Several Small Finishes

I know many of you have mentioned this but being active on Instagram makes blogging sometimes seem redundant.  If you follow me on IG you've probably seen all of these, but I wanted to blog them anyway.

First of all, I have been loving Anna from Noodlehead's Open Wide Pouch tutorial.  This is a generously free tutorial offered in multiple sizes.  I even ordered some laminate fabric to line some pouches for leaky toiletries.

The first one is made with a hippo fabric in more of a home dec weight which meant that I didn't use interfacing.  I should have.  The bag is a little too floppy still.  It is lined with Nicey Jane laminated fabric (Nicey Jane is my all-time most hoarded fabric).  I had trouble with the zipper installation on this one.  For some reason I took this pic before adding the zipper pull fabric too.  Oh well. 



The next one uses the most adorable Michael Miller Prom fabric which I always call "Girl Spiking the Punch" fabric.  It is lined in a purple tiny dot fabric from my stash.






The next one uses a combination of Flea Market Fancy and orange tonal chevron.  Sorry for the awful lighting.  I finish projects at night and can't wait to take pics!



I also made one of Anna's Divided Baskets which is the perfect size for many things including two rows of pattern packets.  Right now I have my Fat Quarter Shop BOM pattern packets on one side and my Simplicity patterns on the other.



Finally with the Anna Noodlehead love, I made another 241 Tote.  This one was for my sister Carrie:




I also made a hippo from McCall's M6484 pattern.  This is the small size.  The large must be huge!



His name is Stuart the Girly Hippo thanks to my IG friends :-)

Inspired by Terri at Sew Fantastic and using the Zip Pocket Pouch pattern from Michelle Patterns, I made myself a little elephant clutch for vacation:



Finally, I fell in love with Amanda Jean Nyberg's Thread Catcher pattern and made some cute little buckets.  These go together very quickly and are a great way to show off those fabric pairings that just call out from your stash to be together:






I made my mom one for her needlepoint thread bits:




And when you make your mom a thread catcher, she's going to want a mug rug to go with it:



Thanks for making it through the photo gallery today!  For more photos of what I'm up to at the sewing machine, be sure to follow me on Instagram! 

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Salt Water Sailing

My sister Jenny is a South Carolina girl who grew up knowing that she wanted to live at the beach.  Unfortunately, the man she fell in love with is a die-hard Minnesotan!  She has a wonderful loving family who make it worth the sacrifice, but she still longs for her yearly vacation to the beach in the summer.  This summer, in celebration of our dad's 70th birthday, we planned a big family trip to the beach.  I knew I wanted to be able to give Jenny a bed-sized quilt and present it to her in person during our trip.

When searching for a quilt pattern to make for Jenny, I immediately fell in love with the Missouri Star Quilt Company's Sailboat block tutorial (presented by another Jenny!).  She has always loved to sail and even took a hard-core Outward Bound sailing trip when she was in high school.  I have many memories of being deliberately capsized on our family's Sunfish sailboat when we were growing up.  She thought it was hilarious.  I thought big sisters were monsters.

The Missouri Star Quilt Co tutorial was made using Tula Pink's Salt Water fabric line.  Light, airy and nautical, this collection was an obvious choice for a summer bed quilt to go in Jenny and Jeff's gray bedroom.




For the backing, I had some left-over layer cake squares paired with Moda Bella solid in Seafoam.





Here is a closer look:





The quilt is now in its new home in Rosemount, MN, with Jenny, Jeff, and my three nephews.  I hope it gives Jenny sweet dreamy memories of warm sandy beaches, cool ocean spray over the bow and the gentle pings of rigging in the wind.  I, on the other hand, will always hear the harsh bark of "JIBE-HO" before being dumped unceremoniously into the bay.

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