Maker's Tote

Hi there!! In case you haven't noticed I am a huge fan of Noodlehead patterns (by Anna Graham).  This one is the Maker's Tote in the large size.  This size is huge!  It has so many great details!!  The inside pockets are divided on both sides and the tote is self is nice and deep.  Oh, and it opens up nice and wide to see all of you goodies!!  

I knew I was going to keep my hand stitching and appliqué projects in here so I thought it would be a little funny to use this sloth fabric by Sarah Watts for Cotton + Steel.  You know, for my slow stitching!  Sorry bad joke there. 

Anyway, I am super happy with how this came out.  The pattern is pretty involved and a few parts are time consuming (hand stitching the binding) but in the end it is so worth it!!  

I hope you all have a great weekend! I know I'm looking forward to following all of the quilt market feeds on Instagram!!!

Mini Quilt Swap

Way back in the fall (October I believe), I participated in the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap.  I think I have done almost every round now except maybe one the summer we moved.  Anyway its a secret mini swap hosted by Kristi of Schnitzel and Boo on Instagram.  It's really a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.  My partner loved rational styled quilts out of traditional reproduction fabrics.  This was a fun and interesting challenge since I mostly work with modern type fabrics.  I found this fun layer cake from French General (the collection name is escaping me at the moment) and I used my Farmer's Wife Sampler book for the blocks.  The Farmer's wife blocks finish up at 6" so I chose 9 different blocks to make up the quilt.  Since the blocks are so busy I added some sashing with corner stones.  

Here I was just getting started,  You can tell it was October since I have my daughter's costume pattern out too ;)

This is what I chose to be my final layout. I did some machine quilting on it around the blocks and sashing and then a little bit of hand quilting to accent the blocks in a cream colored perle cotton.

One of the most fun part about swaps is choosing a few 'extras" to surprise your partner with!  Here is the mini along with some treats.

And a few final pics for fun :)

Have a great day!

Cargo Duffel

So, I made this waaaaay back in the fall.  I've been making tons of things I'm just super bad about taking photos and actually documenting them :/  Oh well.  I think instagram doesn't help with the blogging process but I'm going to give it another go anyhow. 

Anyway . . . the pattern is the Noodlehead Cargo Duffel.  Its free on the Robert Kaufman website.  This is the third one that I have made.  And the second out of these exact fabrics lol.  This was made at the request of my mom for my aunt (her twin sister).  The other one like this I made for her.  I used Anna Maria Horner's Pretty Potent and Robert Kaufman Essex yarn dyed in leather for the bottom accent and handles.  The inside is plain canvas with bound edges.  I chose to leave the snaps off mainly because it kind of scared me to install them.  I did just complete one recently that I did install snaps and it really wasn't that big of a deal. 

The pattern is pretty simple and straightforward.  The quilting of the pieces probably takes the most time.  I do find straight line quilting a bit meditative.  As far as putting the whole thing together you just make sure to go slowly and use a pretty big needle (especially for the binding!!).

I hope that you have a great weekend!!