End of Year Teacher Gift

Stuff is still being stitched here in Crafty Musings land. I may have failed to post in time for the Sew Sweetness Jaybird Quilts sew along June 13 deadline, but I have been working on the quilt. In fact, I'm in the process of quilting it. Woo! And I have two other projects that are all quilted up and just waiting for binding. So, yes, stuff is happening-- I'm just a bad blogger. :(

Anyway, one of my recent projects was an end-of-year gift for Big Bear's 1st grade teacher:

This is the Noodlehead Gathered Clutch. There is a free tutorial for the main body of the clutch, but I actually went ahead and purchased the pattern so I could also easily add the strap, inner divider, and card pockets. And knowing that my purchase is also supporting a fabulous independent blogger/designer made this purchase an excellent value, indeed!

I used fabrics from my stash. The outer main body is an oh-so-pretty Lila Tueller floral print and the accent is from Julie Paschkis's "Folklorica" collection a few years ago. Really, this little clutch is a great scrap buster because it only requires small amounts of each fabric. I was easily able to do the main body with just a fat-eighth cut.

The pattern went together without a hitch. I was especially appreciative of the detailed instructions for cutting a zipper to size. I think this is the first time I really "got" the whole zipper tab thing right. (*Finally.*)

The inside is pretty and practical!

Big Bear presented it to his teacher on the last day and reported back to me that she loved it. Yay!