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 )

Fabric Noms 2

The day I receieved my last order from the Fat Quarter Shop I actually placed another order...hey, they were having a free shipping sale, and there were a couple more fabrics I had forgotten to get! I also placed an order on etsy for some fabric I had on my Pinterest for a while. As you can see, I'm on a massive gray and orange kick! Also loving turquoise/aqua and lime green right now.


Far left is Maude Asbury Coral Kitchen RicRac, which I found on Etsy, all other fabrics are from FQS.

Left to Right:

• Wildflowers Collection Silver Tonal Damask
• Wildflowers Collection Silver Solid
• Bella Solids Gray
• Bella Solids Etchings Slate

Left to Right:

• Momo Oh Deer! Sky Tiny Deer
• Momo Oh Deer! Leaf Tiny Deer
• Momo Oh Deer! Tangerine Tiny Deer

Left to Right:

• Violet Craft Madrona Road Blue Broken Herringbone
• Bella Solids Coral 
• Riley Blake Gray Small Tonal Chevron Yardage
• Lotta Jansdotter Bella Schooner Weave

  

So, I have all this fabulous fabric, plus a couple shopping trips worth of noms from Fabric Depot, which I may or may not get around to posting, so I am putting myself on a fabric buying time out through the end of the year. I can buy batting and spray basting, but no fabric. Unless, you know, I really really need it to finish a project ;)

Also, I was able to borrow a machine while I was in the shop, and used it a bit, but to my surprise my machine was done a couple weeks earlier than the estimate! I'm happy to have it home early, but if I'd known it would have only taken a few days I wouldn't have gone to the trouble to borrow one.

Double Baby Quilts

My cousin recently had a baby and I loved her color scheme--red, black, white, and gray! I lucked onto a boxed set of Michael Miller First Sight fabric that came with Fat Quarters, a cute panel, ribbons, a board book, and patterns for a great price. Since it's slightly quirky fabric, I checked with my cousin first before I got it, but she loved it so I got it and got to working!

After a loooooot of work, I had this quilt top completed~

It's the Mod Mosaic Tutorial and I love the results! But, when I looked at the results I realized I hadn't really used up very much of the cute fabric I had bought.

So I started a second quilt top before I basted, quilt or bound the first. I had a fairly simple but striking half square triangle quilt pinned to Pinterest for awhile, so I started to make HSTs. And I made them, and made them, and revised my plan a few times to include some solid red squares in each block....and then I decided to include some solid gray large squares in the overall pattern.

I finished the half square triangle quilt on a trip up to Discovery Bay with some crafty friends, my fellow Craftster mod LimeRiot and my guild buddy Britney! Crafting is always more fun with other people...and alcohol :)