A couple more clutches...

At the beginning of this year, I signed up for one of those "Pay-It-Forward" gigs on Facebook wherein I committed to send out a friendly surprise sometime within the calendar year to peeps who agreed to do the same for others. Two people agreed. As I had so much fun making the Noodlehead Gathered Clutch for my son's teacher, I went ahead and made a couple more for my pay-it-forward friends.

I purchased the swivel clasp hardware from Etsy seller, BeingBags. I gotta say-- the prices are reasonable, the shipping was fast (and free!), and the hardware is solid. I definitely recommend this shop!

Bonus: All the fabrics are from my stash. Yay!

Also, I cannot recommend the Noodlehead Gathered Clutch pattern enough! The clutch is a great design, the instructions are easy to follow, it is quick to put together, and it offers a fun way to use up scraps or small cuts of fabric.

I plan to mail these out this week-- hopefully my friends will enjoy them!

Right now...

There's a number of things I want to blog about, but I am feeling overwhelmed at where to start. Since I have to start somewhere, here is what I've been doing this week:

Here are a few quilts that need binding, including my Raspberry Rabbits BOM, a quilt for Little Bear, and my Framed Coins (which I finished quilting on Sunday, 6/29). Okay. Technically, I've not actually been doing any binding this week, but this pile has been weighing heavily in my mind. I really need to just. do. it.

Anyway, after all of the intense quilting my Framed Coins, I needed something quick and easy-- a palette cleanser:

I threw this together on Monday, from cutting to basting. It is the "Playpen" design from the Me & My Sister Designs book, Crazy for Baby. Now it is ready for quilting.


After getting the baby quilt put together, I was ready to jump into something new:

A triangle quilt! The Sassy Quilter's Triangle Quilt Along caught my attention back in April, but I just wasn't ready to join in at that point. But triangles have remained on my mind, so I've finally started in on one. I used Julie Herman's Hex N More ruler to cut 4.5" equilateral triangles and Electric Quilt to help me figure out how many I needed. The print fabrics are all from Patty Young's Sanctuary collection from Michael Miller Fabrics that came out a few years ago. The solids are Kona cottons in Glacier, Medium Gray, Spring Green, and Bahama Blue. I've pieced all the rows and am now working on joining those rows together.

Now I am off to squeeze some limes. We're making margaritas. Woo! Happy Independence Day!

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!

When the mood strikes...

Not a lot has been happening here in Crafty Musings land lately. I have been lacking motivation to baste or quilt. So even though that pile of unfinished stuff continues to taunt me, I finally decided I just need to get sewing again. So I'm starting something new! Woo!

I'm going with another Julie Herman (of Jaybird Quilts) design called "Framed Coins." It is from her book, Skip the Borders. I'm definitely getting my money's worth out of this book-- this will be my third project from it!

I'm hopeful that I may even get it put together in time to join in with the Jaybird Quilts Sew Along being hosted by Sew Sweetness. Everything is cut and I have until June 13th, so it is possible, right?

Boxed-In

This is the fifth of my recent roll o' fabric quintet:

The pattern is "Boxed In" from Julie Herman's book, Skip the Borders. I checked this book out from my local library and have since purchased my own copy. So many of the designs speak to me. It is a fabulous book!

Of all of the quilts I've made from the roll o' fabric, this one is definitely my favorite.

I quilted the heck out of this one. I started by doing some stabilizing straight lines with my walking foot along all of the box borders. Then I quilted all of the squares-- each one has that sort of flower design. Finally, I quilted circles through all of the solid green parts. Throughout, I used Aurifil Cotton Mako 50/2 in Dove (#2600).

The quilting makes me happy!

Even the backing makes me happy. This hummingbird print has been sitting in my stash for quite some time. I was delighted to find that the colors in the print actually coordinated with the colors in the top. Yay for stashbusting!

The Project Linus label is stitched on already, so the quilt is good to go (pardon my sideways pic).

Happy!

Easy as 10

The fourth in my roll o' fabric quintet:

This is "Easy as 10" from the book, Simple Quilts from Me and My Sister Designs: Easy as 1, 2, 3.

I checked this book out from the library and haven't invested in my own copy yet-- but I need to! I also made "Easy as 11" from this same book. The instructions for both quilts were straightforward and very easy to follow, and both were quick to put together. And there are a number of other fun designs in the book as well!

On this one, I tried to add to the quilt by quilting in a secondary design-- the interlocking diamonds around the squares. I think it worked pretty well. I also quilted flowers in the center of each colored square (using the fabulous Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters as inspiration). Through the paisley bands, I stitched a figure 8 design, but it is kind of hidden in the print. Throughout, I used Aurifil Mako 50/2 in White (#2024).

This is the last of that retro pepto-pink fabric... woo!

And there is the happy Project Linus label. I'm loving the orange binding too. It is finished by machine using the Red Pepper Quilts Binding Tutorial.

Easy as DONE!

"Floating Triangles"

Oh, my gosh! It has been a busy couple of weeks! Spring Break involved many adventures-- but blogging was not one of them. But, I'm back and ready to continue with the Project Linus roll o' fabric parade of quilts. This is the third of the five I recently finished:

The design is from the fabulous book, Skip the Borders, by Julie Herman (of Jaybird Quilts fame). It is called "Floating Triangles."

It really is such a neat design! It speaks to me. And I appreciated that I didn't have to stress out about cutting off any triangle points.

I kept the quilting pretty simple, beginning with straight lines around the focal spot where the triangles come together in the lower left corner, and then more straight lines up the main paths from the outside of the diamond to the outer edges of the quilt. Then I stippled over the center of the diamond area and everywhere else. I used Aurifil Mako 50/2 in White (#2024) throughout.

Another uninspiring back here... just trying to use that stash!

There's that happy Project Linus label. And this is another machine-finished binding as well. I was feeling brave though and attempted a contrasting rainbow variegated thread (Superior Threads King Tut 40/3 cotton, #921). My machine binding skills are still not as consistent as I'd like, but I am definitely getting better with practice.

I really like this quilt! Hopefully it will make someone else just as happy.