Ouch Pouch

 I recently made this Ouch Pouch for a secret santa swap after seeing this one on my friend's Pinterest.

I made a basic pouch using the Straight Sided Triangular Cosmetic Bag Tutorial from Craftster and just made it a bit wider and taller.

Before stitching in the zipper, I quilted the outside pieces to pieces of batting in a square spiral pattern. Then I made some templates for my letters, cut them out, and used some Wonder Under to attach them. Then I stitched around the raw edges and completed the bag.


I had to stuff it with some goodies to be a good Ouch Pouch, right? My friend does martial arts and her pin mentioned that she would like one of these to take with her to her classes.


I put in lip balm, hand cream, aloe vera gel, bandaids, alcohol wipes, antibacterial cream, hand sanitizer gel, tissues, ibuprofen, and lip balm.

More finished blocks and a new Charity project

I'm still working away on the 36 (+) blocks I am making for my Craftster Swap! I say 36+ because while it's supposed to be 3- 12 1/2 inch blocks per person, in some cases I made more or they asked for a slightly different number of smaller blocks that added up to 12 1/2 inch blocks.

A few of them mix mastered to show some combos

I mailed out to 4 partners today for a total of 18+ blocks I believe, since two of those partners I was in two groups with so they received 6 blocks each. This swap isn't due until mid-December, so I feel like I am staying on top of it and won't have to rush at the end!

In other news, I've joined a Charity Quilting circle on Flickr that I'm pretty excited about. It's part of the do.Good Stitches group which my friend Kim told me about. I am hosting December so I will be sure to post more about it! For now, I need to figure out what pattern and color scheme to ask the others to make!

Giddy-Up Cowboy Quilt

I've been working on this project for my friend kittykill since I found a remnant of the cowboy fabric (the light blue background with cowboys and fences in the center of some of the blocks). I was going to make a table runner or something, but then I kept finding more and more fabric that would work well together, so I ended up making a lap quilt! The dark blue bull riding fabric is especially funny to me, it works perfectly in this quilt but I can't imagine many other uses for it

I used the inspiration from this quilt~
http://kelbysews.blogspot.com/2012/02/im-feeling-whimsical.html

Besides the above mentioned, I got the cowboy boot fabric, the red bandana fabric and the cowboy hats specifically for this project, but a surprising amount came from my stash and worked well, including the white and tan print, the brown with white polka dots, the brown with white dots in a horseshoe pattern, the blue bandana on the back, and the binding, which I think kind of looks like rail fences

I pieced the back from an extra block I made for the front and then realized it would too gigantic, plus a strip I cut off the front and then other fabrics I had left.

I quilted each section differently, in a square spiral pattern in the block section, vertical lines in the small strip section and horizontal lines in the larger strip section.

I guess I didn't take any pics that show the binding very well, this one might a little bit.

Sorry I had to model the quilt on my love seat, my mom usually holds them up for me but she has a broken shoulder and nobody else has been around (except for the nephs, who are too short )