Retreat show and tell

I've so much to share with you as post-retreat show and tell.

Yes, I slept very well, ate very well and visited the beach!! (What's the point of going to Phillip Island if you don't visit the beach?).I worked on these star pieces in the car on the way...

The baby shower quilt is actually the last thing I worked on - this is why it's not finished. I have chain pieced lots of the quilt. It won't take long to finish the quilt top now!

Lucky really, as it needs to be finished for this weekend now. Eep!!

I couldn't go any further on the flower of the month stitcheries. I changed my mind, and decided to completely frame the blocks in green, rather than use sashing. I ran out of the red, I do have more, I didn't have it with me though. Drats!

Don't they look good with those colours framing them?

This little golly quilt top was sitting around for about 5 years. I quilted it, then hand-stitched the binding on in the car on the way home (I didn't drive, it's okay). VBG.

I found lots of half metre pieces of fabric in my stash during the clean-up. They were all nice fabrics, but not something that would slot easily into a quilt without designing the quilt around the fabric. Know what I mean?

These fabrics were perfect for accessories - just like these bags!

The first bag took me 2 hours to make, by the time I made the last one I had it down to 45 minutes.

My first real go at zippers.... I used the walking foot - much easier than the zipper foot.

When I made the first one, the bag instructions said to sew the second side on with the zip half closed.

I found this difficult, so I sewed it with the zip completely closed on the second bag. Whoops. The zipper tab (what DO you call that bit on a zip that goes up and down) was on the leftover bit of zip on the inside of the bag. I had to unpick and put the zip on the outside of the bag.

The third bag, I sewed the side seams with the zip closed and couldn't turn the bag right side out. Whoops again! I had to unpick a seam to slide the zipper tab (or whatever it's called) along, then re-sew the seam... then I could open the zip to turn the bag right way out.

Lots of learning, lots of show and tell. No, I didn't finish everything... Never mind.