Sunday, April 28, 2019

bunny bags

The McKinney Modern Quilt Guild was having a bunny bag/basket swap at our April meeting. When I saw this pattern at QuiltCon, I knew it would make the perfect bag! First I made the pink one on the left, as a gift for a friend. Then I found some leather cording I had bought a while back, and made the turquoise polka dot bunny for our swap. The cording worked great! Both of these were filled with little sewing treats.

Then I decided I should probably make one for each of my grown kids and pop some Easter candy inside. My bunny bags began multiplying like rabbits!
In the end I made seven. My oldest daughter was visiting friends for Easter weekend and I couldn't very well send her one and not send one for each of her friends, could I?

These were a fun little make, quick to do and used up fabrics from my stash.... bonus! Hope you all had a Happy Easter.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Finley Tote by Sotak Handmade

Svetlana Sotak (Sotak Handmade)'s latest pattern released today and I was thrilled to pattern test for her again. I had bought some black vinyl at Quiltcon and thought it would be perfect for this bag. Since I have great confidence in Svetlana's patterns, I decided to splurge on the bag fabric itself. A quick trip to Hobby Lobby led me to this awesome faux suede that has the feel and appearance of embossed leather. Perfect!
The hardest thing about working with both of these fabrics was that I could not iron either of them. I tried pressing a small swatch of the sued with a coolish iron and a pressing cloth, but the finish came off onto the pressing cloth. So, there was lots of finger pressing and I took my time on the exterior of the bag.
As I expected, it went together perfectly! Even the exterior zipper pocket went in beautifully.
This bag has short, tote handles and an adjustable, detachable long strap so it can be worn cross body.
I found this quilters cotton that looked great as the lining. As always, the pattern included great interior pockets. A slip pocket on one side (which I decorated with one of my leather labels) and an interior zipper pocket on the other side.

Add to all of that a top closing zipper keeping all of your belongings nicely contained. This is a top notch tote bag that will get lots of use. Hop on over to Svetlana's blog to see more versions and purchase a pattern for yourself.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Solid Seven bee blocks

I mentioned this on Instagram and I need to repeat it here. Every month when my prompt arrives from a Solid Seven Beemate I think to myself "this is the greatest prompt! No one will ever beat this!" and then the next month..... I think the same thing! These ladies are incredible and sewing blocks for them makes me happy month after month. Here are a couple I made recently....
These blocks were made for Nicole. She sent us very good directions for the block she had designed along with a foundation paper piecing template. These were a blast to make! Our instructions were to use three colors that are side by side on the color wheel and the color directly across. This made for some really fun combinations!


It was funny, the day I made these I had gone on and on about how I didn't get the point of FPP improv. Why not just sew random fabrics together? What was the point of the paper at all? Then I received Nicole's directions and it all made sense! I would call this "directed improv FPP" and it made PERFECT sense! I stand corrected!

Next up were Ailish's blocks. Well, you all know how much I love words on quilts. When I got Ailish's prompt I was so excited. WORDS! Specifically, she wanted us to spell the names of 3 of our favorite kona solids using the color on a white background. BRILLIANT! We could use any letter pattern/template we wanted, including improv. Well.... I had just purchased Crimson Tate's Noteworthy pattern which gives an awesome improv template for each letter of the alphabet. I used it for all three of my blocks and will use it millions of times in the future. Love love love it. Enough said.....

Gosh these are fun! Tangerine ended up being 40 inches long... yikes! since Sour Apple is the same number of letters, I made those a bit smaller. These are ready to be mailed.

I absolutely cannot wait to see both of these quilts come together. And next month..... I'm the queen bee again! I thought I had a plan but now I'm changing my mind... stay tuned!

to see more of our bee's work, check out #thesolidseven on Instagram!