Festival Tote

This bag was a custom order for my aunt.  She had worn out her work bag, so she asked me to create  new one!  With photos of her current bag and a list of features that she wanted, I went to work.  We decided on the Anna Maria Horner Festival print in dusk, which is one of my favorites.

I kept the bag design simple.  For an every day tote, I was more concerned about durability and structure.

Bag specifics:

17" wide, 13" tall, 6" deep

28" handle

1 large zipper compartment that spans the entire width and height of the bag

Main print is AMH Festival in dusk

Coordinate is a navy canvas

I used premade piping

For the handles, I bought 1" webbing and covered them with 3" wide strips of the canvas.  I've done this a few times now, and I think it makes the best handles.  They are really sturdy, easy to make, and the color always matches!

The base of the bag includes 2 layers of peltex that I machine stitched onto the inside of the outer fabric bottom.

Piping:

Handle detail:

Side snaps:

Top zipper compartment:

And because I love including little surprises, I made this gathered clutch:

The bag and gathered clutch made it to my aunt, and she loves them!

Project Modern

I work best under pressure.  In fact I've found that if I have a deadline, I will often start a new project-the time crunch that follows is usually just the kick I need to hit my deadline.  Weird, huh?  Well anyway, because I never have enough going on I think I'll join Project Modern!  Head over to the Modern Quilt Guild blog to learn more and join in on the fun!

Baby Stacks - Tutorial

Stacked coin quilts are really popular right now.  I needed a baby quilt for a gift, so I thought I'd play with the stacked coin idea with some charms.  For this quilt I used only the girl prints from 2 Funny Babies charm packs for a total of 40 charms.

This pattern could easily be altered for just about any charm pack, regardless of how many charm squares.  And the best part is that it can easily be pieced in an hour or two!

Baby Stacks, 38" x 38"

40 charm squares

2/3 coordinate for borders

1/3 yard binding

42" square batting

1 1/4 yard backing

Gather your 40 charm squares:

Chop them in half so that you have 80-2.5" x 5" pieces:

This step is optional, but it helps me embrace the random piecing.

Toss the 80-2.5" x 5" pieces into a bag and give them a shake!

Piece together 5 strips of 16 coins each.  I pull 2 pieces out of the bag at a time and chain piece.  When I have everything sewn into pairs, I toss them all back into the bag and pull 2 out to sew into sets of 4.  Continue until you have strips of 16.  Press.  The strips should measure approximately 5" x 32.5":

Measure the length of each of the 5 coin stacks and take an average of the 5 measurements.  Don't worry if they aren't all exactly the same.

Now cut the 2/3 yard coordinate print into 8 strips 3" wide by WOF.  Set 2 strips aside for the top and bottom borders.  Trim the remaining 6 strips so that they are the average length of your coin stack strips.

Attach the strips of coordinate fabric to the coin stack strips.  You may want to pin these a bit.  I usually pin at the top, bottom, and once in the middle.

Piece all of the coin stacks together and press all seams.  At this point you should have a nearly complete top with both side borders, 5 pieced coin stacks and borders between each stack.

Measure the width of your quilt top at the top, bottom, and middle.  Find the average of the 3 measurements.  Now pull out the top and bottom 3" border strips that you set aside earlier.  Trim the length of both of these strips to the average measurement that you just calculated.

Attach the top and bottom borders.  Again you may want to pin at a few places.

Press all seams.  Layer top, batting and backing.  Quilt.  I quilted straight lines 1/2" apart.  This is a great pattern for practicing straight line quilting without marking any lines because you can check your quilting lines against the seams in the top.  I used the edge of my walking foot as a guide to keep my lines 1/2" apart, and when I approached a seam I adjusted my quilting to keep my lines moving straight down the quilt.

Bind your quilt however you like.

Enjoy!

(Now I need to find a baby boy who needs a quilt, so I can use the rest of this fabric line!)

Money Envelopes

I suck at budgeting.  We don't live outside of our means, but we also don't save as much as we could.  I've been hearing so much about the Dave Ramsey envelope system that I thought we should give it a try.  First we needed some envelopes, though!  I made a simple 4" x 7" zipped pouch with the labels embroidered on:

We are starting off with these 5 envelopes:

Nikki

Matt

Clothes

Groceries

Fun

I had a hard time writing up the rough budget.  I knew how much fun money we should be spending, but things like groceries were, and are still, a mystery to me.  I want to cut out some of our expenses from eating out, but I'm not concerned with how much we are spending at the grocery store.  I think I've budgeted enough for us to eat well as home plus eat out occasionally.  I think it will be a work in progress, though.

I actually think our personal envelopes will make the biggest difference in our spending.  "Fun" money is meant to be spent when we do things together-either on a date, or as a family.  If we want to do something on our own, that will come out of our individual money.

Groceries will cover eating out as well, but only eating out as a family.  Our solo/work/friend meals will come out of our individual money.

And I haven't decided how the "Clothes" money will be divided.  I'm thinking that money will be used for basics.  And if either of us want something beyond that, we'll have to use our individual money.

Gas money will continue to go on our credit cards.  I don't want to have to take Addy out of the car to pay for gas, and our gas consumption is a pretty small amount of our budget.

As we use the system, I'm sure we'll tweak things a bit.  I may add some categories or combine some.

I also haven't decided how my sewing money should be split up.  I think I'm going to split anything I make, but I haven't quite figured that all out.  Should Matt get part of the profit for his fun money?  Should it go in the bank?

I'm excited to start the system.  And besides, the envelopes are so stinkin' cute! :)

P.S. Sorry about the dark pics lately.  We just upgraded to a dSLR, and I haven't figured it out yet.  It always seems to be too dark or too bright!  (Funny that I mention our camera purchase in a post about budgeting.  LOL!)

Mermaiden

In case you didn't catch it, Wee Wonderfuls has a book out now!  It's full of super cute toys.

And if you take a minute to wander through the Wee Wonderfuls blog, you'll see that she has offered the Mermaiden pattern for FREE through the Martha Stewart website!  I was really excited to see that last week, because Addy has had her eye on that mermaid ever since the book came out a few weeks ago.  :)


I decided to make 2 mermaidens at once, since we have a birthday party coming up soon.  Addy picked all of the fabric (with some coaxing from me!), and I did all of the sewing.  They are so adorable, and just the right size.  They aren't too big to fit in a purse or a pocket, and not so small that they'll get lost easily.

I love how they turned out, but boy did they take a bit of time!  There is a considerable amount of hand sewing, which seems to go slowly for me.

Addy's mermaid has the red hair and red fin.  The brown-haired mermaid is for Addy's friend. :)

A picnic quilt and some upcycling

Right after Matt left for Seattle I divulged in some retail therapy.  And within a few days I had a fat quarter pack of Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow in my hot little hands!  (BTW, Hawthorne Threads is fabulous!  Great prices, great selection, and FAST shipping!  And no, I wasn't paid to say that, lol!)

I loved the darker colors, and thought this fabric would make a great picnic quilt.

I cut each fat quarter into 1-2.5" wide strip and 9-5" squares.
The 2.5" strips were for binding-I had to add a 20" long piece of some kona to make it all of the way around the quilt.
With the 5" squares I made 16 9-patch units.  I then cut those apart, rearranged them, and sewed the top together in a disappearing 9-patch arrangement.  There's a great disappearing 9-patch tutorial here.
There are several different layouts for the disappearing 9-patch, and I just did some flickr browsing until I had a good idea of what I liked.  You can also play around with the chopped up pieces before you sew them back together!

The upcycle in this quilt is the backing.  Matt bought me this red and black blanket back in college, and when one of our dogs was a puppy he chewed a hole in one of the corners. :(  I couldn't bring myself to toss it, so it's been in the basement for awhile.  What a sweet reminder every time Addy and I go to the park now!

I did some simple straight line quilting on this.  I quilted a single line through the narrow pieces and a double line through the larger squares.  I didn't mark the lines or use a guide on my machine, so they are a bit wonky.  I was afraid that I would hate them when the quilt was off of the frame, and I was prepared to rip it all out.  But I think they look fine, especially now that the quilt has been washed and crinkled up a bit.  I did have a few problems with the backing stretching and making the top a little poofier than I would have liked.  I should have anticipated the stretch, since the back is sort of a fleecey material.  I'm trying to let go of the imperfections, though.  After all, it is a picnic quilt!  I'm sure the first time we drop a pb&j sandwich on it, I'll forget all about the poofiness and the wonky quilting!

The Mendocino quilt - finally!

I have actually been storing this finished quilt in my sewing room for several weeks now.  The quilting was finished in early June, but I stalled out on the binding.  Once Matt left for Seattle, I spent most of my nights in my sewing room rather than sitting in front of the tv (which is when I sew most of my binding).  I did finish it up after a few movie nights, but then I had to wait for a photo opportunity.  It's kind of hard to photograph a full size quilt all by yourself. ;)

The details:
I used Kona in pale flesh for the solid
All prints are Mendocino by Heather Ross
The pattern was based on this:

I couldn't find any information about this pattern online, but it's called Kid in the Candy Store and it was designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  I found the pattern in the April 2006 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.

I didn't piece the rectangles because I wanted larger pieces of the prints.  I referenced the pattern for yardage and cutting dimensions, but did my own thing with the piecing.

Machine pieced and quilted.  Quilting is a random, gentle wave pattern that travels across the quilt.

The front:

   

The label, including a tiny bit of selvedge (which I haven't written out yet!):

And the back, which shows the quilting better:

I love how this quilt turned out.  It took a lot longer to piece than I would have expected, and I had a tough time making the colors look random enough for my liking.  It was really worth it, though!  I love the colors, and I think it will work well in Addy's bedroom for a long time.

I have quite a few scraps left, and I'm hoping to make some fun pillows from them.  Just don't hold your breathe for a post on them. ;)