A gold star week

Guess what....  I actually had a pretty good weeks sewing!  Not too much sleepiness, not too many disasters.  First of all I got the 20" cushion cover for the "For the Love of Solids" Swap done.

I also had a go at the zipper pouch mark II.

From last weeks post I can deduce the following  - Adjustable zipper and piping foot is not a particularly popular foot, or at least no one that wanted to comment had one!  But I did get loads of kind comments, encouragement, and zipper hints and tips :-)  Thank you all.  I did some rooting around in the cupboard and found the old "normal" zipper foot, so I had a go at using that one.  Hmm.  Apparently I just suck at zippers.  I'm guessing it is something that is just going to require a whole lot of practice!
However, cushion and pouch are packaged up and ready to go off to my swap partner, I hope she likes them!
I got my partners assigned to me for Cindy's Mug Rug and Goodies Swap too, so it looks like I finished just in time...got a whole lotta thinking to be thunk.

Also, I'm a contender!  Check out lovely Sarah @ pings and needles Japanese scrap bag competition :-)  I'm thrilled to get in to round 2, some of the other contenders suggestions are soooo cool!  Japanese scraps fluffy muff anyone?!  Love it!   I wont be asking you to vote for me though - you may have noticed, I'm up against one of my best bloggy buddies - Hadley of Flying Blind on a space rocket or whatever ;-)  We all know that gals gonna come up with something pretty awesome!
There are sooo many QAL's going on at the moment.  Across the sea, Log Jam, Dead Simple, Hex-along ...I've been sorely tempted to sign up to all of them...  However, I know when I've got too much on my plate, and lets just say I've got a whopper of a serving platter never mind a plate at the moment.  The only one I am taking part in (officially) is the Hex-along, and this is how I'm getting on so far.

Got rather a lot more to do methinks!  I am really loving having a little project to do downstairs though - its perfect for when I think I'm a bit too tired for going up to the cupboard.  Not that that has been an issue this week, I've been up there all the time and it is so good to be able to say that for a change!  Despite having a "next I'm going to" list that's stretching off into eternity at the moment, I somehow ended up doing this...

It was on the list, just not even near the top ten.  I guess I just felt like joining some strips together!  Shame I didn't feel like reading my own instructions though... I found out one morning I'd cut 70 out of 100 strips too short!  Fortunately it was my own design, so I don't feel too bad about it, and I'll just re-jig the design to make my shorter strips fit.  Well, wouldn't you rather trim 30 shorter than re cut 70 the right size?!  You'll have to forgive the bad photos again I'm afraid, its not been particularly light up here recently, but its not been quite dark enough for the flash to work well either!  You'd not believe it looking at the picture, but in daylight / artificial light that solid does not stand out as much as it looks like it does in the photo.  In fact, in daylight I was worried the solid was so close that you'd not really notice the stars it took me hours and hours to get right...     I guess judging by the photo that should no longer concern me!  Bonus ;-)

I'm linking this up to Sew Modern Monday @Canoe Ridge Creations (whilst there's still a couple of hours of Monday left!).  Pop over to have a look at lots of other lovely creations going on in the blogiverse, and check out the fantastically retro vibe of Megan's Weekender Bag!  Love it :-)