The Skinny Pincushion Swap

So one of my goals this year was not only to sew more, but to put myself out there more. The way I see it you can't improve if you can't take some constructive criticism, no matter how hard it is to hear at the time! When I came across Amys blog it was just fate that she happened to have a supper cute Skinny Pincushion swap going on!  

Photo credit 

The Patchsmith

 Cindy at Adventure's of the Singing Quilter

Vera of Negligent Style

 Amy at Eamylove 

Aren't they cute, Amy has started a flicker pool HERE to for signups. Signups close on January 31 2014 and swappers will send by February 28. I think it would be quite fun to swap with international peeps, but there is an option for those who only want to swap domestically as well. 

 If you were wondering how to make a skinny pincushion, head on over to Green Bee design for the free tutorial 

My Irrational Zipper Fear

Not to long ago my Mother-in-law-to-be acquired quite a few zippers. All vintage and in the cutest of colors!  Knowing that I sew she passed them on to me. What she didn't know is I have a fear of zippers. The first time I tried to sew a zipper, I snapped 2 needles and ended up with a nasty gash on my finger. The book I purchased when I had these grand ideas of making cute travel bags was promptly stuck in a drawer and forgot about.

Well fast forward to Christmas when craftsy had a free mini class on zipper pouches. 

I downloaded it of course, (they did say the magic word free)

And eventually I sat down to watch. 

after a few viewings I thought HECK I can do that!

And it was a success. 

Ok, by success I mean I ended up not bleeding this time! But the zipper got on that pouch!

Then I ran across Pink Stitches  boxy  Pouch Tutorial, and just loved it! and it was so much that I hadn't done before, boxing corners, fusible lining, and a zipper. 

Well, there were a few mishaps along the way, 

Did you know that fusible interfacing looses it's fusability?

Not quite sure how old it was but that was a new one for me!

So I had to adhock that one

Then I didn't have any scraps for batting, so I found Christmas snow. 

Yes, the kind you use to decorate under the Christmas tree. ( Surprisingly if I knew it worked as well as it does, I would have grabbed quite a few more bags during after Christmas Clearance!) 

So TADA! The small blue is the one from Craftsy class

and the pink was from Pink Stitches 

I loved the boxy pouch so much, I can't wait to make a few more to hold all my little sewing notion knick Knacks! 

Big Star Baby Quilt

  I made this very quick Baby quilt top using a tutorial over at Make it handmade here. It came together very fast, the whole thing took less than a few hours. However it has been hanging over the door for almost a month now. I have been going back and fourth on if I should add a small border to make it pop or just use some really scrappy binding to frame the star…. 

As of right now it measures 36" by 36". Perhaps a bit more pondering and I'll have an epiphany! 

It was originally made for a friend who told me they didn't want to know the sex of the baby so I wanted to use nice bright nutral colors, but alas they ended up finding out and now I am debating if I should make another with more "boy" friendly colors or just finish this one up or perhaps finish this one and gift 2 quilts!

Globe Trotter block One Complete Kind of….

Well Pat Sloans Glob Trotter QAL has turned to be a bit more then I was ready for! 

First the pattern seemed a bit old fashioned for my tastes. But I thought with the right fabric selection, perhaps it would perk up a bit, and I could develop my skills a little bit with a pattern I would never select on my own. 

First was the fabric selection. While I have made quilts before I have never gone and selected a whole line of fabric for one quilt. I always work with hand-me-down fabric, or fabric from others stashes. So this process took and HOUR! Oh Yes you should have seen my cart. Sillyness! I pulled so many bolts out, compared, checked prices, checked the pattern and fabric requirements. By the time I selected everything I was ready to call it a night!

Of course I didn't

Then the cutting, then assembling 24 little half square triangles. 

I think I need to sharpen my seam ripper after this first block as well. The number of times I had to take the stitches out was making me more than a bit irate. 

So Finally two days later done, and I load it up to the flicker group here and realize something is wrong. 

At this point though, I am going to call it "my interpretation of" and call it a day. I don't dislike it, but It's not what I was going for either. But if anyone else asks I just modernized it a bit, I totally did it on purpose! HA! 

Aurifi Block Of the Month

The start of the year, and quiltalongs are popping up all over. I have always stayed on the outside of these quilt alongs, but this year I'm jumping in! Upon chance I stumbled upon Aurifi Block of the month and I just loved The Flicker group here.   Well this is an easy enough one to get my feet wet, so here is my first block! I love the fabrics that everyone has chosen for this. I raided my scrap bin for these and crossing my fingers I will have enough to finish this quilt without buying any fabric just to stretch out the last few blocks come December!