in the month of May

I didn't think I would have much to post this month but it turns out I was wrong. There is a LOT to post about so let's make a start.

First of all, this is what I made this month:

Dresses for Emily and Isla. These are the Kitty dress from Puperita. I used bias binding around the neck and armholes rather than lining them and didn't use piping. They're fab!

Fronts:

Backs:

I decided I needed to do something with the wee squares I had in my "fussy cutting" box so I made (some of) them into square-in-a-square blocks. They all finish at 8½" so, if I decide to make something with all of them, they will fit together nicely - at least by size! I'm sot so sure they fit together nicely by colour!

I had to add a blue stripe into these ones to make them the same size. I think they turned out really well!

Debbie asked me to make another navy blue spotty mask for her. Apparently, a pen had leaked in her bag and her navy spotty mask took the brunt of it. An easy job to make a new one for her.

She asked me if I'd make a mask for Emily. She'll need to wear one soon and, because of her ears (hearing aids) she can't wear ones where the elastic goes around her ears. I had to figure out a way to get the elastic to go around the back of her head. Hopefully it'll work! I made one for Isla as well - no way could I make one for Emily and not make one for Isla!

I tried it on the teddies to see what I thought.

How the elastic works at the back.

Debbie also asked me to make a couple of shopping bags for the girls. Another easy job!

The dresses, masks and shopping bags are on their way to Canada as I type. Hopefully everything will fit!

After all that sewing, I decided I needed to do some scrap management. I had already taken the turquoise/jade box down when I took this photo but you can see how messy and full the scrap boxes are.

I decided to cut things into 2½" strips so that's what I did. I now have a full (messy!) box full of 2½" strips but the other boxes look much better. I deliberately didn't do the plain coloured boxes - more often than not, I need bigger pieces of these so I've left those full and messy!

Joanna and I had birthdays in the middle of the month - happy birthday to us! - and this was a surprise gift that she got for me! Button tubes!

I had a LOT of fun filling them.

Then I divided them into baskets ...

... made labels and put them on my shelves. This makes me so happy! Thanks again, Jo. What a great birthday present!

Lastly, I was finally tidying away all the bits of paper I used when making my Supernova quilt. As I was putting them all into the folder, I found this:

Oh. My. Goodness. This pre-dates even the Photoshop file (dated 2012) that I had found in my needlecraft folder on my computer and used to make the quilt. Can you read what it says at the bottom? Oh. My. Goodness! What a great idea! So I gathered some Christmas 2½" squares ...

... some white squares and bits to make the HSTs (half-square triangles).

Made the HSTs and divided them into 4 piles - one for each quarter of the hanging.

Divided it all into parts for each quarter.

And before I knew it, I had the top left quarter made. So cool!

I've already got some of the next quarter made and I'm so happy with the way it's turning out. A great way to use up 304 x 2½" squares of Christmas fabrics, 30 x 4½" squares of Christmas fabrics, 60 x 2½" squares of white fabric and 30 x 4½" squares of white fabric. The only things I had to cut were the 4½" squares of white fabric. All the rest were already cut so it was an easy job to gather all the bits. Now I just need to get it sewn. Happy days!

That was a busy month of May!