit room. The fabrics are actually quite vibrant and not nearly as dreary as they appear in this photo.

If I wasn't going out of town to scuba dive in an old Cold War missile silo this weekend, I might have a chance of actually making that all happen. 

But I am, so I don't. Darn. 

On to another project.... I. Actually. Finished. Something!

Pretty shocking, huh?

I finished the voile (voy-el? vwa-le?) bag that is needed for my boyfriend to brew a new type of beer. In case you are a home-brewer, the logistics of what I did are pretty simple. I bought 2 yards of plain white voile. Cut a 25" wide strip off of the fabric, and double hem with a scant 1/4" seam what will be the top of the bag to prevent fraying. I used a zig-zag for added strength. Then I stitched up the sides along the selvages using a zig-zag stitch. Since it was on the selvages, I wasn't too worried about fraying. 

Then came the difficult part... The dreaded French seams for attaching the bottom of the bag. Next time, I might just make the initial strip about 10" longer in order to just stitch the two bottom sides together with a French seam. 

But I didn't do that. So I had to try and guesstimate how big of a circle I needed to make. Did I mention in my initial post that voile is difficult to measure? Well, it is. So I ended up overshooting it with the intention of doing some extra trimming. 

This meant that I was now sewing a French seam for the first time ever doing all of the wrong things like sewing on a curve (every tutorial I studied hinted that only experienced seamstresses should use French seams on a curve and I definitely am not an experienced seamstress!) and adding in pleats to make it fit.

You have no idea how much my boyfriend was laughing at me for stressing out about the process. He kindly reminded me that the soon-to-be beer would not care how it looked. 

So, here is a picture of part of the French seam of which I am actually proud!

And this is the finished result in the brew pot, where it should be.

What this means is that we actually got to brew on Sunday! Yess!! Well, first we went out for German food, and then we got to brew. Yumm, delicious, delicious German food.

Oh, yeah, back to brewing! My favorite part of the brewing process has to be the delicious smells. I can't get enough of the smells. That is why I used to hang around when my friends were brewing (those friends now operate a small micro-brewery!!!) and I even learned a thing or two about the process. 

Another neat aspect of the process is that when you stir, it makes patterns that I thought looked like Starry Night by Van Gogh. 

Thus far, that is all of my WIP work for the week. How about you?