WIPs (under the wire) Wednesday

I can just get in my WIPs today under the wire -

It's 11:33 PM here in Albuquerque and I'm watching YouTube videos on putting in zippers and sewing bags. I found a great bag here and hope that I can follow the tutorial and have it be my first bag.

I'm not actively working on sewing anything, although I have tons of things in my head that I want to make. I'd really like to make a little quilted/zippered pouch for my MILs Samsung Galaxy 2 Tablet. I did make her a knitted button pouch for it

it will look much better once it's blocked.

I'm also learning a new way to knit socks. I recently came into five skeins of really nice sock yarn. It was given to me by a friend who is going to be a traveling nurse for the next two years. She sold her house and gave away/sold most of her things, since she won't have a home for a while. She gave me lots of acrylic yarn that she had around, but when she opened the box with the wool sock yarn and other hand-dyed, Peruvian yarn offerings the caveat was that I could have the yarn if I made her one pair of socks. I told her that I would make her a pair of socks from each sock yarn. I knitted a pair that didn't quite match up, but they were okay - then my goat of a puppy decided to snack on them in the night. I'm now working on a pair of orange/cream stripey toe-up socks. I have never made toe-up socks, but I like that I don't have to worry about running out of yarn for the important bits.

I'm not always a fan of the self-striping yarn, but this is cute.

 I really want to get over to Michael's to pick up some super-long, #2 circulars so that I can work my toe-up socks two at a time with a magic loop. Now, if you are not a knitter that just sounds like a lot of gobbledy-gook, but two at a time, toe up socks using the magic loop are awesome because you don't have to suffer from second sock syndrome (which I am inflicted). I get so excited as I'm making the first sock. Then I finish and it's like... what? I have to make another one?!? UGH! I don't wanna. I wanna do something else!!!  I figure if I make them at the same time, I will save myself a relapse of my sickness.

Tomorrow I'm going to take photos of my quilt pattern and post to Moda for the bakeshop. I really hope my pattern gets chosen. It's a major goal of mine to be published this year. I still have some months left, but the sooner the better.

I'm also working on a paper-pieced block for my bee(ful) of paper. For some reason, it was really hard and I've had to take it apart to resew the pieces together. I was going to make two blocks from the fabric Queenie sent, but I just couldn't do it. I almost didn't make one - this month has been a chore for some reason. I'm going to write a post about when paper-piecing goes horribly wrong.

the pieces

so sew frustrating when it doesn't work out right.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.