The whole stable of pencil pouches

Hello, everyone. As the title says, I have finished the lot of the pencil pouches. Some are gifts for family and some are gifts for others.

As y'all can see, there is a variety of colors. After the first one, I switched to using zippers-by-the-yard that were purchased at the Houston Quilt Festival a couple of years ago. 

The black elastic on the back of pouches with black zippers was purchased for this and there is a lot still left. The white zippers are paired with white elastic which was in stash.

All of the face fabrics and linings and batting are from stash. Quilting cotton inventory for the win! 

This pouch is from the blog at Sulky.com,  where they forgot to include the lining attachment in the instructions--it isn't difficult to figure out, and using the zippers-by-the-yard makes it easy, too. The only change i made was to quilt the face fabric to the batting instead of using spray glue. It was fun deciding on the quilting pattern for each fabric.

The little puppy peeking out of the striped pouch was made a few years ago for use as a tuck-in in a future pouch and it has found its new home. There are more available tuck-in stuffies so the other pouches will probably get them too. 😀

Some of the little gifts are done

Hello, everyone.  It's a beautiful,  windy day in South Texas, and I'm working indoors on Christmas gifts for children.

These particular gifts are similar to a project that was done during Grandma Camp a while back: a pencil pouch. The pattern is from the Sulky.com blog, with some tiny adjustments. 

The first of several--only two are ready to take their bows today. Yellow quilting cotton, zipper by the yard acquired during the Houston Quilt Festival the year before last. 

Quilting cotton again, with a dress zipper from stash.

Well, the things from the quilt festival have been around long enough to be stash also.

The little alterations to the pattern: 1) instead of using basting spray to attach the batting to the external fabric, I quilted it; 2) the zipper is topstitched to improve its performance. The lining is not glued or quilted, but the topstitching and the top and bottom seams are enough.

The pencil pouch is a great way to use up fabric pieces that are reasonably sized but not huge. The yellow was actually pieced as there wasn't a wide enough rectangle as it was. 

These are also a chance to practice quilting in straight lines of one kind or another. There are some other pouches quilted and ready for their zippers and elastic straps, just ready for a few odd minutes at a time sewing. The planets was quilted in diagonally set squares and the yellow one was quilted in horizontal lines. 

Tried something new

Hello, everyone. Sorry it's been so long between posts! Things are getting busier as Christmas season gets a little closer.

This past week I tried out a new machine embroidery applique pattern.

As y'all can see, it didn't come out tiny! I decided not to stuff this not so little owl as it seems to me more like a dangling decoration. This is from Sweet Pea. There are two others that are similar that I haven't tried yet.

All fabric is from stash: assorted quilting cottons. I did put Shape-Flex on the back of the main body pieces because the quilting cottons are all so thin. I got into that habit from making so many little, and larger, bags.

A new sewing class project (updated to add link and fix spelling)

Hello, everyone.  My nearest local quilt shop, Annie's Quilting Corner, had a class on using the Sew Kind Of Wonderful curve ruler. This was the small size called Mini Curve. The project was from their seasonal project book Mini Wonderful Curves. 

The project was this tree: 

As usual with a project with many fabrics, there were scraps. I cut them into "potato chip" pieces, 2.5" by 5" mostly, and made them into a themed binding for this wall hanging.

All stored neatly on a cardboard tube.

A sewing club project

Hello,  everyone. Today's post is the most recent sewing club project. 

This is a design from Designs By Ju Ju. It's machine embroidery panels which are assembled with the regular sewing machine at the end.

The front:

The back:

I did depart from the instructions a little at the end. I wanted to try making triangle pockets for hanging, which are concealed on the back and allow the piece to be a table topper if desired.  This decision required a separate binding instead of the fold over binding the project designer had recommended. 

I chose to use a pieced binding, using various fall tones. Instead of a bias connecting seam at the end, since the pieces weren't connected by bias seams, I used a straight seam for the connection. 

All fabrics, batting, and threads are from stash. There's a little hand beading on the pumpkin square, also using up a bit of stash.

Lessons learned in this project: use matching threads for the tackdown stitches in the applique. Be extra careful with the quarter inch seam allowances as it's hard to take out hidden stitches that accidentally end up showing.

 

Another day on the road trip

Hello, everyone.  The last road trip post carried us through Palo Duro Canyon State Park. (By the way this was another of the places where my annual Texas State Parks pass paid off. I'm so glad I started having that a few years ago!) The end of that day fell in Trinidad. We stayed at the La Quinta there, at the beginning of town. This was one of the fancier members of that chain. Our room was very nice and we slept well after our eventful day.

The next day we took a leisurely stage to Denver, with some back roads in the Rockies.

This was one of the very informative sign boards at the rest stop near the stomping ground of the famous Indian warrior chief Cuerno Verde. The nearby valley is named after him. I think that his name, which means Green Horn, must have had another meaning than the Western expression "greenhorn" does. (That expression refers to a beginner, like the saying "wet behind the ears" does.) 

We drove over to Cripple Creek, because years ago it had been a touristic place with many artists and some historic sights. These days it's just a pile of casinos, we might as well have been in Nevada. Then we drove along more back roads and came into Denver from the western side. 

This was a view of interesting rock shapes along the way.