Zip it up

Happy weekend, everyone!  Was this as long a week for you as it was for me?  Just a number of frustrations this week, and if you're like me, that will sap your sewing momentum like nothing else.  The best thing I know of for getting out of a sewing funk is small successful projects.  To that end, I stitched up a few of these little zipper bags, which are quick and easy and just right for getting back to the projects I should be working on (which all have a bajillion little pieces):

Okay, those are kind of cute.  And useful!  We've been doing so much travelling that these will be put to good use right away.  We have at least two more trips to take before the end of August!  Most of these were larger scrap pieces, except for the blue chevrons, which was a fat quarter that was a gift from my friend Nancy.

This one might be my favorite--pink strings!  Why not?  Get them out of the jar and use them up! 

The only problems I had making these was that I used batting scraps that were a little too heavy. That made the seams pretty thick, and I used French seams so that they'd be finished on the inside, so they were extra thick.  They still work, though. For the pink strings I just stitched the strings directly to the batting.

It worked just fine, but it did leave a bunch of garbage all over my cutting mat:

I have an eraser that should take care of that.  Plus I still have this one to finish:

I want to make the zipper go all the way around so that I can open it up and lay it flat or almost flat.  I'm planning to put pockets in the lining for all the flash drives that I keep my research projects on. I'm constantly searching through my purse for the right flash drive, so maybe this will help.  And it will look festive in my research bag!

Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!  We will be looking at more houses.  We're closing in on another choice, so cross your fingers.  And if you're in the "heat dome" like we are, I highly recommend iced tea and ceiling fans--on top of the AC, of course!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazymomquilts, and soscrappy for RSC16!

On the road again

Hi folks, and welcome back to summer!  It isn't raining here today! Apparently we get to have a little bit of summer before it's back to rain and lows in the 40s.  In related news, I now live in the middle of a jungle.  Seriously, suddenly all the plant life around here is totally out of control. Must be all that water. I feel like I should have a machete going into the back yard. But the soft soil makes the weeds easier to pull, so that's good.

Today I have a non-quilty finish to share.  Here it is:

Isn't that fun-looking?  This is a small duffel bag that is just the perfect size for a change of clothes and a book. You know, if you're going away for a weekend or something.  This turned out  to be about 20 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 9 inches high.

This was made with a piece of double-sided pre-quilted Moda fabric from a line called Fresh Air that is more than a couple of years old.  I used this same fabric to make a larger bag for my daughter and made this from the almost-yard that was left over.

This duffel bag was easy enough to make, even though it seemed to take me forever.  Don't know why, but it did.  I used French seams instead of enclosing everything in bias tape, which saved a lot of trouble.  I also added a few details just for me.  On the inside are these pockets:

Yes, there are threads. Sighhh. But look at the pocket! I took a bag-making class at least 10 years ago and the instructor called this "stacking the pockets."  I just like how the zippered ones turn out.

Because I stitched this on the inside, I covered it on the outside with another pocket, even though I didn't really need to because the stitching was pretty much lost in the fabric print.  Looking at the pictures, I'm really not sure I should have put that rust color out instead of the print. But it did give me another opportunity for a pocket!

I am super-happy with that! A place for my change or maybe some chocolate or something. The button is just decorative, by the way.

I used up almost all of the fabric I had, but with the biggest piece I had left I made this matching little bag:

I was going for a glamor shot, but didn't quite make it.  This little pouch is about 6 inches square and is for holding my cords and such.  I even tested out a new technique by putting a vinyl window in it. It worked okay. Here's my one tip for putting vinyl windows in:  the vinyl comes wrapped in tissue paper.  Keep that paper stuck to the vinyl until it's stitched in to the piece:

It keeps the vinyl from sticking to the machine, and you can just tear it off when you're done.  It actually turns out great.

Also, if you ever come across these, buy them in every color:

This has saved my bacon more than once! Easy to use and extremely useful!

So, that's my big finish for now.  I am off again for the weekend on a secret mission.  There may be fabric involved, but probably no quilting. Lots of fun, though!

Everybody have a great weekend.  Hope you have some secret missions of your own to keep you busy!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and also Finish it up Friday.

Tournament stitching

Hi folks! Has everyone had enough basketball yet? In case you hadn't noticed, there is a really big basketball tournament going on and it has taken over my television set. I swear that's all that's on it right now. Sorry--I'm informed that there are two tournaments--one for men and one for women. With 64 teams each, it's no wonder there's always a game going on.

While my husband has been glued to the tournaments, I've been upstairs sewing and streaming Netflix. (Netflix is just one of the many reasons I love the 21st century. Whoever thought this up is seriously a genius.)  I'm still actively avoiding my major projects right now, but I did get a LOT of cutting done, and some stitching, too. First, I finished up the bag made with the Noah fabric from 1987:

As you can see, we've had a little bit of spring snow. Heavy, wet, and gross, but it makes a pretty backdrop. This bag turned out to be about the size of a brown paper grocery bag, which is a great size for shopping.

The only thing I would change is that I should have made the handles a little longer. These wrap all around the bag for stability, which is good, but they're a little short on top. I tested the bag size and it will hold three cereal boxes, so this will probably live in the car and get used for groceries. (It will also hold a ton of fabric, so maybe it won't be limited to groceries!)

I also made up the yellow Paper Dolls:

I love the little hair ornament! And I'm so happy to use up that strawberry scrap. It makes a great dress!

I think I'm getting better at the hairstyles. Once I have a nice stack of them, I'll applique stitch the hair down and put in some details. The doll on the left is supposed to look like braids, and I think stitching in some details will really add some depth to it. And some detail stitching could also help the grandma in the middle there look less like she has a cupcake on her head.

While I was at it, I cut a bunch of sets of skin tones for future dolls, and also cut up some backgrounds for later too. That's going to save a lot of time next month, since the cutting is the most time-consuming part of these dolls.

The last thing I did was make some progress on the sort-of Boston Common quilt, which is being made from three sets of charm squares:

All that's left are two rounds of blues, which may or may not get done this week. I made a big mistake with this quilt by not cutting the charms all down to 4-1/2 inches so that they were all the same size. There are some big variations in size in these charms and that's made some of the seam matching difficult. But it's just a little relaxing quilt that will be donated, so it doesn't matter much, and the fabric is quite busy and hides a lot of fudging in those seams.

Other than that, I basted a couple of quilts this weekend and they are ready to quilt up. There is a lot of basketball coming later this week, so I'm pretty sure there will be some time for that after dinner every night!

Hope you get some stitching time in this week too. Or basketball watching--whatever floats your boat. May both your seams and your tournament brackets be perfect!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday, and also Angela at soscrappy.