Iron Caddy and Quilted Bag

Found some pieces left over from the "Make New Friends" quilt and started piecing them together last Saturday at Bee Friends.  Last night I pulled them out and finished them off into a quilted bag.  I discovered and used a different fabric than what I used on the border of the quilt for the lining and handles on the bag.  Just plain straight stitching in a grid on the outside and a lovely bag is born. 

 

I have hidden away inside of this wonderful bag, the quilt top and leftover border fabric to maybe used on the back or in the binding.  This way it is all in one place and I know what the quilt is by the fabric on the bag.  This is about the 5th bag/quilt combo I have made and I love doing this.  It would make a great gift - if I ever gifted these quilts.  This one I do have plans for giving away once I get a back made, get it quilted and bound.  That my take awhile since I have started 4 other projects and am trying to wrap up and finish tops in progress - which this quilt top was one of the many unfinished tops hanging around my room.  I really am thinking about what I want to do for the back of this quilt, but I don't think I have any other fabrics that will go - yet!

 

This last Saturday at our Bee Friends meeting, Molly King, one of our fantastic members, taught us how to make an iron caddy.  I had previously about a year ago, cut out the rectangles and handle strips to make two caddies, but couldn't figure out all the folds, sewing lines, etc. from the pattern so they have been sitting nicely waiting for me to finally get back to it and figure it all out.  Thankfully, Molly did the figuring and deciphering of the pattern for me - she had a hard time, too, so it wasn't just me, thank goodness - last night along with the bag, I also finished this iron caddy.

 

 

It's for totting a hot iron and ironing - if you want, since it has Insulbright and the Teflon sheeting on the inside and lays flat when opened.  I had gotten the binding on earlier this week and put it all together and realized the buttons and loops were in the wrong places. Even though it didn't look that bad - just a little off kilter, I decided it would look so much better and I would know where to put the ones on another one, if I would just go ahead and fix it all now.  It wasn't hard to do, just time consuming.  I unstitched the parts of the binding necessary and moved the everything, stitched it back up, unstitched because I got part of the binding caught up, stitched it again, unstitched when another part of the binding got caught and finally got that one side all stitched back in place.   Then I went to the other side, since I learned my lesson,  I pinned down the binding to stitch the seam in place, so the second side went much smoother.  All that was left was moving the buttons to the right place.  This time I used a pink pearl cotton thread to sew the two buttons down and I liked it much better.  win, win!!  Now on to making one for my friend - who I had stolen the pattern from originally.  Thank you Molly for simplifying this pattern and making it understandable for everyone from the newbies to the oldies. 

 

Another quilter didn't think this fabric looked like me, but I think it looks exactly like me. It's a Barre J fabric that I picked up in a little town on the way to Austin.  I think it was Brady, but I am not sure if that is the correct town.  It's one of those places that I try to stop at every time I go through and I know exactly where the store is, but couldn't tell you the name of the place.  (they had even moved once and I found them again!) Anyway, her fabrics remind me of Philip Jacobs, Martha Negley and Kaffe Fassett fabrics and I love all of their styles.  (I love Brandon Mobley, too, but this doesn't look anything like his fabrics)



Gold and Silver Quilt

I finally have a picture of the silver and gold quilt I mentioned previously.  I actually call it the baby poop quilt because that gold color is the same color the painters paint (over and over again) the door frames at Odessa High.  They call the color baby poop.  However, when I recently posted a picture of a smidgen of this quilt one of my friends told me it was lovely gold and silver quilt.   Hmm.  I hadn't thought of it that way before.  When I read that, it immediately brought to mind the old girl scout song, "...one is silver and the other gold..."  (did you sing it in your head?)  It's a song about making new friends, but keeping the old ones, too.  So the name of this poop quilt it changing an morphing to something entirely new.  I don't know what exactly yet, but it may have something to do with friendship. 

 

Happy New Year - First Finish





 

Happy New Year!! This blog will either be really long or short and picture heavy one of the two.   I promised you some pictures of items from the Stocking Swap so we will start with that.  These are just a few of the items I received.  I love this pillow cover.  I have stuffed a 14" pillow form inside and it is fantastic!!  It's very bohemian and is so my style.  There is also a pincushion you will see in the next picture.  This is just strips of fabric sewn down the middle and randomly placed so the edges of the fabric are left loose and flappy.  (bad description, but truly that is how it is)  The little balls are fabric stuffed with fiberfill and then sewn around the ends and sewn onto the edge of the pillow cover and pin cushion. 

 

 

Here is the pincushion along with the journal cover and pen (you can just see the end of the pen on the top left of the cover. It writes in purple and that has become my favorite color to write with the last couple of years and is Kathy's favorite color - Kathy is the person who made the items and who I got the Swap items from)

 

The bag part of the Swap was a jewelry bag that gathers up to create a flower.  Here it is all gathered

 



Here it is opened up.  The edges of the inside fabric creates little pockets to store your jewelry plus being able to store it in the center section.  In the background you can see my new pink television!  I love it!!  On the screen is Ellen and her look back at Robin Williams' appearances on her show and how he made her laugh every time he came on.  It was a touching look back and very, very funny.  I was laughing at him and at her.  At one point she was almost curled up in the fetal position laughing so hard at what he was saying.   Anyway, I really love my new pink television.  My "gift" to myself this holiday. 

 

 

Every year Victoria of Bumble Beans and 15 Minutes Play chooses a word and makes it her word for the year.  Every year I would say, "I am going to do that" and then not follow through until last year when I chose the word "Social".  I worked at being more social almost the entire of last year.  This year I have chosen the word "Create".  I plan on creating many new things in the coming year, not just with fabric and quilting, but with paint and food and many, many other things.  I want to bring out more of this side of me.  Being creative makes me happy.  So, for the new year, I have made my new word quilt hanging.  I pieced the letters this year instead of appliqueing.  I really should have used Tonya's book  (she hasn't blogged in a really long time, but I just wanted to reference her blog here) and my letters may have been a little bit better, but I think they turned out okay for my first try at a word.  I love this background fabric and had picked up a few fat quarters for cheap (less than a dollar each) when a store was going out of business and knew that I wanted to use it as my background fabric.  That meant the other colors needed to stand out a bit since that was a busy print. 

 

 

Along with the pink fabric, I picked up a couple of this blue/green floral fabric in fat quarters, also.  This would be just right for the borders and I could pull the colors for the letters from this print.  Here it was on the wall last night when I went to bed. 



Today, I knew my mission was to get this quilted and bound and finished.  The quilting isn't the best - that is one of the things I need to work on this year in my year of "creating", but I like it "warts and all" as they say.  I used the pink to bind it and bring that color out to the edges and I loved how the little pig on the shelf is looking around the edge of the quilt.   I used a blue/green thread to do the circles and swirls on the outside and black thread to go around all the letters since they definitely needed an outline of black to stand out.  Now the only thing to do is make a label and a hanging sleeve - forgot about that until now -  and it is ready to put up on the wall.  

 

 

What is your word for the year?