Urban Jungle Bloggers

I'm diverting from the blog's usual subject matter to talk about Urban Jungle Bloggers, who add a variety to my quilty instagram feed with beautiful images of house plants.

I've always liked house plants, but others in the house think plants should be outside the house and refer my shelf of plants as "Death Row".  Unkind, isn't it?  And I haven't killed any lately.

Here are the current inmates of Death Row and I think they look pretty healthy.  During October, Urban Jungle Bloggers are collecting "plant shelfie" images - so here's mine.

Liberty Coin Purse

I wanted one of these.

They are very good quality leather. But I didn't want to pay £195. Could I make one out of fabric?

Here's the inside.

Of course the prototype had to be blue.  And it had to be Liberty Lawn. 

The construction caused me several headaches. While I was making it I had a few ideas on how I could have constructed it differently.  I don't usually make two of anything but this might be the exception.

Here's my first effort:

 There is so much wrong. 

• the outer zip looks ragged - I had to unpick it twice.  It's still uneven.
• the inner zip does not work properly - I used a cheap one that I had on hand.
• I could not get my stitches close enough to the edge around the curves even using a zipper foot.
• The bottom credit card slot is too shallow.

I have a new respect for anyone who can make this type of thing successfully.  Maybe that Liberty purse is actually worth £195?

Week 28 EPP - more stars

 I decided I didn't like the huge contrast between the pieced blocks and the plain blocks...

....so I made some stars

Hmm.  One diamond spare.  Never could count.

...and I've pinned some of them on.

I think I like it better this way.

Week 27 EPP - Top finished (?)

It's all QAYGed and sewn together and the backing fabric (Kona Prussian) is ordered.  The garden bench is not big enough for a decent outdoor pic, but I did manage to hide most of the ladder in the overgrowth. 

Thanks so much for your thoughts on how to quilt this one:

Sarah Martin emailed me some great ideas - she imported the image into Paint and drew lines on it - simple but effective!  Thanks again, Sarah.

This crooked window block was also a bit of a challenge:

I've certainly proved to myself that you can make almost any shape or pattern using English Paper Piecing. But I have to admit that while I like some of the individual elements,  I don't like the whole thing very much right now.  Plus that blue is blimming awful for collecting white fluff from the cotton batting. And white fluff from white cats. I hope that when this quilt is backed and bound it will all come together a bit more. Maybe some more quilting in the plain blue areas - maybe even more appliqué.

As it's Friday and it's almost a finish, I'm going to link up with Crazy Mom's Finish it up Friday.  If you want to see earlier posts about this quilt, click here.  

Next week I will link up with the Monday Morning Count over at Life Under Quilts.