Sewing catch up

I know I haven't said much about sewing lately,

but that doesn't mean I have been exiled from my sewing room.

Its the end of the school year and its been a busy one.

But not so busy I wasn't able to throw together a few fun projects.

Remember that delicious hedgehog fabric?

I needed a quick little pouch for business cards so I found this great little tutorial

and whipped it up in less that 12 minutes!

I wish I could remember the blog that had this great tutorial, but I am drawing a blank.
So thanks random blogger, if I can remember who you are I will come back here and definitely give you credit.

I do remember where this one came from: I Like Orange Too

The practice piece. Some Westminster fabrics and some of that incredible Essex Linen.

I added pocket, easy peasy.

Here it is with pleats! The fabrics are Essex Linen and Westminster or Timeless Treasures (I honestly don't remember and the selvage is not handy)

and some fun, ahem, Walmart fabric on the inside.

It truly was the best yellow to go with the feature fabric on the outside. 

So the pleats, lets focus on the pleats! They are divine! And not nearly so hard as they look.

This pattern is easy to follow and I know several people who have bought the pdf pattern and made their own bags. Its been great for me as my usual school bag was soaked in the 

flood, I mean pool installation a few weeks back at work.

Happy sewing, lets hope you don't have torrential rains that force you to sew.   

 

Pouch Swaperooo

My fabulouos Modern Quilt Guild is at it again!

We are swapping pouches.

I think I may have posted on this earlier, but I finally got motivated

(translation, the swap is just a few days away)

and made the pouch I wanted to swap.

Its called a Humbug bag and so fun to make! The swanky shape is

unusual and fun and I made the whole thing from one square of fabric.

 I just layered two fat quarters together and quilted them

(great practive for my new all over ripple quilting!) together.

The perfect size for taking sewing along in the car.

I had some of my fabric/quilt sandwich left over and couldn't resist

making a matching coin purse using the reverse side.

Oops! The birds are upside down! Oh well.

Cute nevertheless.

So here they are together. My swap partner will be surprised to find

the little coin purse bonus inside the humbug bag.

Hope she likes them both!

Rule # 341

Personal Rule #341: If you pick something up at the free table, you have to sew it into something quick, becasue you don't have room for it in your stash!

So the beautiful yard of "Poppy Silhouette" by Laura Gunn became two great new pillows for my couch.

And then, because once you pull out fabric it doesn't want to be put away,

I decided to play around with pouch patterns and

zippers.

Just practicing, you know.

'Cause I can.

Not bad for my first try.

Might just have to make a mess of these for friends and family.

But lets not stop there.

A little coin purse, too!

Believe it or not, but the boxy pouch was easier to make than the coin purse.

I think it was the size, bigger is better I guess.

The only problem is that I am quickly going through my zipper stash.

This is all I have left!

My favorite place to get zippers is at estate sales (can you say "I'll take all of them for $1.00"?).

Guess I need to start estate saling again!