I have officially started Christmas sewing.  Thanks for the push Karen. http://sewmanyways.blogspot.com/search/label/Make%20a%20Gift%20on%20the%2025th  I decided to make Christmas quilts for the families of MJ’s 3 nephews.  So far all they have seen of my quilting are baby quilts. 

Several seasons ago I designed snowmen blocks for a guild block of the month project.  I did turn my sample blocks into a finished quilt for a friend. It was great, blocks and quilt designed by me. It is the little things in life that make us happy.

I decided that this would be a great quilt to replicate.  Each quilt is made up of 6 snowmen blocks, 2 large (14x24 inches)and 4 small (12x18 inches) and 4, 6 inch star blocks. I have cut out all of the pieces for the large guys and at least ½ of the pieces for the small guys. In addition to cutting block pieces I

put together 1 of the large guys the other  night because it was the 25^th.   He took about an hour to put together.

My goal for August 25^th is to have all of the blocks done for at least 1 quilt so I can spend the 25^th putting the 1^st top together.  I hope you are all feeling the Christmas joy.  Selina

More bags

My sister P, my biggest fan, has placed requests for 3 bags this week.  She stopped by Friday to peruse the stash and made her decisions. The bags are from   the tutorial on  http://ayumills.blogspot.com/. The purse is just a little zip purse from looking at many different tutorials. 

The polka dot and stripped bag with the matching purse is for a friend of hers who is retiring this week and the canvas bag with the butterfly fabric is for P.  She fell in love with the fabric scrap and I stretched it as far as I could for this bag.

For the 3rd bag she chose the same polka dot  and stripe combo but in a larger version for herself.  She can't have it until I get to JoAnns for more fusible interfacing. If you go back a few posts you can see a version of the larger one I made from stamped canvas. 

I think I'm bagged out for the weekend.  I have started to make Christmas quilts so I think I'll get back to them for awhile. Unless something else catches my eye while I take this blog break.

zip pouches

For the last several weeks I have been perusing different blogs looking at the various tutorials for zip pouches. I have combined a few and came up with these

I wasn't planning on doing them now but I needed a quick gift for someone who did MJ a favor and I wanted to thank her.  The really fun part of making them was making thepersonalized fabric.  If you zoom in you will see that the printing on the pouch is the same name over and over in different fonts.  I spent maybe 15 minutes doing the name in word and doing the font thing.  I saved the first one and when it was time to do the second one all I had to do was go in and use the replace option to get another name filled in on an entire page.

Then I printed out an 8.5 x 11 and placed it in my ink jet copier.  I ironed a piece of pre washed cotton onto an 8.5 x 11 piece of freezer paper and ran it through and viola - I had personalized fabric.  The pouches used 1/2 of the sheet for a back and 1/2 for the front. 

I brought the prototype (going to my mother in law - the guiene pig for my odd projects) to work and immediately had requests for more.  Since I have now done my sample these pouches can be worked up in about an hour or less. In the picture the "ruthie if for my MIL and the other one is for a girl in the office whose daughter can never find anything with her name on it.  her b'day is Tuesday, so glad I can help her celebrate.

Tomorrow I will make the one for the girl who did the favor in the first place.

Cool kids quilt

I found this site a couple of weeks ago and bookmarked it for a rainy day.  Went back last week and just had to do it.

http://thiscraftyfox.blogspot.com/2011/06/garden-fence-pattern-wip-planning.html

 

The blocks whipped up in no time.  The pattern was easy to follow.  Thank you, thank you, thank you

Then there were Two

In my last post I showed the lunch tote I made for an old friend that I am meeting for lunch later today.  Thinking it over I decided it would make a great summer purse if it were only a little bigger.  So I set out to alter the pattern to do just that. 

The small one stands about 7 inches high (not including the handles). The large one stands about 12 1/2 inches. They are both about 5 inches deep. The most time consumming part was hand stamping the canvas.  The only thing I still need to do is make a base for the inside so that my accumulated junk doesn't distort it's shape.

have a great week.

Blank Canvas

Next week I will be having lunch with a friend I haven't seen in a very long time.  She is the gal who got me into stamping and card marking way back.  Stamping stuff makes up one of my larger stashes of things. It takes up a good size section of the basement. I don't do much of it any more but thought this would be a good time to drag out some of the goodies and make a gift of some kind to give her.

So I took these items, a piece of "BLANK"canvas from a drop cloth from Home Depot, a piece of fabric from my quilting stash and stamps and ink from my stamping stash

 I spent an evening being creative and came up with this lunch bag /small tote from a tutorial I found at http://ayumills.blogspot.com/

This is a bag I've made on 2 previous occasions from my quilting stash. Once for a friend as an emergency bag after she spent an afternoon in the waiting room of the local hospital twidling her thumbs. I filled it with things like sock yarn, needles and a pattern and a paperback mystery and some quarters for the vending machine (hopefully she will never have to use them).  The other one I gave to a friend for use as a lunch bag with a gift card for a local sandwich place.

I think I will put in this one a suduku book with pencil and maybe I'll make a matching tissue holder and eyeglass case if time permits before Tuesday's lunch.

It really was a fun time making this and combining crafts.  Maybe now that I found the stamp stuff again I will even make a few cards or some of my own designer fabric(tee,hee).