Fun Mail

I'm really not sure what's wrong with me lately....  Ever since I got home from my uncle's funeral in Seattle I've been in kind of a sewing/blogging funk.  I just don't seem to be making much progress on things lately.  But I did manage to have a photo session of finished projects and swappy gifts last week, so I thought I would share some of them.  This very cool panel is part of a lovely tote bag that Susi made me when we did our bag swap back in...  um....  June or July?  Really?  And I'm just getting around to taking the photos??  Forgive me, Susi.  I'm not sure what happened.  I opened them...  And admired them....  And put them away, and just.  Never.  Took.  Pictures.

And here's the bag.  Isn't it just the cutest?  I love the spools.  And the books (arranged horizontally and vertically - Fun!)

Check out the adorable pin cushion...

And the button jar is just too fun!  I honestly have one very similar to this on the shelf in my sewing room.

Along with the adorable bag, Susi made me this Girl On A Swing mini quilt.  Isn't this adorable?  And I love the bright colors.  I have to admit that I have been admiring coveting these since Aneela did the tutorial way back in 2010. but I was always intimidated by doing the face, so I doubt I would have ever tried it. 

Thank you, Susi, for the lovely gifts.

I received this fun little mini quilt from Michelle (A.quilter.2) in the Super Swaps Flickr Swap.  The theme was "embellishments" and I think she did an awesome job with the buttons, the embroidery, and the beads.  The little pouch even has a 3D flap.  so cute.

Michelle even included an adorable little matching fabric basket to help me organize the sewing room.  I took photos, but they are all so blurry that they make my eyes cross.  Not sure what happened there, but apparently the camera and my eye were not communicating.

Thank you, ladies, for the lovely surprises!

The Bag Lady

It seems like I've been making lots of bags lately.  I've been told that you can never have too many bags, so maybe it's OK.  This bag is for my partner in the Sewing Room Swap, and is made from the Tinker Tote pattern from Craftsy.  I decided not to do the Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method on this one, but used a Duck cloth interfacing instead.  It didn't have the substance I was looking for, so I took it apart and added a layer of headliner foam and put it back together.  Now I have a bag that will stand by itself.  And it's nice and soft - maybe you could use it for a pillow too!?  It was a bit plain, once it was done, so I added a big fabric flower to the tab.  That jazzed it up a bit, I think.  Classy, with just a touch of pizzaz.

To go along with the linen bag, I made my partner an iron cozy.  The pattern is available from Oh Fransson!  What a great idea!  I will have to make myself one so I can take my iron to guild meetings.  I also managed to get the pattern on sale, which always makes me smile...

And I'm playing in the Secret Tote Bag Swap again.  My partner want's a large bag...  What do you think?  She wants pockets, which I didn't put in this one, but maybe a bag insert with lots of pockets?  And I've been meaning to add a big button on the tab...  Maybe in pink?  Or yellow?  We'll call this semi-finished.

I also taught my first class at Derrels of Pensacola last week.  This is my sample bag.  The pattern is by Very Purple Person and I shamelessly stole borrowed the idea from a swap item I received from Joanne (JoJo33) in the Modern She Made swap.  I got so many complements on it, they asked me to teach a class. Like Joanne's gift, I did the two sides in different colors on my sample...

But not on the one I actually made in the class...  I only took my "red bin" with me (rather than lug several to the store, you know) - a fact which made Bob, the owner, laugh.  (But I have to admit that it's very convenient to have my scraps sorted by color now.)  And I'm teaching another class on September 10th if you wanna come...

The sample is all red and pink, with a bit of HR goodness in the fussy cut center.

One of my students actually finished the quilting on the outside of her bag as well.  It's so fun to see what other people come up with.

It's so pretty in these batiks.  Much more subdued, but gorgeous. Sadly, my other student left a bit early, and I didn't think to get a picture...
 

And I'm teaching a 2-day class on Weekender Bags at Derrels on September 12 & 19.   If you live near Pensacola and want to make the bag, head to Derrels website and sign up.

I made some other bags from the VPP pattern.  This one is in a whole cloth quilted style with Japanese character/texty lining.  The fabric is Rooftop Garden by Moda.  I love the big flower motifs and the contrast of colors in this piece.

This one is a flower print (for the life of me I can't remember what it is and apparently I didn't save the selvage?!) is one of the Michael Miller fairy prints and the other side is AMH Mixed Signals in Summer.

And this one is the fabric remaining from Abby's dress and AMH Mixed Signals in Summer.  I really love that pennant fabric.

These bags are available in my Etsy shoppe including a Custom Bag, where you choose the colors and/or fabrics.  Wouldn't they make a perfect gift?

Going Berserk for Bags

I've been on a bit of a bag kick lately.  Bags are really not on my list of things that need to be done, but that's how I've spent the last couple of evenings.  So far, I've completed two bags and have two more ready to sew.

I used my basic bag pattern from my One Hour FQ Tote Tutorial but used 1/2 yard pieces of fabric for the bag and the lining instead of the FQs.  The fabric is home dec weight and was on the remnant table at Jo-Ann's.  If you haven't been to Jo-Ann's this week, all their remnants (which are always half off) are half off again, so these bags maybe cost $2.50 to $3.00 each.

This one is red, white, and blue in honor of Independence Day.  I used a scrap of Kona Red for the insert.  The lining (I should have taken a picture of the inside, but I was afraid I'd be late to work) was a piece of DS Quilts Daisy Mae in red. 

I really like this fresh blue.  Not quite over-the-top 4th of July, but it gets the message across I think.

Here's the second finished bag.  Recognize the insert?  I thought you would.  You can't really see the outside pocket on this one, but it's there.  I love the size of these pockets - they hold my iphone and keys perfectly.  I really like this color combination too.  Kinda beachy, don't you think?

This remnant was slightly larger than the other one, so I had enough fabric for the pockets and the handles from this main piece.  It's a bit more subdued than the Independence Day tote.

The lining (you can just see a hint of it in the photo, right?) is a scrap from BD#1's scrap bag.  I love it when she gives me her scraps.  I find them very useful.  A couple of months ago she gave me a small paper bag full of scraps.  This particular scrap was about 1-1/2 yards long and about 22" wide, or a 1-1/2 yard piece split down the middle.  Not sure what she used it for, but I'm grateful for the donation.  Another piece from that same bag of donations was the back of my Outfoxed quilt.  You can't argue with that!