Pacific Northwest Tote ~or~ What Craftster Means to Me

I'm entering this bag into Craftster's cross category 10th anniversary challenge in the Purses, bags, and Wallets board.

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To me, Craftster means friends and swaps. Those two things come full circle in this tote bag. I met my friend Kim over 5 years ago on Craftster through a private swap, and now we are good friends and this year we are both officers for our local quilt guild! We're currently organizing a giant Pacific Northwest meetup for various quilt guilds, and part of the meetup includes a fun tote bag swap that Kim has worked very hard on. We had the lovely chambray fabric donated by Robert Kaufman.

I decided to make my basic tote bag (lined, 2 handles that are long enough so the bag can tuck under your arm, magnetic snap, boxed corners, double sided handles for a peek of fun). For a little extra contrast, I pieced in a few sections of fabric I am liking right now. I also did a bit of hand quilting. For a last little touch, Kim helped me insert an inside zippered pocket, my first one!

After making the bag, I realized it can be a kind of symbol of weather here in the Northwest. The dark  chambray would be our typical cloud cover, the umbrellas for our rain (although locals don't really use umbrellas, we just duck our heads and walk fast), and the yellow birds and pink chevron for the eventual sunshine and bright days that always come back! I know that's a bit cheesy, but a bit of cheese now and then is ok!

The bag pieces were approximately 16 inches tall x 14 inches wide before seams, boxing corners, etc. Next time I would probably make it a smidge wider and shorter, maybe reversing those measurements. I used medium/heavy weight iron on interfacing on the bag lining and low loft batting on the bag shell. I used only one layer of interfacing in the handles, 2 would have been better. I also interfaced the inside pocket, but that probably wasn't needed, it's a bit stiff now.

Wip Wednesday

Today we're having our first Linky Party over at the PMQG blog! How fun!

My current Works in Progress (that I can share, some are under wraps!) include organizing my fabric scraps (and organizing my craft room in general), a picnic quilt for myself, a Craftster Swap, and a Guild Swap!

 After hearing my friend Linda's swap organizing techniques and reading this blog post from Squares and Triangles, I finally had a better idea of how I can get this darned fabric corralled! Anything that is a Fat Quarter I organize loosely by color and add to these baskets (I need a new basket, these 2 are packed full and I have at least 20 more FQs that won't fit). Also, lately when using yardage I've been cutting a half yard and then cutting that half yard into 2 fat quarters. 1 for the project I'm using, 1 straight into the FQ bin, and the yardage goes back on the shelf. In theory.

I should mention, my current fabric yardage is ogranized on wire cubby shelving, and scraps are organized by color into shoe box sized rubbermaid containers that they are bursting out of. Plus about 2 grocery bags full of scraps floating around the craft room. you can see why I desperately need a scrap solution! Since organizing by color hasn't seemed to work so far, I am going to try by size.

 I'm methodically ironing and trimming my scraps. If they are close enough to FQ size, I add them to the FQ bin, otherwise I cut 4 or 5 inch squares. Smaller squares or rectangles that aren't at least 4 inch square (so, 2 x 2, 4 x 3, 6 x 3) goes into the small pieces bucket. As these buckets get filled I'll transfer them to labeled bins I have in ready and waiting empty Rubbermaid carts. Yay!

In the future I hope to maintain this by taping a grocery bag to the side of my sewing table and as scraps are generated they will go in there until I have the time to trim and sort properly!

Clockwise from upper left: Small pieces, 4 inch squares, 5 inch squares, Strings (thin strips), scraps to be organized, and long, wide strips. Not shown is another basket with strips that are thicker than strings but not long enough to go with the long strips.

A few years ago I fell hard for Sultry fabric by Basic Grey for Moda. I bought a Layer Cake, used it up, and then bought a full FQ set! Unfortunately, by that time it wasn't really my favorite anymore. I still like it a lot, but the majority of the FQ set just sat around for awhile, and I had no ideas. Recently I decided to make a picnic quilt out of it....for myself! Novel idea! The only quilt in my house that I've made is my mom's. I cut the FQs into 6 inch strips and then randomly started making Log Cabins.

A 4 x 3 grid of these giant blocks and the quilt is mostly put together! It's pretty big but I'm still going to add a border with randomly sized pieces. I want to finish this for our guild picnic quilt in August! I better get on it!

I am also in research mode for a fun swap I'm running on Craftster. My partner has a pincushion collection, so I very well may have a pincushion in my future!

I'm also trying to figure out what to make for the PNW MQG Meetup Tote Bag Swap! We each got a half yard cut of some awesome Robert Kaufman fabric to use in our tote, so I am extra excited to get going on that!

X's and O's Baby Quilt

I finished this quilt last month for a good friend's baby girl, and finally gave it to her today! I'm really pleased with how it turned out, initially I had started working on my own design of something different but I got this in my head and couldn't let go. When she first told me her nursery scheme, I was a bit stumped, but after finding a couple cute purple and brown prints and filling the rest in with more monotone fabric, I grew to really love the combo!

Sadly my camera died and I only had my 5 and 7 yo nephews to hold the quilt up, so these are the best pics I have right now.

Just the top:

I used the idea and block size/construction hints from this blog post:

http://kelbysews.blogspot.com/2013/05/gifts-leftovers-requests-and-progress.html

Trio of Fold-Over Baskets for Guild Swap

This month my quilt guild did a "container swap." Basically any basket or bucket style container works, as long as it is either pieced or quilted. We each got a slip of paper with a little bit about our partners on it. My partner liked polka dots, Violet Craft's fabrics, Mo Bedell's fabrics (and they're both in our guild!), and text/word fabric. I found this adorable tutorial on the list of tutes our Programs Director put together on our guild blog.

I made this one first, using some Violet Craft Broken Herrringbone and some Lizzie House Pearl Bracelet. The Herringbone was pretty much perfect for this pattern, I love how it lined up on the corners! I quilted this in a square straight line spiral.

Then I decided it might not be enough, so I made a teeny one with some polka dots and text fabric.
I quilted this one in a kind of dogwood blossom pattern. I love the look of this when it's done well, I will definitely practice it some more!

Then the two sizes just seemed weird together, so I made a third one in between the two sizes. This is some Mo Bedell fabric (pink) and some DS Denyse Schmidt for Joann Fabrics. I quilted two wavy diagonal lines and then in a wavy square spiral. Kind of fun to do that because it covers any mistakes

Sorry that the pics aren't great, my camera died and I am stuck with just my cell phone camera.

Green Smoothie Craziness!

I've made green smoothies before. As in, a handful of spinach into whatever smoothie I'm already making. But after reading Green Smoothies Diet by Robyn Openshaw (of Green Smoothie Girl) I decided to step it up a notch. She suggests drinking a quart or more of green smoothies a day, which is completely doable and even...delicious?

I've been making smoothies for my nephews lately, and they beg for them every day. My middle nephew told his dad (my baby bro) that I made "the best milkshakes ever!"  They tend to be milk or almond milk, frozen bananas and/or frozen berries and yogurt or protein powder. I think I will start adding some greens to their smoothies too, they are already pretty good veggie eaters but when it comes to vegetables I do think more is better!

This is day 5 or so of having a green smoothie at least once a day and I'm surprised at how much I look forward to it. For right now I'm staying fairly simple and blending spinach with water, and then adding in frozen berries and sometimes half a frozen banana. Today I didn't add the banana and I felt like I was hungrier sooner after drinking it. I know the idea is to get to at least 50/50 fruits to veggies ratio, and more veggies than fruits eventually if possible.

My smoothie today (shown above) was a little bit more veggie:

• A stalk of kale blended with water, and then a large handful of spinach
• Frozen peaches, frozen strawberries and half a frozen bananas and more water to make sure it wasn't too thick and everything blended well
• A smidge of sweetener...I definitely want to get away from sweetening these eventually but am fine with a little bit as I am adjusting my tastes