Not quite Wordless Wednesday

My Boss got me these beautiful hyacinth for Administrative Assistant Week!

We won't talk about the gifts that Zorro has been bringing me...

My Parents went to ... continued

Remember back on June 26th when I shared the great gifts that my parents brought me back from Australia? Well...it turns out there was more!

It's hard to tell from the photo but the aboriginal design t-shirt is a chocolate brown color that should look good with my pale Irish/Yankee skin. There is also a boomerang magnet and some great coins. Mom and Dad met some Kiwi's (from New Zealand) in Hawaii and they offered 3 NZ coins and wouldn't even let Mom repay them for the dollar coin. They had also asked Jan, whom they were staying with in Sydney, if she had any Aussie coins and they let her take all the foreign coins she had from at least five different countries. Some of the coins are old and some aren't even being used any more. Mom also picked up some Aussie pennies which are the size of US half dollars but she wanted to hold them a little longer. Some day I will have to show y'all my massive coin collection. I don't know that anything is worth a lot but the world certainly uses some interesting coins and bills.

I didn't measure this fabric but it is WOF and not FQ shape. Mom has asked for a doll quilt from these fabrics and then I get the leftovers and selvages. I must have trained her right 'cuz she made sure all three had selvages! She might also like some of these ceramic buttons on the quilt but she wasn't sure yet.



left shows the back side



And this is my "big" gift which is a total understatement as they are probably the most expensive piece of jewelry I own (outside of family rings I have inherited). Thank God they are not french wire style earrings or I would worry about losing them constantly. In case you can't read the card, they are boulder opals that are only polished on one side. I have never seen anything like this and you know I am wearing them today!!

To top off these gifts, my brother and his family went to Disney for 10 days and they brought me back some wooden spoons for my obsession collection.

Hmm...maybe I should show those some day as I have old & new, store made & home made.

Can you see Mickey engraved on the spoon bowls and the Mickey cut out on the handle for the hanging string?




Thanks Mom Dad Tom Kristie Tyler & Ryan!!!!!

My family rocks!

Mom's new purse

For Mom's trip and Mother's Day, she requested a purse to match her new dress and shoes for the wedding they are going to. She had shortened her green dress and gave me those left overs and then found various peach fabrics for the rest of the purse. I think making this purse with lots of different fabrics would also be fun.

I needed to add a little quilting to the sides of the purse but didn't want anything extensive so that the bag would stay supple. I choose a variegated neutral thread so as not to distract from the roses on the fabric. I found a neat corner FMQ pattern in one of my quilting books and enlarged it 25%. I knew there was no way I would be able to do this free hand so I tried a couple of ideas but finally resorted to using my 505 spray basting stuff to attach the paper to the purse side. Genius, even if I say so myself.

Before actually quilting the purse parts, I traced the pattern with my finger several times to get my brain in the groove. The red ring is my Halo - a heavy rubberized iron ring - which is the only way to FMQ as far as I am concerned. The rubber grabs the fabric and the ring keeps the workspace in the center flat. It also provides something to grip while moving the quilt sandwhich.

The photo above shows the quilting a little better - you can see I was not overly concerned about staying on the lines. I was looking more for the gist of the pattern with my own twist.

Then I needed to pull off the paper with the help of these great sideways tweezers that I bought when I was doing more paper piecing. The only downfall to sewing over the paper was that the stitching was a little looser than I liked but I spritzed it with water and some steam and the stitches tightened nicely.

The handles can be pulled thru the grommets evenly to carry the purse by hand ...

or pulled thru the grommets for a shoulder strap.

That completes my deadline items for this month...Now I'm back to hexies :)

WootWoot!!

Night & Day table runner

Mom and Dad are going on a trip and Mom purchased two of my table runners - one as a wedding gift and the other as a hostess gift. I have no idea which is which but, of course, one wasn't quilted when she decided she wanted it, in fact it had been sitting for quite some time while I ruminated about how to quilt it. I had already quilted random straight lines in the border and needed something to match so when I reviewed the pattern book (Night & Day by Eleanor Burns) I found just what I needed: double swirls and more straight lines in the stars.

I know these are pretty washed out but they show the texture pretty well. There isn't a lot of value difference in the green and purple batiks so I would choose different fabrics next time but I still like this runner.

You can see on the "front" pic to the left that I am still working on the binding. I went back to my fav method with 2" strips and sewing it down by hand with an applique type stitch.

YoYos on a stick

Aren't they cute? Just a flower yoyo and a leaf shape on a tongue depressor style stick. I considered putting them on pencils but I didn't think there was quite enough room for the hot glue.

They are little table prizes for the Guild party tonight. I thought they would make cute bookmarks or you could even stick them in a flower pot for a little extra color.

I may try to make a yoyo garland for my 2012 sewing themed Christmas tree...

Secret Sister Gift

Tonight is the big reveal for our quilt guild's secret sister program. The reveal will be made at our annual picnic & I'm just hoping it's not quite so hot by 6pm.

Since April we have been sneaking small gifts to our guild meetings to be distributed to our SS. This is our final month and each participating person was supposed to make potholders, placemats or a table runner as our final gift.

I was told that my SS likes green - I hope she likes this shade of green because I used my charm pack tumbler ruler to cut out greens and neutrals - a wonderful ruler that works with charms or strips. I backed it with a red and green butterfly print.

I used the envelope method instead of binding (saved binding all those crazy angles) and quilted 1/4" on both sides of every seam. A very easy finish to what I think is a great little runner.

Design Wall Monday - 6/27/11

Not much sewing on the schedule lately... Altho there has been "food." I'll try to show you the "food" later this week.  I finished 3 more zippered pouches (on the left).

I've also got the bottom section of the "bathroom quilt" half done. I think this picture shows the final layout for the four sections. The border will be Seminole piecing so I'll have to fill in the corners. I am debating if it should be that neutral fabric (which does have nice varied coloring) or if I should do something more with the double diamonds. I am leaning towards just the neutral because this is my interpretation of the bathroom tile floor and there are no other designs altho I have rearranged what designs there are. Thoughts?

Design Wall Monday - 6/20/11

Well - the actual design wall is pretty much the same as last week - hard to believe I haven't gotten much of anything done for the second week in a row. Altho, mentally, I can tell I haven't been sewing - I'm all discombobulated and not getting anything done around the house or yard either. I have 3 more meetings for my various "projects" and then the rest of the evenings this month are mine. WootWoot.

The one thing I did work on this week was some of the zippered pouches. Here you can see 2 completely finished pouches and 3 more halfway done pouches. Yesterday I also picked up another pattern for larger zippered pouches. Liana also sent me some cute cell phone bag patterns and I have another pattern for a little thumb drive holder. I just hope people buy these at the craft show in July. If not, I hope my family appreciate cute gifts, LOL!

Zippered pouches

Oi - how did it get to be the end of the day and I haven't posted yet?

Have you made any of these neat-o zippered pouches yet? What was that? You said you are afraid of zippers? No worries, my friends, this is one of the easiest patterns I have and once you get in the groove, you can really pump them out. I've altered the dimensions slightly so there isn't so much fabric waste and I've marked the pattern with the various foot #s I use so it's even faster.

Oh, and did I mention they are addictive? With about a dollar for the zipper and scraps of fabric and batting for the rest it's a super customizable quickie gift that has a ton of uses. You may remember I use one to carry my hexie projects in, Mom uses hers for manicure supplies and I've stuffed chocolates or other gifts in them. They ARE like Lays and I bet you can't make just one!

Just look - I have all those little kits lined up to make more assembly line style.  And then there are even more gorgeous colors to play with (half of these zippers were from the quilt show - wish I had gotten more).