All of the strawberries

I have been working hard over the last few days to complete a magazine project. The piecing and quilting are now done, and I have three sides of binding to hand stitch down. I then took the leftovers from my project to use on a retreat project - Easy Duffle by Sweet Cinnamon Rose.

We have been encouraged to go scrappy for this project, so I pulled out this bag of Ruby Star Society scraps to use along with ALL of the strawberry prints. Improv is out of my comfort zone but I made two panels of 24 blocks from which to construct the duffle bag. At the same time, I used up some scraps and pressed all of the other scraps in the bag and divided them into strawberry fabrics, selvedges and scraps. Some scraps were too small for me, and I have either put them in the bin or put them ready to pass to my friend Jill, who loves scraps!

I particularly like the aubergine and turquoise prints from the new range, so cut up two layer cake squares to make four filler blocks. I made all of the blocks 5" square and pieced them into two panels.

Yesterday I quilted the panels on some car headliner (a cheaper alternative to soft and stable) and this morning I've kitted up the project with everything apart from pink zipper tape. I will add the D rings to each end but may not add a long strap.

That's just one project kitted up so time to work on some other projects ready for retreat as I leave tomorrow afternoon to fly to Manchester and stay overnight with my daughter, Lizzie.