Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had some nice Holidays with your family. I’m not a big fan of New Year resolutions, so I won’t share any with you. I hope that 2014 will bring us some great surprises and that there will be some sewing and quilting along the way.

Since most of my sewing time in the past two months went on gift sewing, I thought I would start the year by sharing these projects with you instead. But in this first post, I’ll share some pictures of my new Sidekick tote as promised.

 

Again you can see some Essex yarn dyed linen blend in black. I think it is my new addiction. I just ordered some in Indigo. For the top part of the lining and inside the pocket, I used the Tree Rings print by Martha Negley. For the lining inside the bag and for the strap lining I used a print by Kaffe Fassett (Aboriginal Dot ). My only regret is that I didn’t put any interfacing on the top part of the lining that shows outside. This will get pulled a lot when opening/closing the zipper and I’m not sure it will hold up long enough. I’ll try to be gentle on it.

I also want to share right away some progress on my pillow for the Riley Blake challenge. I finished assembling the top panel. I decided to hand-appliqué the circle in the center of the Dresden plate. Now, on to the quilting. I would really love to finish this by next week. We have a show and tell at the Montreal MQG meeting and we will be showing our projects for the challenge.

I’ll be back with a few posts on the different projects I’ve made as gifts. I hope you’ll enjoy.